One of my favorite movies is How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Lauren Bacall. The plot of the movie is three models share a penthouse apartment with the hopes of landing a millionaire. Lauren Bacall eventually starts dating an older gentleman who’s a millionaire. One night they come back from an evening out and just as she thinks she landed him he breaks up with her because he thinks he’s too old for her. Lauren Bacall’s pleads with him to not end their relationship and exclaims, “But I hate young men!”. That’s me in a nutshell. Overt immaturity has never been a turn on for me.
It’s not even something that I thought would affect the dating ecosystem until recently when my friend Dannie B reached out to me about Seriously Single. He asked have you ever considered writing about dating outside your age range or setting age standards for Seriously Single? When we got to talking it made me analyze my thought process about dating older men and question if it’s as effective as I think it is. I loved Dannie’s perspective so much that I told him, you need to write this and contribute it to Seriously Single! I hope that you find Dannie’s contribution as refreshing as I do. It’s always good to flip the coin and hear things from a man’s point of view.
Are you in my Range? Dating in and outside your age range.
One night I was having a conversation with my bestfriend about dating older women, excuse me, more mature women, if you will. We had gotten deep into a discussion about how many of the women that we’d both been meeting were outside of our age, most of them older, but some of them younger. The void that we both saw was that it seemed like women who are our age, or within a year, are difficult to come by. Fast forward a few weeks and I was having the same discussion with The Wize One and we both were intrigued to find out that this woe was not exclusive to men or women, we both experience it. She shared with me that she often found herself dating outside of her age and believed that it was only women who faced the peril of not meeting people their age. She was amazed when I told her that us men also experience the same issue.
For starters, I don’t believe there is anything wrong with dating outside of your age, whether older or younger. The concern that drove this topic was the fact that people are doing so out of necessity rather than choice. It’s one thing if you have the option to date someone your age, younger, or older, but it’s entirely different if you’re forced to go younger or older because the pool of people your age is non-existent for you.
I’ve always been drawn to older women for as long as I can remember. I chalk this up to being born to older parents and having a group of friends that are mostly older than me. Both of these have contributed to me being considered “mature for my age” and carrying myself as such. In the most recent years, the majority of women that I’ve dated have been older, around five to seven years older, with one being only two years older. I’ve also dated one or two that were younger than me by up to three years, but I’ve never been as interested in younger women.
Despite favoring older women, I’ve noticed that when it comes to serious relationships I tend to learn towards people closer to my age, one of my ex-girlfriends was my exact age. I’m not sure if this has been a conscious or unconscious choice but it’s something I’ve become more aware of. Within the past few months, I’ve found myself appreciating people closer in age because I feel that we have more in common when it comes to life experiences and where we’re at in life. For example, someone who’s in their 20’s may be more focused on figuring out what their direction in life is, someone in their 30’s may be more focused moving up in their chosen life direction, and someone in their 40’s may be more focused on enjoying the fruits of their labor from the past two decades.
There have always been women my age that I’ve had interest in but I’ve never had much success with them. I’ve been able to get their initial interest but in each situation nothing further would develop. The theory on this that I shared with my friend is that women are drawn to men who can give them something that they don’t possess themselves, or feel like they can’t obtain for themselves. A women who’s financially insecure wants a man that’s financially secure, a women who lacks creativity wants and man that’s creative, and so on. After all, they do say opposites attract. To a woman, it’s probably perceived that a man your age is in the same place as you in life and can’t offer you anything that you can’t get for yourself, at least on the surface. For this reason, I believe women are always drawn to older, more established men that can provide security or younger more spontaneous men that can give them freedom.
Ladies, what’s your take on dating in, or outside of your age? Is age a consideration when dating? Do you find yourself dating people your age, younger, or older? Is there a reason why you may favor a particular age group?
Dannie B
Dannie B is a writer and photographer currently living in St Louis, MO. You can find out more about Dannie at http://www.dannieb.com/ also be sure to Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @dannieb224
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