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If one were to believe the way the media portrays dating patterns between men and women, one would think that men over 40 are only interested in women much younger than themselves.
Whether it be movies, television shows, or even commercials, these men are always depicted as chasing after (and often catching) women barely half their age.
This is where I usually insert a few pop culture references of "Michael Douglas"-like examples, but for once I'll leave it up to you the readers to think of really good ones. E-mail me (pennerst@hotmail.com) your most outrageous examples of older men being cast opposite women who should be playing their daughters, and I may include them in my next column.
I will admit that at the dating service I ran for 23 years, many men, especially the never-married ones, often did request meeting women a decade or two younger than themselves.
However, a recent article came across my desk (OK, my wife tore it out of her Science News magazine and forced me to read it) that got me thinking.
Titled "Age Becomes Her: Male Chimpanzees Favor Old Females as Mates," the article detailed a study, conducted by anthropologist Martin Muller of Boston University, of the Ugandan chimp community from 1996 to 2003. The study states that male chimps prefer older females "because of their demonstrated success at surviving and, in most cases, raising offspring."
It further says that "Male chimps mated substantially more often with females age 30 or older than they did with younger females "¦ even the oldest female, at roughly 55 years of age, attracted markedly more male interest than did young adult females ..."
Now one could ask what relevance that study has to dating among humans. Well, a few days after reading that article, two different friends coincidentally sent me via e-mail an amusing but poignant article written by "60 Minutes" curmudgeon Andy Rooney, detailing why men should prefer women over 40.
Here are a few of Rooney's more pertinent reasons:
"A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, �What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think."
"If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And it's usually something more interesting."
"Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you "¦ in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it."
"Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart."
"Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk or if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her."
Thinking back to the age range requests at my dating service, I can definitely state that there was a direct correlation between many men's level of experience with women and their desire to meet younger, or even much younger women.
That is the less experienced men, who had never been in a long-term relationship, were the ones who most frequently asked (and often pleaded) to meet women 10-25 years younger than themselves. Often I interviewed men who were very bright but somewhat socially inept. They rationalized (in a sort of bizarre way) that their lack of dating experience would "fit" with younger women, because being younger, they would be less experienced, and therefore not notice what dweebs these guys were.
Another group of men who always requested meeting much younger women was the "player" type. They had spent their dating lives hopscotching from one brief relationship to another. Now, when they had finally decided they were ready to settle down, they were not seeking a partner, but rather the classic "trophy wife" to parade before friends and business associates.
In both cases, these were men whose social immaturity was easy to identify.
But the more experienced and "wiser" men over 40 who I interviewed, that is men who had been previously married and were either divorced, widowed, or who at least had lived with a woman for a number of years, tended to request meeting women close to their own age, or even in some cases, women older than themselves!
Yes these aware, intelligent, sensitive men, who had grown emotionally and psychologically, had ultimately evolved to match the maturity of the Ugandan chimpanzees!
Good for them.
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