5 ms·

Not true if you're a woman. The playing field shrinks as you get older, at least if you're looking for "good men."

ryandrake 11y ago
Let's not kid ourselves, it shrinks for men too. As a 40 year old I thank my lucky stars that I'm out of the dating pool nowadays.
- Jtsummers 11y ago
  It doesn't shrink as much. Mainly the result of societal pressure or expectations. Being a 33 year-old man, never married. That's "normal". If I were a woman, people would be asking me when I was going to get married and have kids (very much depends on area, but this is not at all uncommon). As a 33 year-old man, it's also not thought of as strange for me to date women in their early-to-mid 20s. The same is not true for women my age. Then there's also just how people tend to rate attractiveness, which is something that really matters in a lot of these online dating systems. Men are generally viewed as (physically) attractive at higher ages than women are. A few wrinkles on a guy, some gray. That makes him "distinguished". You don't here people saying that about women as often. The age range and feature-sets for what makes women attractive (again, this is emphasizing first impression attraction) are much narrower than for men.
  - marchenko 11y ago
    I suspect that men are simply judged on a wider feature set than women. women prefer younger men if judging on aesthetics alone (full head of hair, abdominal definition, clear skin), but place a lower priority on attractiveness and will tolerate signals of aging in men if they are accompanied by signals of wealth/cultivation/accomplishment. Men who are unaccomplished/uninteresting and also older will experience 'pool shrinkage' at a similar rate to women.
  - jrnichols 11y ago
    "Being a 33 year-old man, never married. That's "normal". " My experience was different. I was called a loser by more women than I could count because I wasn't ever married by then or had kids.
    - Jtsummers 11y ago
      Where is that? I'm in the US for what it's worth and my particular experience is in the southeast.
      - jrnichols 11y ago
        Mostly in the SF Bay Area, of all places. I moved to north Texas and while it still happens, it happens way less often. But the Tinder landscape is definitely different.
- mlrtime 11y ago
  Only if you're lazy. If you improve yourself (gym, career, hobbies) your pool should only grow as a man into his 40s.
- CptJamesCook 11y ago
  Men's peak attractiveness is at 38. You aren't too far off it.
nostrebored 11y ago
Not true if you're either sex. People who other people want to marry are getting removed from the pool.
- alexmat 11y ago
  People are also being added to the pool, probably at a faster rate since marriages are happening later and the human population is expanding.
  - nostrebored 11y ago
    The pool being larger has nothing to do with, for lack of a better term, marriageable people dwindling from the pool as time goes on. Sure you'll have more options overall at any point, that does not mean that you're not slowly losing options as people who are desirable life partners marry other people in the same position.
VLM 11y ago
There is a strange nearly perfect analogy with the dysfunctional problem of hiring "good programmers". Complete with expensive and time consuming rituals, unrealistic requirements vs the actual job, blind faith in technological silver bullets to improve the process, and elaborate psychological rationalization houses of cards all of which make little rational sense from an external viewpoint. Some of the similarities are insane, like the laser like focus on demographic membership, first impressions, ageism, all the way down to stereotypical trivialities like wailing "there's no good ones left out there" despite obviously living in a sea full of fish. I'm not sure if its baked into the cake because of something as simple and obvious as the rather extreme gender ratios in HR and Programming bleeding thru into the business processes, or both rituals come from the same larger culture so naturally human selection processes would be similar, or of there's a third more elaborate, probably more interesting, explanation.
- zeveb 11y ago
  > Some of the similarities are insane, like the laser like focus on demographic membership, first impressions, ageism I don't think demographic membership and age are invalid criteria when trying to find someone to marry and raise children with. Different demographics have different cultures, and different cultures have different ideals of what is good and bad, how to raise children &c. Age is rather pertinent if one wishes to have children. Even if one wishes to marry and not have children, culture fit is pretty important (and age determines a heck of a lot about culture!). > wailing "there's no good ones left out there" despite obviously living in a sea full of fish. In both dating & hiring, the issue is not so much that there are no good options, but that sieving the wheat from the chaff is incredibly difficult. In both cases, so far as I can tell, it's an unsolved problem (or possibly it's solved but we don't like the solutions: I've not quite made up my mind).
gohrt 11y ago
Most nations are generally monogamous. The playing field is the same size for all hetero people.
monksy 11y ago
Thats kind of how things go. It's a penalty for not being serious early on.

Let's not kid ourselves, it shrinks for men too. As a 40 year old I thank my lucky stars that I'm out of the dating pool nowadays.

Jtsummers 11y ago
It doesn't shrink as much. Mainly the result of societal pressure or expectations. Being a 33 year-old man, never married. That's "normal". If I were a woman, people would be asking me when I was going to get married and have kids (very much depends on area, but this is not at all uncommon). As a 33 year-old man, it's also not thought of as strange for me to date women in their early-to-mid 20s. The same is not true for women my age. Then there's also just how people tend to rate attractiveness, which is something that really matters in a lot of these online dating systems. Men are generally viewed as (physically) attractive at higher ages than women are. A few wrinkles on a guy, some gray. That makes him "distinguished". You don't here people saying that about women as often. The age range and feature-sets for what makes women attractive (again, this is emphasizing first impression attraction) are much narrower than for men.
- marchenko 11y ago
  I suspect that men are simply judged on a wider feature set than women. women prefer younger men if judging on aesthetics alone (full head of hair, abdominal definition, clear skin), but place a lower priority on attractiveness and will tolerate signals of aging in men if they are accompanied by signals of wealth/cultivation/accomplishment. Men who are unaccomplished/uninteresting and also older will experience 'pool shrinkage' at a similar rate to women.
- jrnichols 11y ago
  "Being a 33 year-old man, never married. That's "normal". " My experience was different. I was called a loser by more women than I could count because I wasn't ever married by then or had kids.
  - Jtsummers 11y ago
    Where is that? I'm in the US for what it's worth and my particular experience is in the southeast.
    - jrnichols 11y ago
      Mostly in the SF Bay Area, of all places. I moved to north Texas and while it still happens, it happens way less often. But the Tinder landscape is definitely different.
mlrtime 11y ago
Only if you're lazy. If you improve yourself (gym, career, hobbies) your pool should only grow as a man into his 40s.
CptJamesCook 11y ago
Men's peak attractiveness is at 38. You aren't too far off it.

nostrebored 11y ago

Not true if you're either sex. People who other people want to marry are getting removed from the pool.

alexmat 11y ago
People are also being added to the pool, probably at a faster rate since marriages are happening later and the human population is expanding.
- nostrebored 11y ago
  The pool being larger has nothing to do with, for lack of a better term, marriageable people dwindling from the pool as time goes on. Sure you'll have more options overall at any point, that does not mean that you're not slowly losing options as people who are desirable life partners marry other people in the same position.

VLM 11y ago

There is a strange nearly perfect analogy with the dysfunctional problem of hiring "good programmers". Complete with expensive and time consuming rituals, unrealistic requirements vs the actual job, blind faith in technological silver bullets to improve the process, and elaborate psychological rationalization houses of cards all of which make little rational sense from an external viewpoint. Some of the similarities are insane, like the laser like focus on demographic membership, first impressions, ageism, all the way down to stereotypical trivialities like wailing "there's no good ones left out there" despite obviously living in a sea full of fish. I'm not sure if its baked into the cake because of something as simple and obvious as the rather extreme gender ratios in HR and Programming bleeding thru into the business processes, or both rituals come from the same larger culture so naturally human selection processes would be similar, or of there's a third more elaborate, probably more interesting, explanation.

zeveb 11y ago
> Some of the similarities are insane, like the laser like focus on demographic membership, first impressions, ageism I don't think demographic membership and age are invalid criteria when trying to find someone to marry and raise children with. Different demographics have different cultures, and different cultures have different ideals of what is good and bad, how to raise children &c. Age is rather pertinent if one wishes to have children. Even if one wishes to marry and not have children, culture fit is pretty important (and age determines a heck of a lot about culture!). > wailing "there's no good ones left out there" despite obviously living in a sea full of fish. In both dating & hiring, the issue is not so much that there are no good options, but that sieving the wheat from the chaff is incredibly difficult. In both cases, so far as I can tell, it's an unsolved problem (or possibly it's solved but we don't like the solutions: I've not quite made up my mind).

gohrt 11y ago

Most nations are generally monogamous. The playing field is the same size for all hetero people.

monksy 11y ago

Thats kind of how things go. It's a penalty for not being serious early on.