It's personal preference, but basically edge limits that increase over time, like at 15 you're looking at +-6 months, at 20 it might be + or - 1 or 2 years. At 30 you're probably at looking at 5 years either side of 30.
Once you hit 500 the attraction window is so large it becomes mostly irrelevant, and you're judging more on aristocrical lineage and/or aristocrical diet.
It's only a few more years til 1000 (which usually turns out to be a very dull party with no surprise guests) and by that point you're lucky to find anyone attractive.
There's obviously the old 'hurr durr he's over 2000 so he must be gay now' stereotype, but as far as I can tell, attraction isn't cyclical.
They are kind of stuck. They have to find companions who don't have children or responsibilities. The best majority of the people who land in those categories are younger folks.
Be really careful, I couldn't tell which one exactly from your post, but as time goes on, you're going to have to watch out either for people trying to drive a wooden stake through your heart, or chop your head off with a sword to steal your power. Just wanted to toss out a helpful FYI.
On the other side, as someone younger it's hard to date people much older, as they start casually talking about what they did during various wars, or comparing the COVID pandemic to the black plague, and I've just got zero frame of reference to connect.
Everyone much older I've met has been just delightful (I assume the rude ones eventually get murdered by their local townsfolk) but it's just so hard to make that genuine connection when your life experiences are so different, you know?
I'm 55 I find young women very attractive but I wouldn't have sex with them. Sex changes as you get older. It slows down and it's more psychological than physical.
I was starting to question myself here lol everyone acting like a hot 20 year old is no longer hot when you're older meanwhile I see someone I consider attractive they're always attractive, I just won't approach them if they're young.
The only way this doesn't work is "upward" for me. 40s weren't attractive when I was younger but they are now, but a hot 20 year old will always be hot to me (I think).
One of the men I've most respected and most trusted in my life told me once (at the time a teenager) that when he was in his 20s, women in their 20s were so hot and seeing a barely clothed young woman was so hot. But he said that now that he was in his 40s, women in his 40s were so hot and whenever he looked at a woman in her 20s all he could think of was that she could be his daughter and that he just felt protective and there was nothing hot or attractive about her.
I'm a woman, but when I was in my teens and early 20s guys in their teens and early 20s seemed so attractive and anyone older was not it. Now that I'm in my early 30s I'm so attracted to men in their 30s and I look at teens and guys in their early 20s and they just seem like babies to me. I actually deal with a lot of young guys with my work and they're all cool people and I love talking to them, but dating them? Ugh, no thank you. They were in elementary school (or younger) when I was graduating high school. So yeah, I think for a lot of people your goalposts move as you move, and that's not a bad thing. I also am curious as to whether I'll someday find 60 or 70 year old men hot, but I've got a long ways to go.
Consider that "attractive" won't always be skewed so heavily towards appearance. As I've gotten older attitude and personality matters at least as much as physical appearance. When I was 25 I was probably 90/10 (appearance/personality), now (55) I'm probably 40/60.
I think it's rather similar level of maturity and points of interest. Like I may find college students physically attractive, but there's quite a maturity gap between students and people who have been working full time for a couple of years that can be off-putting to me.
You like people you can have a meaningful interactions with, you are more likely to find sexual partners in that group, you fantasize about current or prospective partners, you end up building an attractiveness pattern that matches a certain age group.
Got to be an interaction with our wiring and social constructs. We're mainly wired to get along with our tribe, after all. Makes sense for sexual preferences to naturally hew to social mores.
I'm a lady, not a man. But yes as I have gotten older, my taste has too, I don't know if that goes on forever but mid-50s and (sorry) 30 year old guys look like people who would be dating my kids, they look like kids to me.
Certainly not MOST 50-60 year old guys look good to me but the ones who do, they sure do. Take care of your body, don't get fat, do some exercise. You can look good at 30 without care but not 50, not 60.
So far what I learned, is that many factors play into attraction. Looks are one. A big factor for me is also seeing someone as an equal. Fuck dates are fine with much younger or older ones but dating and a relationship, nop. I want to take the other one serious, I want to be in about the same stage of life experience, to have similar goals and similar pop culture references (tv shows, music, games that we played as kids). Seeing someone as an equal comes with similar age for me.
Being in my 40s, I am relieved to say that I keep finding women attractive that are my age, and I look at people in their 20s as, well, kids. Even in my porn, I keep looking for women more my age.
That's true physically, but also emotionally. There is a humbling nearly all decent people seem to go through in their late 20s to 30s that at this point is a necessary point of bonding for me.
I’d imagine you accept what is realistically available to you. You’d not really have anything in common with people outside a certain window so as you age these “older” people are just your peers from a similar vintage so to speak so a lot of things make sense and are common between you and each year they just happen to be a year older…
I'm pretty sure for me it's just that generational age differences squick me out, so when I was young, guys old enough to be my dad? EEW! But now it's also guys young enough to be my kids, EEW!
I do also agree about the maturity level, but that's not enough different between adults, a 35 year old can be about the same mental maturity as a 60 year old, I can talk so easily to my grown kids and their boyfriend/girlfriends/spouses, they are adults. But I literally don't see people that age as sexy.
There isn't a limit, your tastes on what you consider "attractive" will change over time. When one is young one only thinks on reproduction, and the older one gets, the more prevalent just having someone who you enjoy keeping you company.
just turned 40, i can def tell when someone in their 20s is hot, but I'd be really unlikely to date them. But, for example, meeting some rando at a bar and hooking up is different, as long as everyone is on board with the situation and consents. I've started finding older women attractive more than I would have when I was younger, it's just hard to meet people at this age and covid wasted my late 30s doing nothing
true, i made an assumption. either way, its yuck to date someone fresh out of HS if you're 10, 20, 30, 40+ years older. imo there's no reality where an 18 year old should be dating a 30 year old, even though it is legal
At any age you are, there is a difference between the age you feel and the age your peers look to you.
If you dont spend time around a variety of people you are unlikely to readjust your mental image of what the age you feel looks like.
How many new people do you spend time with on a regular basis.
How do you spend your time?
When we are younger we are constantly put into a situation where you are surrounded by people your own age that you see every week multiple times(typically school and other group based hobbies like sports) but also people who are 1 to 5 years your junior and senior who you may not talk with much but they are still a part of what you encounter all the time.
As you get older this environment shifts. Post highschool students start to see their classmates diversify in age. They are still your peers but age isnt no longer (as much) the defining factor of who you will engage with and work with, but its usually not suddenly all your classmates are now more than a few years older or younger than you.
This starts to expand but also stunt your change in what your perceptionnof what you see around you and who you see as a reflection of what people your age look like.
And those who dont continue education are typically just entering a workforce and now have a lot less people like them around them. Age at work places are much more varied, but its also different depending on the field you work in.
Life starts to get weird in your 20s because its not the same as your experience of the people you see as your own age(among other things).
But we also typically have stopped growing taller by this point. Which i think adds a lot.
So when you as a 20 something now start getting to know people who could be or almost be your parents you have been trained to recognize age as a qualifier, and at 14 you probably should see age as a good indicator of people who are likely to be people you can relate to.
Its easier to see differences than similarities. They jump out at you. Like boiling a frog you dont know that things are changing so you dont react the same way as if you are suddenly hit with it.
Of course this isnt everyones experience, but it does happen enough that its worth giving some thought to.
Yeah. Don’t worry. Everything is gonna be irie. When you’re eighty there’s gonna be some sweet seventy six year old that’ll catch your eye. It’s how it is.
I have heard that you should divide by two and add 7.
I am 40, so that would mean I should be attracted to 27 year olds and up. Generally, it checks out. Caveats may apply, as people are, you know, different.
When I was a teenager, the people who are my age now seemed really old and because of that there was no attraction.
Now when I see a grey hair, or a new wrinkle on my partner it's the hottest thing. We connect with each other about real life, she knows me well and helps me center myself.
I too hope that feeling continues to 60 years old and beyond, and I have a growing suspicion that it will so long as we both continue to work on staying healthy and attractive.
A fire causes harm, your opinion on how unpleasant it is won't change that. On the other hand, the only person who could possibly know your own romantic preferences is you.
You eventually see different-dimensions of attractiveness...
Young women's simple vitality is like a breath of fresh-air in the eyes, after living in the smoggy downtown, -- but .. their minds are too blank.
Sometimes you see gorgeous determination...
Sometimes you see profound depth, pulling at one's soul...
Dwelling deeply in both yoga & meditation can do that, as I discovered a few years ago...
( I hadn't known it'd be visible until seeing it! : )
Sometimes you see delightfully ferrocious multiple-intelligences in a woman...
but our world is so systematic about stomping-out girls' & womens' LivingValidity, LivingWorth, LivingPotential, & LivingOpportunity, that it's too horribly common to see only 1 dimension of pulling-one's-Eternity-to-them, for me, anyways...
I'm committed to ripping my Soul/CellOfGod from the endless-churn-of-OceanOfPhenomena/UniversesStream.
Solitude, Dwelling Within: war against my unconscious-ignorance.
Forever.
Someday one of the someones/personalities/lives that this-Soul has, will get the final breakthrough..
Someday, UniverseContainment will be broken, for this Soul/continuum.
Enlightenment can happen: the basic foundation-realizations exist, so therefore the rest of the structure, already-described long ago, must also exist.