What's the deal with younger men claiming older women (60+) can be attractive?

Is it an attempt at flattery?
Is it currying favour for something else, like getting free editing on a poem or story?

The thing is, when it happens (rare) it's incongruent. There are no other signs or signals of attraction.

If it is true, what is it that they find attractive?

If it's not, why would they bother to insist on it?

Is it a misguided attempt to be "kind" - as if looks were the only basis for self esteem or confidence?

Is it just plain stupid - no reason at all?

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bijouxbroussard · F

Why should they have to defend finding older women attractive ?
If someone approaches you and you don’t trust their motives, don’t date them. My friend (my age) is dating a 40 year old. He clearly finds her attractive—as do many men, actually.
Nobody questions women that closely when they find older men attractive. If he’s much older, it’s assumed he has money, but other than that...

hartfire

@bijouxbroussard I don't date them - and I don't give them a chance to "defend" their statement. I just laugh.
I don't ask why they ask because if they start with flattery, the chances of an honest answer are zero.
Forty is still young - few wrinkles, still menstruating, still juicy, still lots of hormones flowing.
At sixty-plus, a non-cosmetically altered woman is very wrinkled, totally dry, and her floppy bits sag.

bijouxbroussard · F

@hartfire She is 60. He is 40. And he likes her just fine. I don’t understand the ageist misogyny, and from you it’s a surprise. 😳

hartfire

@bijouxbroussard Bijoux - maybe I am ageist, in denial, and not yet able to see it.

But here's the thing.
In my experience, there is much more to it than an off-hand remark when a man finds a woman genuinely attractive.
He has a manner about him like a dog that sees a bitch on heat. His entire attention focuses on her, and on the job of chatting her up or wooing. He leans forward, makes longer eye contact. The pupils of his eyes are larger than the lighting requires. This is congruence - it's showing the signs of being attracted.

I am healthy, fit, not-overweight and not the least dorky - but I am definitely not attractive in an sexual sense. Since I was 50, most men passing in the street have averted their eyes and pretended I'm not there. If unknown men register seeing me at all, is to offer to carry the groceries to the car for me - very sweet, friendly, polite and respectful - as they would to the their grandmother. And I don't mind this. I find it a natural behaviour.
(Being married, I'm not looking or needing.)

It's the claim to find "an older woman" attractive (not me specifically) that I find weird - kind of irrelevant, unnecessary, and out of the blue.
I actually know the two blokes who made these claims. Neither has dated any older woman; they could have no idea what she might be like in an intimate context.

bijouxbroussard · F

@hartfire So basically you are speaking of two men ? And based upon them any man who expresses an interest in older women is suspect ?
I see. But it’s the kind of assessment that makes many older women feel like their lives are over. If we’re that disgusting, why would any men be interested, regardless of age ? And yet some still are.

hartfire

@bijouxbroussard
Yes, it has been two men, both friends in my literary circles.
Sorry, Bijoux, but I'd like to make something about these two incidents a bit more clear. Neither man has ever shown any sign that he found me or any other older woman attractive. They don't flirt with them, date them - nothing.
Their statements were incongruent with their body language, and with all their other patterns of behaviour.
They are the only two men I've ever encountered who made any claim to find older women attractive - so the claim itself is rare.
Many older women do feel their dating lives are over from about the time they hit 53, roughly when the evidence of menopause starts to show on the face. I've heard them discuss it on radio and TV. Occasionally my women friends talk about it.
In the area where I live, 51% are women, 30% of these are over 60. Of those I know, only one, my friend Dede, found love at 70 and married her 80 year old.

I realise that it is false logic to generalise anything from just two incidents.
But my question is really asking, in this particular kind of situation when someone is obviously lying, what motivates them?

(Do they even realise how obvious the lie is? Do they realise that their body language and behaviour is what tells the truth?)

Elevatorpitches · F

@hartfire I have noticed this too and I think maybe its just a fetish kind of thing, not real but something that people copy one to the other.

Older women want someone THEY can relate to.

Younger men often have trouble with women their own age so they make a judgment re: whats most important in life.

and if it to get laid they will redouble their efforts at getting laid.

The older women get hit on next.

ALL MEN OVER 40 ARE DOING THIS NOW

Reason: Life is just too hard to stop looking when we are dumped, the search must go on...supposedly.

Have money, continue search. More men are in this position than women hence more men looking for inappropriate partners than women looking 4 inappropriate partners, although they often get one, sought or not.

Personally I have stopped looking and not because it ever worked even partways. It never worked at all.