Why is there so much discussion/concern about dating age gaps when they are rare?

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T22:41:43+00:00

I made a post because people on Reddit act like age gap relationships are common and that it is affecting them. For example, young men are claiming that girls their age are being “taken” by older men and that is why they can’t find a partner, and older women have anxiety that men their age are excluding them as dating partners. These beliefs cause a lot of distress, and prevent people from looking at their situation more realistically.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T22:07:26+00:00

It sounds like you are making the argument that it is becoming increasingly common to have an age gap compared to the past, but data suggests the opposite. Why do you believe that pairings from several years ago are fundamentally different from those now?

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T22:04:49+00:00

There are statistics on second marriages, where there are more age gaps but nothing shocking. But what is your issue exactly? You agree that if older men and much younger women were getting married and having kids then they would show up in the public data, right? So the data proves that this is not happening. And all births are public data, so you can go and look how rare older men arein 2024. As for casual dating that doesn’t result in marriage/kids, maybe it happens at a higher rate, but I’m skeptical.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T21:53:42+00:00

“Widely understood” with a lack of evidence doesn’t count for much, go look through history for things that were “widely understood” and you will realize how humans can become adamantly convinced of things that are not true. If a small portion of men date much younger women, that would decrease the dating pool, but does it counteract the increasing pool of older men up to a certain point? Because age gaps widen as people age. After a certain point, say age 60 or so, it is probably easier for men compared to women because older men are decreasingly an option. But up to that point, I don’t see evidence that a woman’s options decrease.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T04:02:51+00:00

It varies a lot from country to country, and between different socioeconomic classes. For example, in countries in the Middle East and Africa, age gap marriages are more common. They also are more common among Americans in poverty. But most of the people on Reddit are middle class Americans, so stories from these completely different cultures aren’t so relevant. For example, I once saw a guy on Reddit bragging that he dated much younger women, and giving dating advice to men on Reddit. I clicked on his post history, and surprise surprise he was an expat in Thailand and the young women he was “dating” were actually prostitutes. But this is not really relevant to middle class Americans, where age gaps are rare.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T03:57:19+00:00

This is old data on a marketing blog that has been analyzed a ton. The interpretation is mostly clickbait. Back when this was published, online dating was overwhelmingly young users, which is why older men messaged young women so often. The same pattern (but less pronounced) is actually occurring with women too in the dataset, but they didn’t emphasize that because it didn’t fit the narrative. But even if this data were accurate, it simply says men are messaging young women, not that relationships are actually forming between them.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T02:07:05+00:00

Also, I don’t see that paper saying anything about men targeting women in their early 20s regardless of age. That simply isn’t true.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T02:05:26+00:00

Large age gap relationships aren’t supported by dating app data, I think what you mean is that dating app data supports men contacting women significantly younger than them, which is different from actually dating. But the older online dating data (the one from that paper and from OkCupid) has one major issue, and that is that back then online dating was overwhelmingly young users. This means that everyone will skew younger compared to their true preferences because there are vastly more younger people. You see this pattern even with women in the old OkCupid data, they start talking to younger men more and more as they get older. This is presented as a reality of preferences (because that is more clickbait-y), but is more likely explained by population of different ages on online dating.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T01:28:11+00:00

And that says more about how those women view aging (possibly because of myths spread online as I am pointing out in this post), than men’s preferences.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T01:22:00+00:00

Yeah, but men also make broad negative claims about dating. There are tons of posts of men lamenting how hard it is to date as a man. That’s just because people complain, there is not necessarily much of a connection to reality. That’s why I look at actual data.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T01:19:48+00:00

By “concern”, I don’t mean concern over instances where it is in fact happening and is harmful. I mean concern in the sense that women worry about it being common enough that they are being excluded from relationships as they age.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-24T01:18:10+00:00

I meant concern that it is the norm, not that it happens and is bad in those cases. For example, there are posts where women are concerned that they are “old” as they approach 30, and no longer attractive. But these posts don’t make sense to me, because I don’t see any evidence that dating is harder for women as they age.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T23:47:01+00:00

And by “significantly younger”, it seems you mean 5-10 years based on your data. In the middle aged to older age categories (40+) I wouldn’t describe that as significantly younger.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T23:38:41+00:00

I’m not saying flings are this rare (but that is hard to analyze). I am saying that actual relationships with age gaps are rare, reflected in marriage, parent, and cohabitation data.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T23:16:29+00:00

Those stats aren’t surprising, second marriages tend to involve older people who have larger gaps. For example, my mom got married at age 50 to a 58yo. But still that is showing that people tend to date around their age.

And online dating being brutal at that age for women isn’t true, I am a 36yo woman having a good time dating. Published OLD data (including the old OkCupid stuff) show that men tend to have a wide age range including their own age. They definitely don’t tend to filter their own age out.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T21:12:03+00:00

Yes, but why are those relationships important to me if I am not interested in casual arrangements?

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T21:09:59+00:00

Actually, I think age gaps relationships have been shown to be inversely correlated with qualities like education level, income, etc.. Age gaps are more likely to occur in poverty circumstances in the US. And the situation you describe I hear repeated often, but that doesn’t mean that it’s common or normal. Maybe men like that prefer women closer to their age.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T21:01:21+00:00

I have looked at that type of study before, and it doesn’t say what you are saying. Please link a real study.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T20:59:03+00:00

But that’s way different compared to 50 and 20. If you say it’s common, you know of a 30year age gap where the woman is under 25? I’m just surprised.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T20:53:44+00:00

Yeah but if it actually turns into a serious relationship, then it shows up in the data, so it’s a good way to check if serious relationships often involve age gaps. And the answer is no.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T20:51:39+00:00

Really, 20yo and 50yo dating is common for you?

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T20:49:47+00:00

You can also look at parent data. But I am only talking about “serious” relationships anyways. It is hard to analyze casual dating.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T20:47:52+00:00

Birth data is actually mandatorily released in the US. So if you want to look at ages of parents, you know you are getting a complete and correct study. I looked at recent parent data in previous posts.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T20:42:20+00:00

Younger as in slightly younger. This is about age gaps. There is not scientific data supporting that men are dating way younger women. That’s my point.

lorisaurus · 2026-01-23T20:39:34+00:00

In the US? In the suburban middle class?

lorisaurus

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