A fear of mine: aging, dating and love

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So in one of my periods of deep introspection, I came to a realization about one of the things that makes me so eager, almost desperate, to find love sooner rather than later.

It has to do with attraction and aging. I'm 32 and right now my attraction toward the opposite sex falls right in line with that age, with range of plus or minus 7 or 8 years. I'm fine dating younger or older, because when one is in their 20s, 30s and 40s, they are relatively the same, in terms of aging.

What scares me is, what if my attraction level does not change as I grow older? What if, when I'm 40, I'm still attracted to 20s and 30s, but not up to 50? And when I turn 50, what if I'm still attracted to younger people, but not people my age, because by then they DO look older?

See, I'm scared that if I don't find someone now, someone with whom I can gradually grow old, so the transition in her appearance doesn't startle or cause my love to dim, that the window of opportunity will narrow simply because I am not attracted to a 60 year old when I am 60, in the same way that I would be attracted to a 30 year old when I am 30?

Does what I write make sense? And given that, what is everyone else's experience? Does it only get harder to find love as one gets older? Or can I expect my attraction to adjust with my age, so that if I am still single at 50 or older, there might still be hope that I could find a satisfying union with someone of that age? Or once you get to a certain point, are you more or less screwed, because the people who are age appropriate are not attractive, and the ones who are, are NOT age appropriate?

Well, unfortunately you don't get a choice in the matter - you're going to age no matter what you do.

And I think the thing to keep in mind is that if by age 50 or 60, you're not attracted to women who are your own age you can count yourself fairly normal, because men are biologically attracted to young fertile looking women. The bad part of that is that THEY are not attracted to YOU because you remind them of their dad or their granddad.

Certainly there are young women who like older men, but by and large young women want to settle down with someone pretty close to their own age, give or take 5 or so years, and the ones who do like older men like older men who are successful and take care of themselves - not fat, bald, and look like the only exercise they get is walking to the refrigerator for another beer.

So in short, I would say you have to be mindful of the level of your own attractiveness to others as well.

Well, I'll be 50 in half a year, and I need to do some reorganizing before I can seriously commit to finding a love interest...

Funny thing about age, I'm aesthetically attracted to women who are the same age as I am or up to 5 years younger... but there's a disconnect. Most of the men I know (including myself) start slowing down around age 35, while the women seem like they're just getting started after 40... men become less active and adventurous, while women become moreso.

Frustrating? Yes, but like a meetup group host once said, you can't outfox biology (though I can show you plenty of people who sure thought they could).

http://www.prevention.com/fitness/fitne ... -longevity

What Being Able To Sit On The Floor Without Using Your Hands Says About Your Life Span

I can easily past this this test, as I do a lot of work in the yard.

You're a guy - guys have no problems dating younger. Women do. I'm expected to date my same age or older and the ones who are just 5-10 years older than me look like they've been through the mill - both mentally and physically. Since I have never been married and no kids and really haven't traveled much, I feel like I'm in my late 20's. Being that I never go out in the sun for long and take care of my skin - I look like I'm in my 30's. I'm not interested in older men unless they look younger and don't act ancient. In my mind, I still want to date men in their 30's. Of course, that will get me the lovely name of "Cougar".

What's wrong with being a "cougar?" When I was a young guy, I used to like older women.

Nowadays, I can still be attracted to women older than me (I'm 56 years old). And I'm attracted to younger women as well. I find either to be healthy.

I married an older woman.

She's 12 years older than me. She's young for her age, though.

I was 34, she 46.

You will always find physical-attraction to the younger-looking lasses;
You also do not need to be in a rush to get into any particular romantic-relationship or another;
Just work on developing whatever skills might be useful to your life, for there are many, many FREE on-line courses to learn just about anything you could ever want, including skills that easily expand your own, personal social-attractiveness (such as that of languages if thou art like a multi-lingual poly-got such as myself).

Some of the skills that I find useful are HTLM/HTLM5/CSS (partly because I am the web-master of my own web-site), languages (being able to speak/read/write/type/understand other languages is ALWAYS a useful skill in this day and age and, believe it or not, translation ability is still a growing industry, regardless of the level of the development of language-automation), otherwise just how to be entertaining or give an entertaining performance, etc.

You could also go to a public library to get/read/borrow the books to learn what you need, and for expanding social-interaction you could look for seminars that are being held here or there for whatever reason (just beware or be aware that most seminars are usually for purposes of selling you something or recruiting you into some kind of MLM-type program), then there's also various other options to advertise your own business-services, etc.

Either way, you won't get exposure to people who might be open for a relationship if you're staying at home all day spending all of your time on-line such as forums-posting (the U.S. seems to have a very high percentage of single-mothers in the population who are often desperate for a long-term-partner or you could just move to another part of the world where females far out-number the males), otherwise just get yourself a life-sized PVC-sex-doll...

I totally understand this (I feel the same level of clock-ticking desperation), and think it does get harder, though it's possibly not as much harder as we think.

With me though it started a lot earlier--I missed out on some key stages in my childhood and adolescence, so a large majority of women my age (which is very close to yours, in fact) feel very incompatible. Usually it's girls in the 18-21 range who feel sort of on the same "level", though older women who are "more autistic" sometimes feel compatible.

What's driving this is the fact that most women my age have a large amount of interpersonal experience, including usually dating experience, under their belt (even in some cases when they are virgins sexually), and many are looking already to settle down with someone in a serious adult relationship. Whereas, I am looking for a girl who is still figuring her sexuality and romance out, who is exploring and still wants to play, who has a sense of "magic". I also find that most people my age don't have intense imaginations anymore, that they are boringly grounded in reality. Then there is also the looks issue--many other people my age have more mature-looking faces, which I happen to find unattractive on both males and females (i'm not gay or bi, but I still have aesthetic opinions of the male body, including my own).

I feel that unless I have relationships now, as I get older my mental age preference for my partners won't change much. What I need for growth in myself are mostly things that you can't accomplish by sitting alone and thinking, they require actual relationships. I say "mostly" because there are also medical issues at play that almost have to be solved alone.

Why I say that things might not get as much worse is that it's possible if other people don't make it through adolescence "on schedule", then they may also not develop for a long time after that, so above a certain age (say, 25) people who don't feel adult romantically may stay that way until they're 40 or longer. Of course the bad side is that (at least in women) these may also be people with a lot of baggage that keeps them that way, not just "late bloomers".