I just had a birthday and noticed a DRASTIC decline in likes and matches on apps. Did I age out of being desirable? Has anyone else noticed a decrease in interest after a certain age? My profile is the same as it was last month when I was 39 and I’ve always had steady interest and dates. Now it’s a ghost town. It makes me sad because I have so much more to offer someone in every area than I did at 30 but… I guess youth matters more?
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Well, I drew the line for matches at 39. I don’t want to date anyone older than that. Sorry to say, but 40 just sounds so .. old.
It seems quite a few of people set their age range to end at 39.
All it takes is one. Ignore ageist remarks, don’t tie your worth to people who put the cutoff at 39. Keep dating (if it isn’t making you weary). There are MANY men who don’t give over 40 a second thought if they find the woman attractive and engaging.
Your experience may be typical depending on your sex.
Same thing happened for me when I turned 36. Might have overlapped with a quiet time on dating apps (winter, covid, nobody feels like getting together).
Part of it might also be hypersensitivity on our side – we think these are important milestones, so we blame the lack of matches on getting older :).
For what it’s worth, things have picked up again after a few weeks.
It’s not about being “old”.
It’s just, much to everyone’s chagrin, we all get older. As we get older, more people exit the dating pool.
There is not one person, man or woman; that doesn’t lose options as they get older.
It might not seem this way for everyone because some people age well, they don’t gain weight, don’t lose hair, maintain large social circles, etc. So their pool stays larger relative to the average person, however, their pool compared to themselves 20 years ago is smaller.
For the vast majority of us, some aspect of aging will shrink our dating pool. That’s not taking into account, every year we get older we (on average) are less desirable to a younger demographic. It doesn’t take into account, people finally meeting their person and settling down shrinking the pool further.
It’s life.
I’m 43 and get more matches than I know what to do with 🤷♀️
Are you only swiping on guys who want to have kids? That’s the main thing aging as a woman will deter.
Wait until you hit 45 then 50…. crickets…
Are you male or female?
If you’re female, then yes, youth matters a lot to a guy, especially the one who wants a kid down the line. It’s just what biology says, and society really. I’m sure there will still be guys interested though.
It’s most likely a filtering thing where people literally aren’t seeing you because anything on the 5/10 is something people often round up or down to. Culturally we also interpret decade markers as significant (my “twenties ” as opposed to my “thirties”) so that’s also a factor even if it’s somewhat arbitrary
There are. A lot of factors effecting your experience on old.
Never underestimate the almighty algorithm. There’s absolutely no telling if it will benefit or hinder you. There is no transparency regarding how it works. But you can rest assured, it is designed for the singular purpose of making old money. *Not* working for it’s users.
Sometimes it makes its self obvious. Last time I was using tinder it kept spamming with adds for a “boost” microtransaction that promised to show my profile to 100 times more people for an hour or so.
And it hit me. If it were showing my profile to everyone who’s filters I fit… it wouldn’t have 100 times more people to show me to. Unless it was just showing me to people who were outside my own filters. Or. It’s just showing me to 100 times less people than it could, on purpose, just to be able to sell me boosts. Which means basically no one is even seeing my profile whenever I’m not paying the free app to show me to people.
Old is fucked my fellow redditor.
I would just say, in general, less people are dating in their 40’s than their 30’s.
That said, plenty of marriages don’t work out so you could end up with some divorcees
Well, shoot. I’m about to have my 39th. Tick tock, says the clock…
Many men who are still single in their 40s-50s want to date women younger than them. This is especially true if they’re still physically attractive, make a decent amount of $, etc.
Before someone comes for me, I didn’t say ALL, but many.
On OKC, I’d see it constantly. Men would set their upper age range to 5-10 years younger than them.
Same happened and notices the same when I turned 30
I noticed a decline at 35. I know of some women who told me after 40 is worse. But try to think of it as people who are self-selecting out of your pool and you may have better matches because of it.
OkC did this to me, the day I turned 46. All of a sudden I was matching women my mom’s age, and none my age. They just aren’t designed for older singles.
>I just had a birthday and noticed a DRASTIC decline in likes and matches on apps. Did I age out of being desirable?
Yes, a lot of people cap their age limits at 39. If you’re a straight woman, you feel this even more. Even some men older than 40 filter out women of the same age and set their maximum at 5-10 younger than themselves. And men slightly younger like mid/late 30s are reluctant to date women even a few years older.
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Are you a man or woman?
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Edit: I can see their being significant differences for each gender.
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Wrong sub, you may want to go over to dating over forty lol.
I noticed the same thing. Turned 40 and suddenly nothing. Makes me wonder how many people have their filters to 39 and younger!
I feel your pain, as a man my OLD is always a ghost town. This gives me some hope though, as I have no problem dating women in their 40s.
Are you a woman? A woman over 40 online dating is gonna have a rough go of it. Men want younger.
Yeah, dating in your 20s is the easiest. Its all downhill the older you get. I was just telling someone that today; I thought I had so many options when I was younger and I had no idea that would change so quickly.
I’ve only ever used apps in my 40s. I’ve always wondered what it’s like for the younger women – has to be pretty intense given what I see at this age.
Shit, I’m 37 and you’d think I’m a dried up old grandma 😂 I think my options are extremely limited because men set their ages so low.
Im a guy and I think my matches went up.
Same thing happened to me. Probably half the matches the day I turned 40.
Do yourself a favor and spend less time on OLD. It’s not an objective sampling of the real world, it’s a curated experience where both users and the platforms themselves are filtering who is visible by a set of very simple and often shallow criteria.
I recently abandoned OLD all together and I get more romantic interest in the real world than I did as an over 40 on the dating apps, IMO because interacting with people in the real world means they’re looking less at the numbers and more at the person.
It’s more about range filters. People usually set them in a fashion like 20-29, 30-39, 40-49 or so on. And most guys using online apps are looking for younger women, so that filter of 40-49 is very little used. Also, the guys who might look for women older than 40 are very different from the ones who look for younger than that. You might want to consider changing some things on your profile.
Also, It helps if next time you state your gender here too. In many cases advice is not the same for a guy than for a woman. I had look into the comments to see if you clarified it. Remember that in the quality of the question lies the quality of the anwer.
Well I am 52 and decently fit and ok looking. The only men who want to meet me are much younger. 🤷♀️
Maybe the algorithm makes profiles less visible above this age to encourage paying for extra features
I hit 38 a few years ago when I got divorced and started using apps. About two years with one match across five apps. Welcome to the club.
I definitely noticed a very steep decline in matches and likes when I hit 39. I assume most guys want kids/marriage, so I’m now out of their ‘ideal’ range. I shudder to think how much smaller the dating pool will be once I clock over to 4-0!