[critic]

There's a simpler explanation than appealing to math the author admits not understanding: male attractiveness ages better.

A 40 year old man can be attractive to 20 year old women, but a 40 year old woman is rarely attractive to 20 year old men.

In other words, women past their prime who restrict themselves to mates their own age will may be in relatively low demand.

[geebee]

I agree. The thing to keep in mind is that this works against men as well as women, it just hits them at different points in their lives.

If women between the ages of 21 and 25 are interested in (and pursued by) men between the ages of 21 and 35+, while men between 21 and 25 are limited to women who are roughly the same age, then men will face a very difficult dating "market" in their early 20s, and women will experience a favorable one. As men and women age, the inevitable symmetry switches the situation - women between 35 and 40 are now competing for men who are pursuing women between the ages of, say, 25 and 40.

This is something to keep in mind when you hear that the dating world is unfair to women over 35. It's "unfair" to men too, just earlier in life.

[old-gregg]

You're right, life gets tougher for women after 30 but I am not following you in where does this benefit men?

According to your analysis a larger pool of men 21-40 are always competing for a smaller pool of attractive women 21-30, so if you're a single male, the ratio is always against you no matter how old you are.

And that's what I'm observing in real life. Perhaps I'm too young, but every public gathering I go to features a disproportional number of guys. And if you subtract overweight people from the picture, the ratio gets downright scary.

[geebee]

Some guys are like that. But in my example (or I guess you could call it my model), I had guys interested in women at or below their age, and women interested in men at or above their age. In reality, it differs for each person, but average age preference is probably a right or left skewed bell curve for women and men.

And of course, women probably aren't attracted to older men simply because they are older, they're probably attracted to the life and professional accomplishment, maturity, financial resources, and so forth - sorry bruddas, but merely aging is not going to help things here.

On the flip side, the numbers really do start to look grim for single women as they approach 40. A lot of women enjoy the dating scene when they are in their early 20s, get married around 30, and stay happily married their whole lives - and never really feel any of the frustration of being on the wrong side of the dating equation. However, this means that most of the disadvantage gets concentrated onto a fairly small number of women, who basically get the full brunt of it.

[tlb]

The opposite is true. Because women in their narrow age range of attractiveness get paired with men in a much broader age range of attractiveness, that would create a shortage of women. Say, if women 25-35 date men 30-45, there are 50% more men in that group.

or combining folk wisdom and math: d(half your age + 7) / d (age) < 1

However, the fact that men propose and women decide creates an inversion. Early marriages take decisive women and attractive men off the market, leaving beautiful women and schlubs. Hooray for graph theory!

[miloshh]

Actually, I think critic above had it right. Sure, women are considered more attractive when 20-30, and get a lot of attantion from men in that age, much more than men do at any point in their life. After women get past 30, things simply get back to "normal", but to them this seems as a shortage. In fact, single women above 30 seem to be the only group that ever refers to a "shortage of suitable males" - in my experience, younger women and men are generally surprised as to why such thing should ever exist.

Furthermore, the theory that men are trying hard to marry, and the most attractive ones "succeed" to marry at a younger age, just does not seem to be realistic, especially not in modern society. There are good reasons for men not to marry early.

[dannyj]

But it seems that men in their early 20s are trying harder to get laid. Thus the agressivness of the "weak"bidders..

[vaksel]

the looks thing is so true, after 25 women lose their looks exponentially...sure there are a few "milfs" in the 40s who still look good, but these were the 10s in the 18s who had their pick of men.

[time_management]

Not quite, because different women look good at different ages.

Case in point: Michelle Obama looked fairly awkward as a teenager, but is beautiful in her 40s.

[nostrademons]

Yeah, I've noticed this too. Some of the women I know that are quite attractive now at 22-27 were very awkward-looking at 15-17, which is the age range when all reasonably fit girls are supposed to be attractive. While some of the hotties from high school look old and washed up, even at just 25.

[randallsquared]

Your "awkward" may be what others refer to as "cute".

[unalone]

Nah, I know what he's talking about. A lot of girls in high school are lanky or not entirely busty, and when girls "break out" at 14 or 15 that's the hot look for them to have. Those girls very often burn out or don't worry so much about maintaining their looks, while the girls who were awkward-looking grew into themselves and suddenly turned very lovely.

[mfhughes]

I'm not even gonna go there with Cindy McCain.

Wait I think I just did.

[time_management]

I don't think she's unattractive or has aged badly. I find Michelle Obama to be more attractive and an overall more compelling First Lady, but that's largely a matter of personal taste.

What I never understood was the attraction to The Wicked Witch of the Northwest, aka Sarah Palin. She did nothing for me. Moreover, her husband was a secessionist.