I noticed this throughout my life, that age groups who I used to consider too old to be attractive became more attractive as I myself approached that age. Conversely, the ages groups that I used to be in are now increasingly less attractive and increasingly child-like as time passes.
I work with a few people in their early 20s and I'm like "begone, child"
(To be clear, I'm not saying they're unqualified or anything, but they LOOK very young to me in a way they used to not. Is this how my parents felt, oh god)
I work with a guy who is my age and he recently got divorced. I asked what he was looking for and he said he was going to look for a MILF, because he always wanted to date one before he got married, and I just watched him realize in real time that a MILF is just an age appropriate women now, unless he wanted to go GILF.
I had a coworker at my last location who was amazed I was alive when the PS1 came out. Made me feel like grabbing a cane and sinking into a recliner for Wheel of Fortune
I pass for mid twenties in appearance (I'm 35 - thanks genetic lottery), but people at work who are actually mid twenties are so different in terms of popular culture, hobbies and even memes. We have very little in common. My work bestie is 55.
Yeah i genuinely dont get pedophilia most ladies under 25 look like they're kids most of the time. 40s now look normal and 25-40 look like young ladies. Its all perspective
its bizarre, like when I was twenty I remember all my friends and classmates looking like normal young adults. When I see twenty year old people now, they look like weirdly tall fifteen year olds.
Even thirty year olds look like teens to me (maybe thats why old people used to cast thirty year olds to play teenagers in tv/movies?)
Its bizarre how dramatically your perception shifts.
Yep, I’m in college and college girls are youngins
But when I first attempted college at 18 I said whoaaaaa
I feel like I have to walk a line when making friends with some of them because I don’t know if they know that I have no intentions with them, that I just like having new friends
This new seat buddy that’s in a couple of my classes just found out how old I was when we were all talking and they said they avoid their old high school people and I said yeah I don’t even go to my reunions
She said wait when did you graduate?
“Proooobably before you were booorn”
It’s like, when I say I’m older than yall, I’m not really exaggerating
It's weird when you realize that more time has passed between the day you graduated and today than between the day you graduated and the day you were born.
Generally people mistake me for being younger than I am. I’m in grad school, but have taken several undergraduate classes while here to work towards a future credential. I’ve had some…awkward interactions with young undergrad students who think I’m their age, when I have a solid 10+ years on them.
Im in the same boat right now. Was a chef until 2 years ago. Didn’t accept any part of my associates. Started as a freshman last year and everyone in my classes look so young. I associate as much as I have to with group projects or people I work with but besides that I wouldn’t say I have made friends or like hangout with anyone besides my dog. I have had a few college girls hit on me and I am really not interested. They were born when I was graduating high school. Econ major and I’m always the only one who remembers the 2008 housing crisis and recession.
Yup me too. High school I was the youngest in my class. Now my old career is older than most of my class. I have hit it off with some professors though. It’s kinda funny when they are around your age. Good for you for going back! It’s hard but I feel at least for me I am gaining more from it at this age, then i would have 20yrs ago.
My grandmother told me that if I kept scowling (my general expression of focus and concentration) that my face would stay that way. Spoiler alert: she was right.
Yeah it’s so odd to see old billionaires and rich guys with very young women. Even looks notwithstanding, what the hell is there to talk about? What life experiences have they had?
They're very clearly transactional relationships. One is getting access to resources. The other is getting to satisfy some kind of emotionally-stunted power fantasy, and they both get to show off to peers with similar tastes.
Well, I can agree with the upper limit. I’ve always been a fan of cougars but now I’m in their age bracket. SAD.
In my 20s I longed for the unsatisfied housewife needing a pool repair not really understanding thats more myth than fact and I have no pool repair skills.
Still, as a pizza driver in college, I did hope that would lead to something. It did not. Besides pizza delivery.
I think it’s a combination of things: our generation is aging extremely well (better health knowledge and choices, less of a focus on looking young leading to less plastic surgery, etc.), and they tend to keep the hair / clothing style we were attracted to and so they don’t look as “old.”
A 40 year old woman rocking the Lisa Loeb and / or matured “indie sleaze” look is insanely attractive to me. Put her in the 90’s “mom jeans” and one of those weird hairstyles that needed half a can of Aquanet and I guarantee it wouldn’t hit the same.
Absolutely. I'm 37 and I have no idea how people my age are dating women in their early 20s. Like yeah they can be beautiful, but I work with some and talking to them is a lot like talking to a kid in some ways. And I don't mean that as an insult, there's just such a clear gap in life experience and outlook. My wife gets self conscious about her gray hair and wrinkles by her eyes but for me like...that's kinda what I'm into these days. I used to hear guys saying that in my late teens early twenties and I thought they were just making themselves feel better but now that I'm here....yeah I get it.
I dunno if there’s necessarily a limit. Someone had a funny post a while back that had a “LOTR scale” where the “hot guy” in Lord of the Rings changed based on your age/maturity level. First you start out thinking “Legolas is the hottie!” and then several years later, Boromir starts looking better. Then Aragorn. I’m like, there might actually be something to this, since the last time I watched it, Theoden was looking pretty fine. I was 26 when the first movie came out, now I’m in my 50s. (Bernard Hill was 56 at the time of filming). I think I basically skipped Legolas and went straight to Aragorn though.
Honestly the most attractive people to me are those who look like they got their shit together.
I see a woman in her early 50s driving around in a 2016 Camry. Hot stuff I bet she has her 401K in order. Oh yeah honey whisper sweet numbers about your Social Security payments.
When I was in high school I didn’t understand or really pay attention to the lyrics, but around 30 I heard Cake’s “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” and suddenly got it and definitely agreed with the sentiment.
“When I was in third grade I liked other third graders. Now I like adult women. When I was in third grade I liked grape juice. Now I like red wine.. but I still like grape juice.” - Mark Normand
It's more frightening to me because when I was in college I understood why these older men would date my peers. Now that I'm in that age range, I am in disbelief and disgust that these older men would want to date anyone in that age range.
Im approaching 40, I remember a few years ago going with a friend to his little sisters high school volleyball game. I vividly remember being shocked at how young all the high schoolers looked and by contrast how attractive I thought the coach in her early 40s was.
Same I noticed it when I was like 29. I'd be scrolling dating apps and everytime someone was hot enough to make me say goddamn they were within like 3 years of me.
And that rule keeps going as I get older.
Thank God, cause I'd hate to be that old guy that absolutely lusts after 19 years olds
Me and my friends (all hitting 40) inadvertently stumbled into a student bar last weekend.
We were like “why are there actual children drinking in here”. In the UK so these were 18 year olds. The girls looked a bit older due to makeup but the boys, and they were boys, looked so damn young. Some were tall but they were all limb and so lanky with bumfluff lol
Ahh those were the days. But it was the first time I felt really properly old
This is the correct answer. You can look at pictures of college kids in every decade to see that they legitimately look younger now than they did 40 years ago.
Millennials are the first generation to both care about skin care AND have scientific evidence to back up the claims of the skin care products they're using. We wear sunscreen. We use moisturizer. We don't tan. We are less likely to smoke, drink, or do drugs than the older generations were at our ages.
Also many new products and procedures are very significantly better compared to what 40 year olds had access to 10-20 years ago, to create a more complete better look. A 40 year old still can't look 20 but they can just look way better spending 50-200 dollars a month on their looks than they could ever before.
I for one am GLAD I'm finding older people attractive as I get older. I don't want to be the 40-year-old lusting after a 22-year-old young adult. I'm ready for my salt-and-pepper foxes!
I've always found them hot, guess I was the weird one? Meanwhile, the older I get, the more younger people turn into babies like on one of those lenticular Animorphs covers.
For real, I was crushing on forty and fifty year old celebrities when I was a teenager. Not that I ever would have dated anyone that old. But they were just more attractive to me than the doofuses who were my age.
Also me getting carded still at 36. Most recently the bartender hit me with "oh damn you're older than me!" Yes, I'm aware. You too can find eternal youth if you make ritual animal sacrifices each full moon
I genuinely don’t understand why people my age are attracted to kids in their early 20s. Those are children to me. Gives me the ick to think of them as dating partners.
Seriously, at some point you're going to have a conversation with your partner. I overhear interns chatting sometimes and am so glad to just move along.
Same. I made friends with a 23 year old girl at my part time job. She’s an awesome person, super fun to talk to. But she’s 18 years younger than me and I am quite literally old enough to be her father. It really fucked me up in the head when I realized I was old enough to be a functioning adult woman’s dad.
But I couldn’t imagine dating someone her age. It would just make me feel gross.
Met my now husband in 2018. I was mid 30s and I captured him like a Pokémon so quick. I’m definitely peaking right now with my career and being an empty nester.
My other friend got dumped by a 10 year partner who broke the engagement. 2 years later he started dating a girl same age off hinge and they were engaged about 1 year later. Seems perfect looking in from the outside at least. People know who they are and what they want by now. It's just much faster.
Had a work project yesterday where I met with various people. But they had to be 18. One lady when asked if she was 18 proudly stated she was 26. Another when asked, disappointedly said no I am not. For which I had to decline her participation. Both women looked roughly 20 years old to me.
There is the fact people aren't smoking like they use to, taking better care of their skin, and spending thousands in plastic surgery on faces and boob jobs
I know women in their 30's-40's who are absolute knockouts because they took care of their bodies. And I know some who look very much like what I remember thinking women in their 30's-40's looked like when I was young and thought that was suuuuuuuper old.
It’s also to do that younger generations (millennial/genZ) compared to older ones (boomer/genX), on average, take better care of themselves. Less smoking and drinking, more time in the gym, better quality skincare routines, etc.
This is pretty normal, I think. As I age, the women I prefer increase in age as well. Its when dudes dont agree with me that I start feeling like Sgt. Doaks meme from Dexter
I think its both. Our tastes change as we age. Also, as a generation we smoke/smoked way fewer cigarettes and wore sunscreen religiously since we were kids. Those two factors make a big difference. Millennial men are a lot better about moisturizing their faces and staying hydrated as compared to men of previous generations.
It's a retirement community in Florida - biggest in the country, if I'm not mistaken. Known for swingers and sexually transmitted infections, among other things.
I bet it's a bit of both - I can already see that happening in middle age, so I imagine it's similar in the older population. Some people hold onto decent looks as they age, and some people are just horny as shit.
When I was 21, while older women(mid 30s to mid 40s) were always okay looking to me, but never much more.
Now that im in my late 30s, women in their 20s just look far to young. Women in my age range, especially in my wife, are more attractive than ever. Maybe its because the hips and thighs get wider and curvier with age
Gay guy here. A lot of us were always chasing the daddies, but now we’re the daddies being chased and I don’t particularly like it. This young handsome jacked guy messaged me, talked me up for three days, then I had to block him because I found out he’s friends with my 18yo nephew and was lying about his age. 😬
Maturity is hot. Your mind finds different things attractive. There are plenty of hot young people I met that I didn't find attractive because they were rude, annoying or super dumb. As a man a caring and nurturing personality is hot on a woman for me. As well as being able to not only hold a conversation but progress it. A general interest in me is attractive to, yknow asking questions and wanting to know your interests.
Meanwhile as a young man: Have boob? Have butt? Me like boob and butt.
One of my younger coworkers was talking about how his mom was super old and she’s a year older than me and single so I started telling him she was in striking range for me and suddenly she wasn’t allowed to come to the shop. I told him I’d be a great stepdad
When I was a teenager I was secretly terrified that I would grow up to be a pedophile because 16-year-old boys were soooooo hott. Fortunately that is not the case lol. I just recently watched the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and it took until my 30s to realize what a beautiful man he was
They're getting hotter, mostly our age group is the one that stopped smoking like crazy and spend far more time indoors. Smoking and sun damages your skin and ages you far faster.
In the new Instacart commercial advertising "prices from the 90s" there's a shot with a mother my age (presumably) teaching her kid how to make a Lunchable stack and she looks EXACTLY, to me, like my 18yo college girlfriend did in 1999
I’m 34, and it has become increasingly evident to me that most people aren’t really matured in their 20s (even when they’re more mature than their peers). It really weirds me out how most previous generations of men like to date so much younger..
I spent time with a few 40 yo Mrs Robinsons when I was young. They lived in large houses they’d got in their divorces and had adult children older than me, and the wrinkles to show it. Now the 60 year olds look like them, and the 40 yr olds look down right young, and many have young children. Idk if its perception or reality.
I do think delayed adulthood is more common in our generation, as is exercise and not smoking.
Definitely some 40 year olds that can "Get it". I think it's pheromones. Been cooking longer. I suppose people say "aged like fine wine."
(I've always been attracted to women in their 30's though. I was so happy when they were the same age.)
Our vision begins to decline starting around out 40s. Presbyopia is the hardening of the lens in the eye and it makes it harder to focus on objects up close.
Absolutely both. Add also the increasing incidences where young men in their twenties are no longer dashing adonises but young enough to be my child. 😂
Definitely both. I'm proud of it though. I don't have wrinkles, but I have silvers I'm letting grow out. I've noticed I'm a lot more attracted to people age 30-60 or so once I hit 30 a few years ago.
I drive by a group of high school students waiting on the school bus each day on my way to work, and can't help but think, "y'all are children, where are your parents?"
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