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Comment by eloff | Hacker News Reader

This omits the rather obvious problem that men are much more likely to date younger women. So the dating pool might be largest for men around 50 because of all the single women over 50 - but most of those men won't consider them.

People might be quick to point out anecdotes to the contrary - as there are always exceptions, but it's still generally true. It has been that way probably for all human history as women are more attracted to status in general and men to youth and beauty (proxies for virility.)

Which leads me to think it must be really lonely being a single women over 50. Also if you're a man of that age into older women, you've basically got the market to yourself.

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> Which leads me to think it must be really lonely being a single women over 50

On the other hand, if they were a woman who dated an older man, they certainly didn't care about 'taking away' (for lack of a better term) that opportunity from a woman closer to his age. Younger guys are at a disadvantage due to lack of status/maturity and nobody sheds a tear when they go through long periods of bachelorhood without luck.

yea I concur. everything up to mid 20's was a long dry spell. Now I'm in my late 30's and easily meeting women 10+ years younger than me. Helps that I hit the gym, have a successful career and am well read and well travelled. I've had a few women my age that I knew when I was younger who are still single and now showing interested in me (I was friendzoned to hell before) but why bother with them when my options keep getting better as I age?

This comment made my day. I'm 31, founder of startup in an area I genuinely have high hopes for but is neither taking off nor dying.

I also moved to Europe from the bay area to do this, at age 28 feeling like I had one more adventure in me.

The uncertainty of the startup and knowing there is no way I would ever accept regular employment (software/computer vision/robotics if curious) in Europe has made me extremely hesitant to think about family.

I have no concern for my future earning potential, besides the difficulty of getting back to the US with covid (I'm not American, yet...).

30 hit like a truck though, and a year and a half on hold with covid doesn't help. Thanks for sharing your experience of being basically me +10 years.

Might consider getting my sperm frozen though. How would "Don't worry, I froze my sperm" work as a tinder line?

Anyway, thanks for the HN therapy.

> "Don't worry, I froze my sperm"

You think this is great / that it might be great, but it is not: It is creapy. You'd find out about this at some point and drop it. Women do not work like that.

you have plenty more adventures in you! I've got 5 years on you and still kicking. As a CTO, it helps to keep your mind fresh with new experiences. Some of my best ideas have come from walking around new surroundings.

My advice for staying young

1. cut down the sugar

2. limit alcohol

3. lift weights regularly

4. stay out of usa, its unbelievable toxic to be there now

europe is great. I'm a US citizen but my startup is in london.

If you want to have a family, do it.

I don't understand your comment about freezing sperm though. Unless you have some medical issue fertility issues don't usually occurs for men until decades after 30.

That's not true actually. Fertility declines while birth defects increase.

While it's more dramatic in women, it happens for men too.

I worded what I said very carefully.

Fertility does decline in men with age, but it's not really a concern for most men until 45-50: https://www.britishfertilitysociety.org.uk/fei/at-what-age-d...

> This omits the rather obvious problem that men are much more likely to date younger women. So the dating pool might be largest for men around 50 because of all the single women over 50 - but most of those men won't consider them.

There's some truth to this but the difference between 48 and 52 isn't very important if you're 50. Men don't draw a sharp distinction at that age where they refuse someone two years older but are happy with someone two years younger. Beyond that, you really aren't going to find many attractive 30 year old women interested in you if you're a typical 50 year old man. (No offense intended to anyone, but balding, somewhat overweight 50 year old men with bland personalities just aren't in high demand with women that age.)

Is obviously a non linear effect that increases as a function of the age difference. There's no step function at any magical age.

I feel like I shouldn't have to clarify that.

Also if you're a 50 year old man with high status you'll fare substantially better than a 20 year old man with low status with 30 year old women.

I've personally been outcompeted by balding, portly middle aged men with women my own age when I was in my twenties. Not that anecdotes mean much, but it's pretty universally true about humans. It even holds with primates and other social animals in general, not just humans.

Assuming you are right, you must add one more thing to your hypothesis that men around 50 have the largest dating pool: you must have some status and wealth to access the younger women.

A broke, non handsome, average 50 year old guy will have exactly 0 access to women between 18 and 35.

> A broke, non handsome, average 50 year old guy will have exactly 0 access to women between 18 and 35.

I have seen tens of counter examples to this in the West. Men often get more confident, more stable, and more stable as they get older, and the world itself simply treats them more respectfully.

If you otherwise is an interesting person that takes care of himself (ie. don't look like you've given up), you don't need wealth. That's a myth that needs to die. Sure, once you're past 40 or so, you need to pay more attention to how you look, but that's just the reality of getting older.

I've heard stories of men in their 50s (if I remember correctly), that were broke and homeless, but still had plenty of hot, young women in their life.

People (the women) don't start with asking "how much money do you make" and might not discover that, until they're a bit in love already, and thereafter they might think it doesn't matter that much?

So being happy (having created a happy life for oneself) and taking care of oneself (and others) is what matters more I suppose

The case of age gap between men and women is greatly overstated on HN. The average age difference (for a heterosexual couple) is 2.3 years. In 64 percent of heterosexual couples, the man is older.

There is age gap, but you all wrote about it as if 45 years old routinely dated 23 years old. They don't.

For a lot of history, women did not get to pick their partners. Moreover, marriage was an economic institution, not a romantic one. And there were also limitations on males: military service and expectation they will be providers pushing their marriage age higher.

You can't just bring in system in which participants have severly limited options and then claim it is all individual choices.

Surprisingly, the peak age for a man seeking women is around 50, but the peak age for a man seeking [women with jobs] is around 40.

I'm confused by the wording, could you elaborate the 'peak'?

In the plot where x-axis is man's age, and y-axis is eligible dating pool population, 'peak' refers to the age (place along the x-axis) at which the man's eligible dating pool is largest (highest along the y-axis). This is indicated by the vertical pink dotted line.

The main problem, and I see this a lot in this type of analysis, is it completely takes attraction out of the equation. It is assumed that all men are attracted to all women, and vice versa. In reality, if you're not attracted to someone, they are not in your pool, regardless of any other factors.

Any such analysis must be conducted on a per-sex basis as the game is completely different for men and women. In fact, it's debatable whether the creepiness rule applies to older women, or to women at all for that matter.

To do this properly for men, the number of available older women needs to be heavily attenuated. According to this, 60 year old women are in the dating pool for 35 year old men. How many 60 year old women do you really think a 35 year old man will find attractive? A vanishingly small number. Conversely, men find the women on the bottom end of their creepiness band disproportionately attractive. But not enough to balance it out. I suspect it would be more realistic to simply rule out all older women.

For women, attraction is different. Women do not have a preference for younger men. In fact, the opposite would seem to be true, especially since women do have a preference for wealth, stability and status. So, using the same example of a 30 year old woman, think about the limits of the non-creepy dating pool. How many 25 year old men will be attractive to her? Not many. But, equally, how many 60 year old men will be attractive to her? Also not many. However, it is probably also the case that not many men in general are attractive to her.

There are so many other confounding factors. Like, for example, the fact that women can't do much to change their level of attractiveness, they're either attractive without trying, or they're not, while for men it's necessary, and often sufficient, to build attraction through hard work (similar to how male in other species do courtship displays).

I find the reluctance to take attraction into account to be, at best, wishful thinking and, at worst, delusion. It makes any analysis like this, frankly, ridiculous.

> In fact, the opposite would seem to be true, especially since women do have a preference for wealth, stability and status.

I repeatedly see this claim in Anglosphere discussions and books but see counter examples within my culture. Slavic women (Polish, Russian, Ukrainian) desperately hooked up to men they perceived as higher status (attractive Italian, Spanish, French, German etc) then betrayed and rejected. Traumatised later on these women intentionally picked less attractive men (chubby, bald, lower, from sexist cultures, average job) so they are sure these men got something "above their league" and they'll never desert them. Basically prioritising stability (but not necessarily security) over wealth and status.

So they went for stability then.

That's a good observation though, e.g wifes of former president of US went for wealth and status with no stability. Some coincidentally are Slavic as well. Just getting all three of them seems extremely difficult as I cannot imagine a man that would volunteer to offer all three simultanously.

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