10 Reasons Why Dating Is Harder For Older Women Part 6

why dating is harder for older women part 6

trigger warning

Reason # 3
Hypergamy

Ok, so we have already covered how there are less men alive for older women to date, and of those that are still alive and available to date, only a subset of them would be interested in getting into serious relationships with women, and then a subset of the subset would only be interested in dating older women.

Now we get to how women will be the ones that further shrink the pool of eligible older male candidates that they can date.

It is called Hypergamy.

Hypergamy: (aka “marrying up”) refers to someone (usually a woman) seeking to get involved with someone else of a higher social status than herself.

What I see in my practice when coaching women, is that some women will prioritize certain traits, not because it reflects a particular value system she employs but because she seeks a man that has everything she already has, and wants the same or higher status. (e.g. If she has a summer home in Europe, she wants to find a man that already has a summer home in Europe or multiple homes more than she does.)
 
I have coached women who want a man that has a particular degree, because she has that same degree.  

Some examples:

*If she has a Bachelor’s degree, she seeks a man that has a bachelor’s degree or higher.

*If she has a certificate from a community college, she wants the man she gets serious with, to also have a certificate from a community college or higher.

*If she makes 250K a year, she seeks a man that makes as much as she does, or higher.
 
This may seem like a reasonable idea, but in practice it is not.

In essence, for women who give into Hypergamy, the higher the status they acquire, the less men there are that qualify as potential dating partners.

For men, it is the opposite.

The higher the status that men acquire, the more the bounty of acceptable potential partners increases, because men do not practice Hypergamy. Men generally do not require their potential partners to have the same resources or status as they do.


For example: A millionaire male does not require that his lovers also be millionaires already. He focuses on what he wants out of dating and relationships (sex, being treated well, how she can fit into his lifestyle?) and seeks women out according to his needs. This is much in the same way an employer seeks out employees to fill particular roles in the company. They do not seek out employees who also own rival companies themselves.

This is why men generally can date from a larger pool of candidates.

A millionaire female practicing Hypergamy will only want to date a man who is as wealthy or wealthier than she is. (Which decreases the pool of potential candidates she can date).


Here is the thing that I try to explain to women:

Whether or not a man has exactly the same status as you do, is not a clear representation of what kind of life partner he would be.

Here are examples of Hypergamy
I have heard from women clients over the years:

• -"I cannot be attracted or even turned on by him if he makes less than 125K", says the woman who is very attractive but makes less than 40K a year at her dead end job.
  
• -"I refuse to date a man who works hard and steady at a blue-collar job because he is not ambitious enough", says the woman who dropped out of college and chose to work part time, instead of full time.
  
• -"If he cannot keep me in the lifestyle I am accustomed to, he does not deserve me", says the kept woman turning 35, who has never had a boyfriend or a job in her life, because none of the suitors interested in her, can match her father’s wealth that has been supporting her lavish lifestyle.
  
• -"There is no way I would ever date a guy with kids that I would have to also raise, with him paying alimony and child support to his ex", says the woman who is a single mother collecting child support and alimony from her ex.
  
• -"I refuse to go out with the guy I am being set up with, because I make 20K more a year at my job than he makes. I just can’t do that".
  
• -"So what if I am on disability? That doesn’t mean that I have to settle and date some guy who is also on disability! I deserve better."
  

Try thinking of Hypergamy as a sense of entitlement.

Hypergamy is why many high status women struggle to find a relationship. These women fail to realize that the men who can best support her high status lifestyle, are the men that have less status than she does. (That is what gives him the time to be in a supportive role).

However, when she starts employing Hypergamy she effectively eliminates those men from the bounty of potential life partners. If she is an older woman, that means she is downsizing an already reduced pool of candidates.

There may be “plenty of fish in the sea”, BUT...

if the older fishing lady seeks a fish about the same age as she is,
and if you factor in all the fish dying before she does,
and only a smaller group of the remaining fish
are going to bite at her bait,
and she further engages unreasonable criteria
in her Hypergamy
to screen out fish that swim in lower levels
than she is used to floating at,

she might as well as be fishing in a bucket!

from artist Ricky Whitney

My advice to older women who are letting their own Hypergamy get in the way, is to keep your Hypergamy in check. If you find that you simply cannot be attracted to a man who makes less money than you do, or has less education than you do, or anything else that has nothing to do with the kind of relationship partner he can be for you, then I would suggest that you complete a coaching program, or seek out therapy to work on the issues of your “Internal Attraction Mechanism”. 

Ask yourself: Are you using Hypergamy to reject men as an excuse to cover up your own fear of intimacy? (It has been known to happen).

You cannot afford to waste your time on criteria that isn’t actually relevant to finding a serious relationship when you are an older woman.

Reason # 4
Too Preoccupied with Chemistry

Chemistry is important.  Attraction is important.
There is no disputing that.
 
However, the question is HOW important is chemistry?  Important enough that if the chemistry is not there, but everything else is, you would walk away?  In that case; have you ever considered that chemistry might be too important for you?