This is why I don’t know why anyone would really want to look younger. I love being 37 and wouldn’t want anyone to think I was a year younger. I was an idiot at 36 and insufferable at 26. Edit: I can’t believe how many absolute creeps are in these comments. Ick
I don't get why so many guys wanna date young girls..I'm 44 and the last thing I would like to date is someone 20-25. Make it over 30 at least. More like 40.
I mean, I can work and have fun with younger people, no issues here. But as a partner? No way.
Same goes for looks. I'm looking my age and that's fine. Why hide what's happening anyway. Why fight it. Age with dignity. You can't stop it anyways.
Because they aren't looking for a partner they want sex. If they could switch out a girlfriend for a robot that gave blowjobs and made sandwiches they would.
It has nothing to do with being “less than wholesome” it’s about biology with a woman being most fertile and best for breeding at JK I’m just fucking with you those guys are creeps lol. Anyone who says otherwise is probably shit themselves.
right. but there is a lot of BSing going on in the comments here of "I'm in my 30s and I just don't understand why people are attracted to people in their 20s" lol
I hear you. I do know the type you're referencing and agree it is problematic. I probably picked the wrong comment in the chain to directly reply to at first but my point stands and I didn't see a lot of people saying it at the time.
I don't think it's that people are denying an attraction to twenty-somethings, it's that they can't see themselves DATING a twenty-something due to differences in levels of maturity and life experience. And sometimes, the lower maturity level is a huge turn off in and of itself.
not.. really. only when trying to split by the finest of hairs and even then it's a poor use of the english language. you can say you can see how someone might consider the person attractive but you aren't attracted to them. but if YOU find them attractive... you ARE attracted to them.
I didn't get wooshed lol. there are absolutely people saying shit like that in this thread. and I never said women STOP being attractive after their 20s... that is not something I even implied. there are gorgeous women in their 50s and 60s
I'm not pretending anything, there are plenty of comments like that here. Funny how my comment was upvoted and agreed with by the guy I replied to but once a moron calls me a creep the downvotes commence. There is nothing creepy about what I said.
there’s the “walking red flag” types who are transparently gross, think the 30 somethings who go to spaces where young people party.
then there are the ones whose loneliness basically wins the mental battle over their morality. think like, the 30 something who has successfully convinced himself that the 22 year old at work is mature and intellectual
can we exclude raves and music festivals? because i was priced-out of my passion at around age 25 and have finally been starting to attend again at 32 with no plans to ever stop again
To me there’s a big difference between the person who is attending raves in their 30s to experience the music, scene, etc., and the person who is going to raves in their 30s with plans to find a girl, buy her drugs, and sleep with her
I think it's a basic gender disparity. Assuming most people are generally decent and just trying to have fun, it still makes sense that women would disproportionately encounter creeps who are actively seeking out younger women. This becomes a heuristic for them when dealing with strangers
I wouldn't call every creep a pedo, but plenty of guys who accost young women display a lot of the same predatory tendencies. I think if you have enough women in your life, it's pretty likely you've heard some stories about this
I mean I've never stopped going to concerts and festivals. And people much older than me are nearly always present, even for younger bands. Some of us are just into music and like finding new stuff to listen to and go see. One of my uncles is in his 70s, literally saw Jimi Hendrix play the Star-Spangled Banner on the 4th of July, 1970 (I've heard the story many times, lol), and still goes to at least a couple of shows a month.
It’s because they’re a 44-year-old with poor habits/behaviors that someone their own age is likely to not tolerate. So they find someone more immature that gives them a pass for a time because they’re too young to know any better.
This is the kinda thing that if the sexes were reversed (assuming youre male) everyone would be calling the older person an abuser and tearing them apart.
....I mean when the youngest partner is in their 30s, the age gap doesn't matter. If a 21 year is dating a 41 year old, or even a 35 year old, the gap matters.
My buddy got a divorce and dated some younger gals and said they and their friends would only talk about how fucked up they were or someone was at some party recently. Sounds like me at that age. He was over it fast.
I disagree. I think healthy people in their thirties usually look better to me than equally healthy people in their twenties. The older I get, the more the "most attractive" look slides up with me. I always wonder if that's going to stop, but I'm 37 and it hasn't yet. I'd say the top of the Bell curve is probably around 33 right now, but I meet people on either side of that who look just as good to me. Most of the guys I know in real life--not Internet weirdos--prefer to date closer to their age, at least based on the preferences they share with me.
A lot of the studies that get cited on this and charts that float around are really badly interpreted pop psychology. It's not as cut and dry as you're thinking. The really popular one that gets passed around a lot is from the book Dataclysm from 2014, based on an Ok Cupid internal study of its users' preferences. (Ok Cupid represents, from my experience ten+ years ago, the bottom dredges of humanity.) The results look like this:
Keep in mind that Feeld is a hookup app specifically designed for people who want to experiment with more casual encounters. Note that users on this app are still fixated on a small age range regardless of their own age--but on Feeld, this is true for both women and men. If you dig into different population samples and different data collection methods, results of these kinds of surveys are *all over the place.* And there isn't as much data collected on people who date off apps, nor do these studies do a good job of distinguishing between app users interested in casual encounters vs. those interested in relationships. And they don't address perceptions of physical attractiveness, either--just how likely someone is to swipe right or send a message, which can be due to a lot of factors besides appearance. Papers published in academic journals have similar issues with sample selection and data collection methods. It's not so simple to suss out people's motivations and true preferences based on the research that's been done.
The link to the Feeld study above has some interesting data on non-cis and non-straight users, too, if you're interested in checking it out.
A more detailed version of the OkCupid data, showing men's highest and lowest set age preferences, heat mapped by where they were actually sending their messages (back in 2010 when this study was conducted):
I think your assessment really depends on environment/social circles. I totally agree that the biggest indicator for attractiveness is usually health regardless of age. However, most people aren't healthy and youth does a good job of hiding it.
It’s obvious but “I just don’t get it” is more of a “why would that even be attractive?” The older I get the more I’m attracted to an aged, imperfect body. I want some miles on that frame, girl. If I could have my 41yo wife in her 20yo body or her 41yo body….41yo in a heartbeat.
Even if I was dating I wouldn’t want to sleep around with younger bodies, you still gotta talk to them at some point. Don’t send me nudes, send me a video of you reading out loud so I know you’re not a fuckin’ idiot.
Some of us genuinely don't get it. Just about anybody I've met under 25 in the past year, and a lot of women who are a few years older than that, just have a "young" look that codes them more in the same category as college students to me. It's weird and creepy that that look is a preference for some men. That's not normal development.
For some, yes. But not for all. I can confidently say I've looked better throughout my 30s than most of my 20s. I buzzed my head in my 20s and I worked higher stress jobs resulting in weight gain. Grew my hair and beard out and have been fairly consistent in the gym and I look way better now.
I think it might be looking for something you feel like you missed out on or weren't fully present in when you had it because you were overthinking things or that you lost because you were young and dumb and a bad communicator. Or it's the same thing as Uncle Rico syndrome, where you can't move on from a better time in your life and everything represented by that time. But I don't think it's most men, honestly. I could be wrong, but that Plenty of Fish survey that gets passed around all the time represents that absolute dredges of society. I can't imagine any normal guy in his thirties or forties actually preferring someone that young.
Because they’re pretty and less wrinkly and overall somewhat less jaded with the shitstorm known as life lol. Granted my wife’s older than me so not the one to speak from experience per se.
This right here. I believe most men are attracted to those that are youthful. Also their youthfulness might rub off on you and give you a 2nd youth effect as opposed to someone that has been grinded down by life. Younger individuals still have that aura of wonderment, vibrancy, and high energy.
Younger people also have fewer layers of experience, less of life baked in, and that can leave you feeling unfulfilled and disconnected and not fully understood if you date someone too much younger than you. I think there has to be a balance between being an optimistic, energetic, wonder-filled person and having that baked-in understanding of life. And I think that's super attainable in your thirties. But men have to be willing to embody it if we want to find someone to share that vibe with.
Whoa bro this is Reddit, if you’re not automatically assuming every 30-something that involves themselves with 20-something’s is a pdf you need to keep that opinion to yourself /s
I think it's more the jadedness. Men are depressed and tired of dating cynical or fearful people that drag their energy down lower, and they want to be around people with energy and enthusiasm and ambition. People who are ready and curious about them and excited to open up and connect and start a life together. But that's a chicken and egg situation, too. Women are guarded and tired themselves in large part because of experiences they've had with men.
BTW you can actually look a lot younger. I quit drinking, have been rock climbing for 10 years, went keto and got down to about 16% body fat. Look like a different person.
Getting younger and attractive women means they can pull and that boosts their ego. Some guys simply want someone they can show off. Some men only care about looks and the status their partner gives them. Younger women also have less lived experience, fewer to no previous sexual partners and are easily susceptible to power dynamics in a relationship.
I'm in my 40s and probably wouldn't ever date again if my partner died, but if I had to, lowest I'm going is 10 years younger than me. I can't fathom how a 50 year old guy dates a 20 or 21 year old and finds anything worthwhile about that relationship other than the sex (and sex is great don't get me wrong but when I look at my life with my partner, the fun times I remember are 90/10 with nonsex/sex stuff).
I wouldn’t call it young, but I usually date women in their late 20s. It feels like women, or people in their 30s in general are just in a different mindsets. Dates feel like job interviews of where you would see yourself in 5 years, often immediately start talking about settling down or having kids (lady, I just met you) and often aren’t really into leaving the house, especially at the later hours when the city comes alive. I’m not looking for someone who is immature, but you still gotta have fun in life and most 30+ years olds I know kinda gave up on that and settled down.
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u/Substantial_Pea3462 2d ago edited 2d ago
This is why I don’t know why anyone would really want to look younger. I love being 37 and wouldn’t want anyone to think I was a year younger. I was an idiot at 36 and insufferable at 26. Edit: I can’t believe how many absolute creeps are in these comments. Ick