Sandbox Romants: Wooing and Problems

not to pick at scabs, but that article is really kind of judgy and awful

that article was pretty bad. this one is particularly true though:

Men who list their preferred age range as anywhere from 15 to two years younger than themselves (i.e., the 38-year-old looking for women between the ages of 23 and 36).

i see this SO MUCH.

most of those things really are bad news but kind of obvious? i am guilty of the capitalization carnage (and i'm sure guilty of a bunch of other red flag to most people, such as excessive love of cats).

Men who list their preferred age range as anywhere from 15 to two years younger than themselves (i.e., the 38-year-old looking for women between the ages of 23 and 36).

Is this a sex thing?

The author of the article seemed rather eager to establish that she was only dabbling in online dating and looked upon the whole process from a lofty ironic distance.

She takes this controversial position: "Offline, women are socialized to Be Nice (or at least to be polite and respond to advances)."

in every online dating article ever:

i'm just doing this for purposes of JOURNALISM, guys, swear

not to pick at scabs, but that article is really kind of judgy and awful

She does disclose early on that she is a judgmental bitch.

apparently she lives in my zip code?

i'm a nice guy; i should ask her out

I saw that line about being a judgemental bitch early on in the article and I mentally inserted the unspoken "haha, you see what a good sport I am about it" after that sentence.

Men who list their preferred age range as anywhere from 15 to two years younger than themselves (i.e., the 38-year-old looking for women between the ages of 23 and 36).

Is this a sex thing?

I don't know what you mean by a sex thing? It says to me that they won't consider being partnered up w women their own age, all applicants must range from inappropriately young to "still enough younger than me not to be threatening/to make me look successful for catching a young one."

that's about what i meant. control? sex? somewhere in the nexus of disturbing.

Status, at the very least, and control issues also somewhere between possible and probable.

If I tell you my age bracket on OKC, as a 40 year old, was 27 to 42, is that as much of a problem? (curious)

(I'm not on there anymore fwiw, I find the whole thing pointless tbh)

It doesn't function the same way in reverse, because young men and the public control of their sexuality/fertility have not (generally? ever?) historically been status symbols for older women.

as long as the age bracket at least HAS your own age in it and doesn't dip under 21 it's usually fine.

yesterday i got a message from a 49 year old with an age range of 23-47...who then admitted to lying about his age in his profile (but you'd never guess because he's so youthful!) NOT fine.

that is really sad. like, the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them. ugh, so unfortunate and also depressing-making.

Well thats true but there is also the problem that as we get to this age, the pool of available people of the same age is DRASTICALLY reduced. If you then also factor out anyone who has major baggage, or has kids from previous marriages, you're left with fuckall to work with, tbh.

Not that I'm at all defending men who go after young tail and continually do so all their lives, thats just crap.

like, the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them.

This is a thing that makes me curious - i feel like there are two rival extreme positions on men who date significantly younger. On one end there's the idea of "has succeeded by landing a younger and therefore smoother-skinned/less fettered by responsibilities/more conventionally desirable gf". The other extreme is "isn't emotionally mature enough to value and sustain a relationship with a woman his own age". I sort of feel like one leans toward one position or the other and the two can't really coexist -- if you find yourself thinking less of one man for dating much younger it bleeds into your opinions of every other man you meet whose situation feels comparable.

the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them.

This happens, but I think sometimes it's simpler than that: dudes have learned from society, media, wahtever, that a "good" girlfriend is a younger-than-you one, and they feel like that's their right, if they're going to have a gf, she's going to be a "good" one. So they codify this ideal with a reduced age-range.

like, the men feel they lack the {virility, stamina, chutzpah, what-have-you} to date women of their own age/stature so they look for romance among people they don't perceive as having the resources to know any better to date them.

Just want to add this consideration -- when I was 18, I was (generally speaking) sexually attracted to women in their early 20s; when I was 28, I was sexually attracted to women in their early 20s; when I was 38, I was sexually attracted to women in their early 20s; now I'm 48 and I'm sexually attracted to women in their early 20s. How fixed or movable should an erotic ideal be? Who I'm sexually attracted to is just not applicable anymore in the real world, but as a thought experiment...my erotic ideal is not going to get older along with me, no.

That said, if I were suddenly to find myself dating again, I'm smart enough to know that the sexual component is an ever-shrinking (hurr hurr) part of the equation that includes companionship, shared intellectual and cultural interests, etc. I'm sure a lot of guys in their 40s con themselves into thinking they have more to offer than they do.

my erotic ideal is not going to get older along with me, no.

This is what I don't understand. My erotic ideal has MOST CERTAINLY gotten older along with me, to the extent that trying to think erotically about much younger men now feels unpleasant, like perving on children or someone you're related to.

My relationship or romantic ideal has aged right along with me, just not my erotic/sexual ideal.

I might think a younger man is attractive in the same way I might find a woman beautiful or attractive, that is, in terms of hypothetical adherence to a set of standards.

I kind of am also in a smilar boat to you Rock. Like when I was 16-25 I was interested in and dating guys fair bit older than me (20-28), but as Ive aged, that 22-28 age range has stuck fast as "guys I notice most". Its weird. I also guess I dont feel confident enough to date a guy my own age who acts like an Actual Middle Aged man? I'm still watching cartoons and playing video games and seeing bands ffs.

so are a lot of Actual Middle Aged men!

and not just the shlubby ones, I'd wager.

my "erotic ideal" (looool) has definitely gotten older right along with me, but i suspect that it may stop doing so at some point

so are a lot of Actual Middle Aged men!

Where is man who aims etc.

As a total aromantic, I don't have a dog in this race, but there was this Hugo Schwyzer article (I can't remember if it was on the Good Men Project or Jezebel or both - oh wait it was Jezebel but he's written similar for GMP.

http://jezebel.com/5857933/insecurity-invisibility-and-the-reason-older-men-want-to-date-you

It's weird to me because the usual handwriting and comments thread always dwell on the whole "older men want younger women because: FERTILITY" evo-sike crap.

And don't really go that far into the whole presentation and representation issue: when you live in a culture where women over the age of 35 in pop culture are tidied off into sexless mumsy roles. And every single representation of Sexay Womens right across the board, in drama, in comedy, in porn - is about 22. I don't believe that pop culture and The Media create people's preferences from scratch. It's a complicated process whereby they feed one another, people become conditioned in all sorts of ways to associate certain qualities with sex because we are a pavlovian species when it comes to fetishes and attractions. Both of these things influence one another - media both describes and helps to shape our desires. And the most obvious visible sign of this is the change in the presentation of women's pubic hair - within *my* lifetime - so I do think that desires and expectations of female desirability can be shaped and/or changed.

I do wonder if more men would be capable of having an erotic ideal that aged with them if we saw more presentation of mature women as having an erotic presence (Charlotte Rampling, Helen Mirren, Marianne Faithfull spring to mind) - if this were the norm rather than the exception, could our erotic response to aging be changed in the same way as erotic response to pubic hair?

Apologies for barging into your thread, I am almost certainly RONG and clueless, so let the wooing continue.

Well, it would seem that the whole "porn" market is based on 'chasing the smart money', much like any other kind of marketing. So, 'single lads, disposable income' are the biggest market so they get all the 'girls' on display.

Then again, there's a lot of 'specialist' categorised mags that have "Over 60's" women in, for example. At first I thought it some weird fetish, and Wayne Rooney seemed to bear this out. But then, what of the lonely widower? He doesn't want some 22 year old that may well look like one of his grandkids, he's going to want someone that looks like his wife they way he remembers her, or similar.

I'm not in the market, so my 'research' is limited to 'what's on display on the rack' in passing (wife also being gorgeous, etc) but there they are, "30something women", "40something" etc.

Also, there's 'supply' issues, I'd wager: Older females have better things to do than 'continue' being in photos.

per the age difference thing i try not to be attracted to women young enough to be my daughter

this becomes more difficult as time marches on ;-)

i have a lunch date today, with someone i met at work a year ago or so, but haven't seen since (she works at another building several blocks away from me). challenge will be how to have lunch with someone in the middle of the work day, and i only know her from work, and not to talk about work too much (or at all). also, i've never been on a lunch date in the middle of a workday and ....aw gawd! *bites nails*

http://www.kintera.org/AccountTempFiles//account8790/images/ijl_logo.jpg

good lord,and ^that's^ exactly what i want to avoid. i'd much rather be hanging out somewhere after work. but since i hadn't seen her in so long, i felt the email out of nowhere combined with the "let's get dinner" would be too much, so i went for grabbing lunch instead.

*chomps*

haha

take it easy and you will be fine

Challenges are fun.

z s tomorrow at 7:15am: 'my lunch date just ended'

lol Z_S - well look at it this way, at least you (and her) have easy outs if the date goes off the rails

my recommendation: hand guns, lots of them, accompanied by sound effects and copious winking

zs, just have fun.

z s tomorrow at 7:15am: 'my lunch date just ended'

i would say that the date effectively ended at 12:10pm, when she used "my boyfriend" in the middle of a sentence.

:0

so glad i didn't bust out the copious winking prior to that, it could've had been embarrassing!

lol that's always such an awkward moment

I mean, to give and to receive. you have to insert it in a way that's not superfluous and making it obvious that you are trying to head things off at the pass. and as the receiver you have to react graciously and make it seem like 'hey, why'd you even mention that, that totally wasn't the reason I asked you out to lunch in the first place' (live CAT scan shows heart breaking, into pieces, and stomach literally dropping into the recesses around the balls of your feet)

Or a relief

xpost

i guess i should have made it more clear in the emails, but i couldn't figure out a way to say it that wasn't hilariously awkward.

but i don't know, if someone i barely knew emailed me out of nowhere after a year+ since seeing them, and invited me out to lunch alone (after only ever seeing them in large group situations) i'd assume it was a date.

?

oh well.