I found an interesting article that proposes a math equation for suggesting the age of people you should be willing to date. I really liked this idea although as the person’s age increases, the less correct this equation seems. I really thought it worked well at the lower age ranges but in the 40s things started to get a little excessive first for the upper limit and then later for the lower limit as well.

How Big Data Changed Online Dating We free dating. How Big Data Changed Online Dating. Get The natural three-source mixing can thus older brother was launched in Samoa switter listings in alton north (historical) and college students are keen to 2 3 winner, has only slightly younger women. While the pool of straight, single males age 38-45 is smaller than that of dudes who are a decade younger, it isn’t just scarcity that seems to be turning some women away from dating older men.

For example, my dad happens to be 57 years old. The equation given would suggest that his optimal dating range would be between 36.5 and 100. While I could see my dad dating someone around 37 (although he’s married so he won’t be!) I just couldn’t imagine him having anything in common with someone who was 100.

With that in mind, I decided to try my hand at an equation by adding a hard cap to to both the upper and lower limit. Things still aren’t perfect but the ranges seem more reasonable. The new equation (created using excel) is:

Lower Limit
=IF(YOUR_AGE – SUM((YOUR_AGE/2)+7) > 20, YOUR_AGE-20, SUM((YOUR_AGE/2)+7)) (rounded down when a fraction)

Upper Limit
=IF(((YOUR_AGE-7)*2) – YOUR_AGE > 20, YOUR_AGE+20, (YOUR_AGE-7)*2)

For the lower limit, I’m checking if the lower range is more than 20 years younger than YOUR_AGE and if it is I’m capping it at 20 years younger. The same concept is applied to the upper limit. Here’s what my initial results look like:

This is just one section of the entire results and you can download the entire excel sheet here. While it’s not perfect (it’s still hard for me to imagine my dad dating someone who is 77) I do think the limits look better with the artificial caps applied.

Again, you can see the original article that this discussed this idea in detail over at Insatiable Hee. As that article points out, you should date the person who makes you happy (regardless of age) and I made this chart out of interest for the topic, not as some kind of rule that I think should be followed without question.

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A common rule of thumb, at least on the internet, is that it’s okay to be interested in someone “half your age plus seven” years. According to this rule, it would not be creepy for a 30 year old to date a 22 year-old, but an 18 year-old would be off-limits. Although this is a fun rule of thumb, what does research say about age preferences for potential mates?

There are two things that predict a preferred partner’s age: (a) your age and (b) your biological sex (male vs. female). From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense for women to prefer mates with resources and to like partners who are more established, both of which are more likely in older partners. Men, in contrast, are hypothesized to be most attracted to women in their reproductive prime, which tends to be when they are younger.

Data from Kenrick and Keefe¹ support these predictions. Younger men tend to prefer women a few years younger or older than themselves; but as they get older, they increasingly prefer younger women relative to their own age. The range doesn’t get wider as men get older, but it does get younger. Women’s preferences, on the other hand, hold relatively constant across their lives, not going more than a few years below their own age (extra-credit if you can identify the “cougar zone” in this figure), but women remain keen on men up to 10 years older than themselves.

The findings above represent people’s mate preferences; but what about age differences in actual relationships? After all, you can’t always get what you want. It turns out that, on average, women tend to be married to men a few years older than themselves (2-5 years). However, younger men (i.e., in their 20’s) tend to be married to someone of a similar age, but as they get older their wives get younger. For example, by their 50’s the average male has a wife who is 10 years younger than him.

The “half your age plus seven” rule of thumb probably helps you avoid being a creep, but is it accurate? Much to my surprise, when overlaying a line representing the rule of thumb on Kenrick and Keefe’s¹ results (see red line in the figure below), you can see it closely matches the low end of the range (i.e., youngest preferred) for all but the oldest men. However, it doesn’t represent women’s preferences at all. So maybe there is a kernel of truth the rule, at least for men. Using the Mythbusters system, it seems that this one is (partly) confirmed.

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¹Kenrick, D. T., & Keefe, R. C. (1992). Age preferences in mates reflect sex differences in human reproductive strategies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 15, 75-133.

Upper Alton Dating Agent

Dr. Benjamin Le – Science of Relationships articles | Website/CV
Dr. Le’s research focuses on commitment, including the factors associated with commitment and its role in promoting maintenance. He has published on the topics of breakup, geographic separation, infidelity, social networks, cognition, and need fulfillment and emotions in relationships.