Let’s talk a little bit about your age and how that impacts your experience in the dating world.

Unfortunately, women peak very young. On average, across the gender (that is to say, there will obviously be exceptions, these are gender-wide observations), a woman’s stock in the dating market peaks in the early 20s, right around 22 to be precise. This is the age when a maximum amount of the straight male population find her appealing as a potential partner. Young guys, some still too young to buy alcohol, want her. Guys in their 20s? You betchya, definitely want her. Guys in their 30s? Of course! They’re probably getting concerned about the looks of some of their fellow females and have an eye on the younger generation. It’s a sad reality, but remember, men are first attracted to a woman physically before anything else (for women, it’s about stability and a man’s potential as a providing partner, part of which can be impacted by good, fit looks, but in general is impacted by other factors as well).

As a woman grows older, this level of wide-reaching appeal begins to diminish. By mid- to late-20s, you lose an incredibly large amount of appeal in the eyes of very young men (think: fraternity guys) while retaining most of your appeal to men your age and even slightly increasing your appeal in the eyes of older men.

The early 30s are characterized by a sharp overall drop-off in how appealing you are to men of all ages. If you have to pinpoint a single age where things really go off a cliff, it would be 32. By 32, men your age will find you much less appealing than they did when you were 22.

So what can we learn from this? Aside from the obvious statements it makes about marriage troubles in society, I think it says something about the mentality you should have in the dating market.

Too many women get caught up in what I call “early twentiesitis”. Most women do not enter the dating market in a serious capacity until their early 20s. Coincidentally, this is when their stock in the dating market is at its highest. I believe this fosters a certain sense of entitlement in the minds of some women in the dating market. That is to say, when they enter the dating market, they see that their stock is so high and make assumptions about how that just must be how the dating market goes for women. They are too slow to adjust to their diminishing stock over the years.

The implications of this are that some women expect too much from the dating market and end up with nothing. Are you one of these women? If you’re in your late 20s or early 30s and just for the life of you cannot seem to find one decent man to take care of you and all your needs, it’s rather possible that you’re simply expecting too much. When you were 22, men, on average, were more open to doing anything to be with you. By the late twenties and especially early thirties, this is simply not as true anymore.

As a woman, it’s important to have some awareness of how the generic male perception of you changes over time. It’s okay to hold out for something better, just have some awareness that you will peak out at some point and not receive as much male attention as you’re used to. The women who have been a little slow to adapting to this reality waste precious husband-hunting years bitching and complaining about men.

There’s one more lesson that sticks out in these dating market realities: the value of an older man. From the time you are in your mid-20s until about the time you’re there age, mid-30s men are always going to want you. If there are any social circle influences pressuring you not to date someone a little older, consider cleansing them out of your life. I believe that because of societal gender roles and a multitude of other issues, the marriages with the best chance of standing the test of time are when the woman is around 5-7 years younger than her husband. Open yourself to the possibility of dating men in this age bracket.

If this article interested you, check out the OK Cupid blog entry on the same topic.