A good friend of mine visited me a few weeks ago and we were talking about how women have to compete with all the other other women from every other age range, and most especially, younger.
My friend is in her mid-30's, tall, thin, and beautiful, with brown hair that falls into loose, beachy waves, along with stunningly bright blue eyes. She's looking for someone a bit older than her, but many times is passed over for women in their 20's.
The sad fact is that a woman has a very limited shelf life when it comes to dating. She has to be young, she has to be fertile, she has to be "bankable" (earn high social approval ratings.)
In my own experience, the Christian dating sites are even worse in a way. I've written about this before, but I'll never forget one guy's profile in which he insisted that he would only talk to women who were "former dancers, cheerleaders, or gymnasts" with "slender, fit figures", because, "God made men visual and so I need a very attractive wife."
I'll at least give him kudos for supposedly posting an honest picture. This guy was, at the very least, 50 pounds overweight with a very noticeable, protruding double chin (almost as large as his own double standards.)
I wanted to write him and say, "If God made men visual, do you think He made women blind?" (Because we'd like to have someone to takes care of himself, too.)
And I am NOT saying at all that it's just men who are this way--every good-looking man I've ever seen at the churches I attended had circles of women hunting him like a school of sharks.
But a 65-year-old man could still have his choice of dates, both around his age and younger, while most women are considered expired by 45 (if not 30), even thought most of the men I've talked to in my age range on dating sites do not want more children--they just like the idea of dating a 25-year-old (though it could just be the men I've talked to and not the general consensus.)
I always say I'm afraid of cosmetic procedures... but the clock only moves forward, and who knows how I'll feel about that in another 10 years (seeing as I'm pretty much "expired" as it is.
)
I've had a few really great younger guys ask me out before... and while I'd be more about the person than the age... I do think I'd feel pressured to have surgeries done to try to keep from looking old enough to be his mother. (I can admit that part of my fear of dating someone younger would be losing him in 5 to 10 years when the age difference really started to show, if it didn't already.)