Younger men understand me and make me happy. Is there something wrong with me?

[valentinka31]

That's about it.

I love all men, I don't have any problem at all with older guys. But I just find that more younger guys understand me more, are nicer and more open, and we just get each other.

The simple sort of things I like are what they like too. And they respect that and me.

Probably now some answers will be oh, you seem available, they are up for anything, it's all bs, but ... it feels deeper, much deeper, than that.

Does equivalent age have to rule appropriacy of connection?

I think, mutinously, and from experience ... not.

Ps I'm a bit scared about starting a thread as responses on MN can be so aggressive/mean/stupid.. but I am risking it on the sex tab as I feel it's a bit nicer here. Please reinforce my opinion on that. : )

I'm with you OP
They stay hard too....

Live the life that makes you happy.

I'm male and have always got on with women older than me, both as friends and in relationships.

I started my working life in a supermarket, where it was generally staffed by young men my own age and older women. I spent those first few years going out socially with that crowd and found that I just clicked with the older women.

I had a one night stand when I was 18, with a 30 year old women who I worked with, and I can absolutely pinpoint that as a defining moment for me. Even now, I always tend to be able to converse and somehow relate to women older than me.

I have very few male friends my own age, as I not into football, sports DIY and other "typically male" hobbies.

I don't think now there is any about seeming available, even female bosses who have been older than me, I have always seemed to get on better with than men and women managers my own age, even just a purely professional or even friendly level.

I get why you've chosen the Sex board because of the audience, but is this question about sex or relationships?

I have some sympathy with a libertarian stance on this, so not condemning, but equally, genderflipping the question puts it in a very different light.

How old are you and how much younger? Are you looking for a relationship? Have you always felt this way or only as you're getting older?

I read somewhere that in general men always (ideally) prefer that 25 year old. But for women they prefer someone slightly older until they hit about 45/50. Then they prefer younger.

It was big data on dating profile swipes or something. Not just a theory btw

That is definitely true.
And are extremely responsive.
And seem to recover very quickly.

But it's as much or more the psychological/emotional understanding that I've noticed. The perspective, and getting what is important.

Perfect advice, thank you 😊 daily working on it..

I agree with you, somehow it's linked with outlook/maturity levels when it is a good emotional mix - I find younger guys (and yes I do mean generally 20-something) to be a great combination of open-minded and dynamic. They are weighed down with sobering experience, they have such a strong drive, but also somehow a lot of kindness in them. I know these are generalisations but if I had to talk to someone at a party, it would be that guy.

Yes, I was thinking the same, but I just couldn't face the amount of vile prejudice and bullying one is likely to encounter from a large tranche on the main relationships board. And perhaps it wasn't worth posting, usually I just make my observations myself! But it is about both sex and relationships, I think. Because what I have found is that, maybe weirdly (and perhaps this is at the heart of my question), when I've had a sexual relationship with a 20-something guy, it has grown out of an emotional connection that was just infused with the attraction somehow. But then, of course, it's not a viable 'public' relationship, because there would be so much condemnation of it.

However, as you say, flip it and a 40+ guy with a 20+ woman is aok.

I've noticed that the woman is always, though, seen to be 'lucky'. If, let's say (for labelling's sake) a 'mum' is with a 20-something guy, she's seen as somehow having something she shouldn't, and being damn lucky but at the same time unnatural and pretty much depraved.

If a 40+ guy is with a 20+ woman, again she's seen as lucky. For being, sensibly and quite acceptably, with a guy chosen for status and money, rather than being with a hot 20-something who hasn't made his money yet, presumably then just because he's hot. She's seen as having chosen wisely and reaping the approved benefits of protection, etc, and she's also 'sacrificing' her youth and beauty to slake the palate of a guy old enough to be her dad/grandad. (Which, personally, I find rather unsavoury)

The second scenario reinforces and supports a patriarchal bias where the guy doesn't suffer for being older and less likely to win a fight with a young stag. He gets the young/hot/childbearing female by dint of age and status. Which has its roots maybe in biology, because of course he needs a good young one to keep reproducing with.

For the older female, the young guy is equally sensible biologically, as his super-strong sperm are more likely to give her that last baby, I guess. And then when it's too late, at least she may as well have the comfort of a guy who respects her honed femininity, which encompasses not just the girl but also the female fully expressed as mother too. Hmm.

As you can see, I've thought a bit about this haha.
Feedback from my unofficial survey of 20+ guys:
Older women are kinder and more submissive.

Probably right.

Think 40+ woman with 20+ male. (and no that doesn't mean I'm 102 haha but am not outing myself any further as this is a very sensitive topic in RL for me and people affected)

An age gap of at least 20 years.

And what has interested me is that an encounter (over some long time) with a 20+ guy ended up in a relationship-consideration bracket rather than 'just sex'. But I think that could too be because I am no good at just sex, and he isn't either.

So moved on from that, when I am on a mainstream online dating app, my right-swipes have always been very few and far between, but when I do stumble across that person who feels like they might be home, he is always 20 something. omg I'm doomed, aren't I?!

Your point about the changing age arc is spot on, and I am very happy and vindicated to see that this is back up by hard data.. yes, 20 something I was happy with a guy 20 years older. 40 something and it completely flips the other way.

Well, it is the mode now, isn't it? All these actresses having a toyboy seems almost de rigeur. It's entered the creative/cultural consciousness (Bridget Jones and young guy, Nicole Kidman's latest film Baby girl, etc.) so maybe the prejudice around even exploring this very real phenomenon is starting to be broken down a little, the same as it has been with the end of menstruation. I think it's when a certain generation of women get to the point of experiencing these things, and they've been brought up to speak out and feel valuable so they can't keep quiet about what they are feeling/how the world reacts to this stage of female existence.

Ah, maybe I am not at all wrong then (this was also my private conclusion). I am just super-normal. I'm super-vanilla too. So super-bad isn't in my makeup.

This is actually helping me, glad I had the courage to post it. (aka some wine last night)

I disagree that a 40+ man being in a relationship with a 20+ woman is OK by default. To me that says he's using his status to leverage affection (and maybe sex), or he's in denial about his age, or she's using him / selling herself for status/money. None of which are ok.
If they're just in it for the sex, and are honest with each other and themselves, then that's different, and for me, it's acceptable.
Personally, when I was younger, I had a FWB who was 15+yrs older than me, and as that was openly mostly about sex, and that felt OK. But 20yrs later I wouldn't feel comfortable if the ages were reversed. 10yrs, maybe, for a FWB, but for a nesting relationship, I want someone who has similar cultural references and will slip into decrepitude at the same rate as me.

Yes I thought it must be. And also on there when I expanded my age group from min age 30 to min age 20 then suddenly I had 3000 guys and 75% under 25 haha.

There is a darker theory, of course. It could just be that guys 20-24 are in a more fluid, orientation to adult existence phase, and they want sex with no strings. And think getting an older woman to fall for them is a good method. Ones of their age will want to live together and that's a way more complex proposition.

In some ways that also can suit the older divorcee with kids, too. Wheeling a new guy into the family home has all sort of complications. But having a nice one to meet twice a week, while nowhere near enough sex, is way better than being an actual nun.

What I was thinking to explore here was the psychosexual dynamic of the age difference too, though. I must just say that my research is 99% talking to guys online, and only one RL young paramour. I am not meeting 75% of 3000 guys and testing it out.

My observation is:
Some 20 something guys are turned on by the 'mother' aspect - it is, I guess, extreme closeness and acceptance, combined with some sort of (also extreme) boundary-crossing.
Some want to dominate a 'queen', the renaissance woman who has achieved the status to command others, but she is at their knees and their beck and call.

I guess that also is down to individuals.

When I said that 40+ man with 20+ woman is acceptable, I didn't mean that I think think it is. I just feel that when my 48 yr old neighbour married a 20 something, everyone was 'oh how lovely' but if it had been reversed, there would have been outrage on the street. And I seem to have seen a few examples of that kind of thing.

Yes, it's acceptable if both sides are just in anything for the sex. I like your 'nesting relationship' terms - says it perfectly. So, my dilemma, if any, is that in a relationship which might ostensibly seem just for the sex, with a younger guy, my nesting instinct kicks in 110%. And I feel exactly the opposite of you with going forwards. I precisely don't want to 'slip into decrepitude' with someone also doing the same. I would maybe had I stayed with the same person throughout life, but now I feel (and maybe this is also the key point) anxious about that decrepitude, so I guess a young lover makes me continue to feel all is OK and I am just myself, rather than falling into some fresh negative category with each day.

For the record, I don't want to slip into decrepitude, and I empathise with the idea that being with someone younger might help delay that. I'm just resigned and comfortable with the inevitability and I'd rather eventually be tucked up under a tartan blanket with someone my own age and who remembers Take Hart and Michael Foot, than on my own while someone 20yrs younger galavants without me.
#ydy

I do get the attraction. I felt some 'chemistry' with a late 20s/early 30s I was working with at gym today. 10 years younger than me I'd guess. I'm sure he would 'go there' for sex/FWB if I offered (I wasn't lol) I'm in great shape. But it's that thing when you look at someone younger you kind of in your brain think you're the same age. Then you look in the mirror and think 😬 (just me?!)

I find my sense of humour seems to fit better with younger men. I am early 40s but wouldn’t entertain anyone in their 20s, that would feel too young for me.

@valentinka31

Have you read the menopause brain by Lisa Misconi? It’s so much more than a menopause book if you haven’t read it I believe it could give you some answers to how you’re feeling.

I am male so this discussion is not for me but from reading it myself and other similar books. I believe that we are programmed more by our biology than we care to admit. We are only animals after all.

I can't bring myself to be interested in anyone younger than my eldest child. So that's obviously going to keep increasing 😂

I think older man/younger woman is often a bit creepy because there's a very obvious power imbalance. That might be less of an imbalance between older woman/younger man?

You might like Nick Hornby's Just Like You.

I get that. I just feel like I want to keep at the heart of new developments and I'd want to be there living all the time like a 20-something. And, I guess rather fondly and probably unrealistically, I have this hope/conviction that if someone truly loves me, they will want to spend all the time they can with me. Then I can die and they can get married to someone else in their early 60s (I'm giving myself a good 40 more years at least here ahaha - I need it!).

yes, I do understand all of that - feeling like you are the same age as them, responding like that, then thinking but omg no I am someone's mum... but if you ask them, they seem to say that's what they like. And it doesn't matter.

Good answer.

my sense of humour, taste in all sorts of things, all seems to align with20 something guys. Quirky perspective. Resistance to pigeon-holing. Clarity of vision.

thank you and you totally can and should be part of this discussion, being male! And I will look at it, thanks. I reject the M word but I will force myself to be open-minded and look at the book inside ... : )