Anonymous wrote:If you are fit and healthy and happy and solvent at 50, the romantic opportunities are plentiful. For both men and women. I talk to my friends in this age group. The good looking men have it just as easy as the good looking women when it comes to finding romantic partners. But everyone seems to be having a hard time finding a potential life partner.

I'm 47, and thanks to the wonders of social media have watched many HS and college friends age as we are all now 42-55ish. Of course there are plenty of men and women who have let themselves go and look terrible, but compared to our parents' generation, many men and women still look very attractive and have stayed in shape.

Anonymous wrote:A middle aged Asian woman said something interesting to me. She said she spent much of her 20s and 30s feeling unattractive, but she felt hot in her late 40s. Why? Because when she and her fellow Asian women age, many of them still look sophisticated and glamorous, and sometimes more sophisticated and glamorous than before, but most attractive white women lose their looks and look overweight by age 50. That was just one woman's opinion.

Stereotyping is sometimes accurate, and sometimes not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the 40th, most women looked like grandmothers and it wasn’t hot. You are saying the men didn’t look like grandfathers? Or grandfathers can be hot but not grandmothers. Really just sounds like age old misogyny that plays out time and again on this subject.

I don't think it's misogyny. It's biology.

DP but it's a fact men age much slower than women.

15 year old girls look like women, 15 year old boys look like kids.
45 year old women look mature, 45 year old men look young still.
60 year old women are often out of the dating pool, 60 year old men still marry 25-35 year old women at that age and start a family.

If you are fit and healthy and happy and solvent at 50, the romantic opportunities are plentiful. For both men and women. I talk to my friends in this age group. The good looking men have it just as easy as the good looking women when it comes to finding romantic partners. But everyone seems to be having a hard time finding a potential life partner.

Anonymous wrote:A middle aged Asian woman said something interesting to me. She said she spent much of her 20s and 30s feeling unattractive, but she felt hot in her late 40s. Why? Because when she and her fellow Asian women age, many of them still look sophisticated and glamorous, and sometimes more sophisticated and glamorous than before, but most attractive white women lose their looks and look overweight by age 50. That was just one woman's opinion.

I am an Asian and I would have phrased the sentiment differently, but I also have been sort of shocked that I get so many more compliments at 50 than I did at 25. I wouldn’t say white woman lose their lose their become overweight. But maybe the comparative difference between us is not as stark as it was in my 20s and 30s. Honestly I mockingly call it grading on the curve. For a middle aged mother of a couple kids, I’m okay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do 50 year old women still even have sex?

Are you kidding?

I am the “are you kidding” poster. I am 47 and told I look younger. My last two partners were 28. I met one of them 3 years ago. They are both still interested.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the 40th, most women looked like grandmothers and it wasn’t hot. You are saying the men didn’t look like grandfathers? Or grandfathers can be hot but not grandmothers. Really just sounds like age old misogyny that plays out time and again on this subject.

I don't think it's misogyny. It's biology.

Fertile women don’t want to be impregnated by grandpa. You are underestimating the effect of culture.

A middle aged Asian woman said something interesting to me. She said she spent much of her 20s and 30s feeling unattractive, but she felt hot in her late 40s. Why? Because when she and her fellow Asian women age, many of them still look sophisticated and glamorous, and sometimes more sophisticated and glamorous than before, but most attractive white women lose their looks and look overweight by age 50. That was just one woman's opinion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the 40th, most women looked like grandmothers and it wasn’t hot. You are saying the men didn’t look like grandfathers? Or grandfathers can be hot but not grandmothers. Really just sounds like age old misogyny that plays out time and again on this subject.

I don't think it's misogyny. It's biology.

GTFOOH

Anonymous wrote:At the 40th, most women looked like grandmothers and it wasn’t hot. You are saying the men didn’t look like grandfathers? Or grandfathers can be hot but not grandmothers. Really just sounds like age old misogyny that plays out time and again on this subject.

I don't think it's misogyny. It's biology.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do 50 year old women still even have sex?

Are you kidding?

I am the “are you kidding” poster. I am 47 and told I look younger. My last two partners were 28. I met one of them 3 years ago. They are both still interested.

Anonymous wrote:Do 50 year old women still even have sex?

Are you kidding?

At the 40th, most women looked like grandmothers and it wasn’t hot. You are saying the men didn’t look like grandfathers? Or grandfathers can be hot but not grandmothers. Really just sounds like age old misogyny that plays out time and again on this subject.

10:54, at my 40th, it was a mixed bag with some men and women in shape and others the opposite. The one look I did not like was some of the women who were brunettes and awesome in HS had platinum dyed blonde hair. What's up with that? And then the usual. Cheerleader who gained a ton of weight and dork who looked really good and was fun to speak with.

At my 25th high school reunion, the women definitely had aged better than the men. They mostly stayed in decent shape but a lot of men had ballooned. Maybe that was also true at the 30th reunion. So I'm not surprised that lots of divorced women in their 40s find it pretty each to date.

50s might be different. At my 35th reunion, I thought the men started to look better than the women as a group. At the 40th, most of the class looked pretty worn out, but there were stil quite a few fit and good looking men. Most of the women were starting too look like grandmothers.

Sometimes magazines and websites run photo spreads of celebrities in their 50s or 60s. I think the celebrity men usually look better. Some men even look better at 50 than 30. Think George Clooney or Harrison Ford or Paul Newman or Tom Hanks. That's rarely true for the female celebrities (especially white ones).

I think a lot of men look great with some grey hair and lines around their eyes. Also, a fit man may lose a bit of muscle tone at 50 to 60 but his shape will basically be the same. Even if you like grey hair on women, and I like the natural look, you have to admit that most women start to change shape after menopause. By age 55, most women get pretty thick around the middle and they usually aren't perky.

That doesn't mean "slim pickings" necessarily, but I think it does mean that quite a few men in their 50s are attractive to women 10 or 15 years younger, which reduces the number of men in their 50s available for women in their 50s.

I still think most men in their 50s are happy to date women in their 50s, but they aren't unhappy if they hit it off with a woman 10 or years younger, which is very possible without looking ridiculous (like a 70 year old footballbcoach dating a woman 45 years younger).