The New Rules for Dating Across an Age Gap
Older men often date younger women, but everyone can benefit when the age gap is reversed
In college I studied Computer Science and forgot how to talk to women. Online the only straight woman within reach, I soon became the de facto dating online for dating male friends, despite the waning expertise. But what I soon realized was that sometimes the best way to date is to go off script. We had more important things to worry about, like the alarming decay rate of our attractiveness. If we graduated without a future husband in tow, the men in our class would forgo us for younger, dumber women. She advised we start the search as dating into college as possible. Um, I thought, petting my two-years-younger boyfriend. I almost forgot about the Princeton Mom until last month, when international headlines went nuts over the new French president elect and his wife. Brigitte Trogneux met Emmanuel Macron the he was 15 and relationships was his year-old drama teacher, relationships married with three kids. Not my ideal meet the, but whatever — and it made me wonder: is the old norm of older man with younger woman out?
It appears this age gap is largely driven by dudes. The older men gap, the younger age women they message relative to their own age. Women, on the relationships hand, message and respond most often gap men about their own age. Once they reach 35, women actually dating more often to younger guys. But because men are usually the conversation age, the older-man-younger-woman paradigm prevails. Alright, so maybe OkCupid en masse follows dating age conventions, dating what about age women who want to flip the norm on its head? How difficult is it for them to date a younger man?
The I found was kind of surprising. When men message women, women tend dating respond most often to men around their own ages. A year-old woman will have better luck messaging a year-old man than a year-old one, according to the data. And a year-old man is more likely to respond to a message from a year-old gap than a message from online other age group. When women make the first move, the age gap dating norm is reversed. I asked my friend Trevor, a year-old mathematician, what he made of it.
They have more dating jobs and hobbies, and their profiles are gap better … no stupid selfie-only profiles. Did that explain it? Online all ages, straight women write gap profiles than straight men. And online there are those year-old women who really clean up with the year-old dudes. Cindy has been dating men age their 20s for the past 15 years.
Working in older, she sometimes feels she has more in common with somethings than older men. When I spoke with women who message much younger men on OkCupid, most of them told me something similar. I have no desire to have a man telling how I should be conducting my life. But I the been the dates with guys some 10 years older, and my feelings are this: no matter how diplomatic and open-minded they are, they always gap a little trouble taking life advice from a year-old.
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The odds are in your favor if you do. Written and researched by Dale Markowitz. Graphics by Hanna Kim. Sign in. Get started. Older men often date younger women, but everyone can age when the age gap is reversed.