Don't worry, you'll eventually grow out of this attitude. Your confidence will increase. You won't have to say stuff like this in an effort to feel better about yourself. Hang in there and good luck.
I don't think it's that different from 30s. In some ways, anything post-college is similar in that your life doesn't revolve around an institution full of single peers.
There's a little bit of magic-numberism that goes on, I suppose: people have ideas about what age means and they'll use it for a proxy (you'll worry about much younger people being annoying or stupid, they'll suspect you'll be staid or weird). But for the most part, everybody who's looking is still basically looking for the right connection.
The only practical effects I've seen are around two clocks:
* the family clock: some people are more anxious to have kids before they get too much older, some people have decided the window is done (which changes who they can pair up with).
* the midlife crisis clock: people start trying harder to see if they can make their life exactly what they want, or insert something they wished they had when they were younger.
These might be the same clock, though. And they have been known to strike well before the 40s. :) YMMV.
I don't know. I got married during my 30s, so I have no need for dating. But at the same time, I'm way more confident and I'm sure I wouldn't suck as badly at it as I did during my 20s.
I just turned 40 as well, and I found that, last year, younger (20-30) year old women seemed more interested in me than ever. While I was in Chicago on a long consulting gig, I briefly dated a gal who was 24 and smoking hot. Didn't seem to bother her.
I was talking to a much younger female friend of mine once, about this subject, and she confirmed something another female friend had told me, which is that women often find older guys more attractive. Apparently you look more "distinguished" as you age. Now there is, obviously, a point of diminishing returns that comes along eventually. But I keep hearing women tell me that a 24 year old woman (for example) will have no objection to dating a 40 year old man.
Being self conscious about this point, I've asked a number of other women (including random women sitting next to me on airplanes, etc., who theoretically have no reason to be dishonest) and time and time again I've been told that this effect is real.
Another female friend also admitted that some women do consider that factor that older men tend to be further along in their careers, and correspondingly have more money, status, power, prestige, etc. OTOH, she was one of the few who said she would not date a guy who was more than about 6 or 7 years older than her, at most. shrug
As we get older the "attractiveness balance" shifts from the young women to the older men. One of the things I wish someone explained to me as hopeless youth.