Why do older guys like me

It's not as if middle-aged women are equally obsessed with younger men. Though many women in their 30s and 40s report occasional contacts from much-younger guys "cougar-trolling," as one friend calls it , the OKCupid data indicates that women are much more interested in dating guys their own age. In the effort to prove that they can still attract younger women, middle-aged men are the ones who are rendering their peers "sexually invisible.

Media critic Jennifer Pozner points out that part of the problem is the premature aging of older women in Hollywood. Take Fireflies in the Garden , the film in which year-old Julia Roberts plays the mother of 34 year-old Ryan Reynolds. Or look at the late lamentable reality show Age of Love , which featured a grotesque competition between "kittens" in their 20s and "cougars" in their 40s.

As Pozner wrote in her book Reality Bites Back , "The kittens hang out in their apartment hula-hooping in bikinis, while the cougars sew needlepoint, read, and do the laundry because that's what worn-out old crones do. The reasons older men chase younger women have less to do with sex and everything to do with a profound desire to reassure ourselves that we've still got "it.

It's not that women our own age are less attractive, it's that they lack the culturally-based power to reassure our fragile, aging egos that we are still hot and hip and filled with potential. Inspiring desire in women young enough to be our daughters becomes the most potent of all anti-aging remedies, particularly when we can show off our much younger dates to our peers.

The famous little red sports car reveals only the size of our bank account; attracting a girl barely out of her teens or, if we're in our fifties, barely out of her twenties validates the enduring power of our youthful appeal. Older women are encouraged to fight what one called "the slow slide into sexual invisibility" not only with cosmetics, but with the realistic acceptance of their own aging. For many women, what ages right along with them is the type of man to whom they're attracted.

As Amy, 43, put it, "I don't mind that most guys in their 20s or 30s don't flirt with me anymore. They aren't what I'm looking for anyway. But that same data shows that men fight the same "slow slide" with frantic denial, a denial that manifests itself in a compulsive need to pursue women substantially younger than themselves, all the while pleading to be seen as atypical for their age.

We may all want to still be hot when we're on the high side of Godfatherman 52 opinions shared on Relationships topic. Xper 6. Then again they could just be looking for sex. Be careful. Just go on a date what's the worse that could happen.

Related myTakes. What God teaches about forgiveness. It's Not Always Funerial. Most Helpful Opinion mho Rate. Learn more. Yes No. Professor Fugere points out that this phenomenon persists throughout our lives, as men age they prefer even younger partners while as women age they continue to prefer older partners until around the age of Is this what attracted her to him in the first place?

Similarly, Susan not her real name is 27 and currently about to move in with her year-old boyfriend Shaun yep, not his name either. I fucking hate this. Indeed, there is a definite imbalance when an older man dates a younger woman that, as a woman, it can be hard to shake. This is something I struggled with when dating an older man, I couldn't help thinking about all of the women his own age he didn't have his shit together for and finding myself siding with them.

But, reservations aside, Susan fell for completely for Shaun. I can just not imagine ever getting a text from him and wondering how to respond to that.