The DiCaprio effect when dating after 50
Boston Globe
I hope to secure funding for a new dating site for older singles, one that will distinguish itself from the competition by requiring a pledge from the men who sign up: They have to be willing to date women their own age.
I expect it to be a dismal failure. If you’re a woman over 60 — maybe even 50 — you know I’m right. If you’re a man of that age, you’ve probably stopped reading by now.
This is not a new phenomenon, as Robert De Niro and Al Pacino or Leonardo DiCaprio can tell you. But the film “The Idea of You,” about an age-flip romance between Solène, a 40-year-old art gallery owner and divorced mom, and Hayes, a 24-year-old boy band singer, was, shall we say, a trigger. There is such a thing as too much fantasy.
I prefer data — and after three months on a dating site, I have it.
I left my marriage after 30 years and spent the next 10 not looking very hard for a date. One dear man retired the search for two years before he proved that we are all mortal, and after that, for awhile, I decided to be the single woman of mystery at the end of the bar. But lately I’ve missed being half of a couple, so I invested in a 3-month dating site membership and waited to see what would happen.
What a rush of attention. Every day the algorithm sent me a batch of potential dates ranked by a “percentage match” number based on how many variables we had in common. It was my first clue that something was off. A few matches hit the 70 percent mark, but the vast majority sat in the ratings basement, low 40s and high 30s. I read, go to the movies, ride my bike, bake pies, cook, and subscribe to legacy media. Nothing very unusual — so why was I out of sync with available men?
Because I am as old as they are.
They prefer younger women. They are the men “The Idea of You” complains about in passing, as though they were a museum diorama, an extinct species, and not a thriving, chronic insult to the very women they dated back when we were all in high school.
I had time on my hands, given the age issue, so I drew up a list of each candidate, by age, alongside his target age bracket. A few ventured bravely into an age-appropriate range, but one cluster wanted a date as much as 20 years their junior, and another was ready for a 30-year gap. My personal favorite was the guy pushing 70 who imagined that an 18-year-old woman would find him fetching. (A friend explained that this was likely a wealthy man prepared to be a sugar daddy, a story for another day.) All told, about two-thirds of the men with whom I shared multiple interests ignored me, seemingly because of my birthday.
And, yes, I know a few long-married couples who’ve survived a substantial double-digit age gap. I’m talking trend, not isolated exceptions.
I was paying, literally, to be rejected by strangers for being their contemporary. Why? Appearance is the obvious answer, because our culture tells us that the very wrinkles that make a man appear dignified and wise make a woman appear wizened and tired. Beyond that, I think boomer men want someone to take care of them, despite all of their 1970s talk about equality, and they probably worry that women their own age, those noisy second-wave feminists, are going to call them on it.
Not that younger women are eager to step into a caregiver role, tradwives notwithstanding, but at least the optics, from the guy’s point of view, are better. Besides, consider the first thing Solène did for Hayes after he flashed money and power by buying up the contents of her gallery, Solène, who may be considered middle-aged in the movie but is a youngster to my cohort: For all her professional and sexual autonomy, she took him home and made him a sandwich. Old expectations die hard.
If a man finds a partner who’s 15 years younger than he is — he’s 68 and she’s 52, say — and they live to their actuarial potential, he could well end up the center of attention for the rest of his life. She’ll be alone again just in time to be too old to date men her own age.
I wonder how we got as far as we have, in terms of redefining women’s roles — not far enough, sure, but as far as we have — only to have progress grind to a screeching halt when it comes to relationships late in life.
And, no, I don’t think every woman needs to be half of a couple, any more than I think every woman needs to have a career or a baby. I do think it ought to be our choice, rather than one that’s imposed by a man searching for the fountain of youth. Millennials might want to take heed, as the leading edge of that generation looks at 40 in its rearview mirror. They have a decade, maybe a bit more, to figure out how to change this.
If they don’t, I have sad news for Solène, because age is going to catch up even with her someday. With a nod to the Beatles: Will he still need her, will he still feed her, when she’s 64?
And he’s 48?
Unlikely.