Hacker News Reader

Comment by fortes | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the fact that men readily date women who are significantly younger -- while the same is not particularly common in women. Men have a much larger pool of candidates as they get older (while women had a larger one when they were younger)

View on HN

Yes, I think you have identified the main point. The shortage of available men for 30-something women is counterbalanced by all the 18 year old guys who can't get a date because their female peers are hanging out with college students, and so on up the age scale.

Good point. Perhaps that's simply an instance of a more general rule: women, on average, have stricter requirements than men, so they have a smaller pool to choose from.

There may be other preference-related explanations. Perhaps men are more likely than women to opt out of heterosexual relationships (e.g. by being gay or happily single).

Then there are demographic explanations. Our species is not perfectly gender-balanced; there are (slightly) more women than men.

I think the answer is to be found in Darwinian natural selection:

Women are looking for a mate that will be able to give her offspring a good chance of making it into the next generation, thus what she is looking for is someone with abundant resources who will secure her home and future. This is also why old but rich men are attractive to women. Men, on the other hand, are basically looking for someone young that will be able to bear a child, and this ability degrades with age. Which is why men of all ages like young women.

I recently had an additional thought about the attractivity of older men: doesn't it prove quality genes, to some extent? If you are already 50, you obviously haven't died from some disease in your 30ies, like inheritable cancer.

The reason it doesn't work the other way round could be that for men, the quality of the genes of their mates don't matter so much: just get as many children out there as possible, some are bound to be OK (it is not as high an investment as it is for women).

Still puzzling why women can't bear children up to a higher age - forgot why that was. Apparently it is quite unique to humans.

Agree. Women in their 20s have guys in their 20s, 30s, and even 40s courting them. When women turn 30 everything changes and suddenly their possibilities shrink, partly because guys in their 30s are chasing younger girls. It is a big shock because suddenly they are not the last coke in the fridge.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com