I wouldn’t say women have it much different — I end up dating a lot of significantly younger men. It is harder to have much in common outside of physical attraction with someone too far from your age group though.
People overthink dating and mating. We'd all probably be reasonably happy on arranged marriages. With apologies for the non-inclusive language of an old song, "woman needs man and man must have his mate, on that you can rely as time goes by".