Showing posts with label age. Show all posts
Showing posts with label age. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Older Women Can Still Be Sexy

I recently spent a couple weeks in Europe. While there, I noticed something that genuinely surprised me: older European women are sexy. I found myself attracted to women over the age of 35 or even 45 much more frequently than I do in the U.S., where I almost never notice women over the age of 35. In Europe, it was a regular occurrence.

It didn't take me long to realize why. The difference is obvious. My attraction to these women could be almost completely attributed to the following factors:


This was kind of a revelation to me. I'd thought that wrinkles, loose skin, and thinning hair (the most obvious signs of aging) were the main factors reducing a woman's attractiveness. But this simply isn't true. Feeling my neck instinctively turn and my eyes involuntarily drawn to the hips of these European women as they walked by put an end to that idea. Perfect skin and perfect hair simply don't matter that much. My hormones were saying "YES" over and over again to women without either one.

This was a powerful realization for a couple reasons. The first was the simple satisfaction of realizing that it reinforces a couple points I've been making all along: that feminine beauty is highly controllable and that no women needs to be ugly.

But more importantly, it was powerful because it gave me hope. Yeah that sounds like exaggeration and maybe even a little gay, but it's true. I'd always had this background fear that after getting married and enjoying several years of physical attraction and great sex with my wife, she'd inevitably lose her physical beauty, I'd lose my physical attraction, and sexual fidelity would become a burden. A perpetually satisfying sexual relationship with an aging woman seemed impossible. And given that I never want to cheat on my future wife, that was a pretty disheartening belief. It essentially meant that I had to choose between having a family or a sex life.

I believed this was inevitable because I saw it happening all around me in the United States: the vast majority of women here become unattractive after 35. Physical attraction is by no means everything, but it's pretty damn important. So realizing that I could be legitimately attracted by women over 35 was a huge breath of fresh air. Sure, I'd always known it was possible for women to remain attractive as they age, but in the United States this is a rare exception, and seemingly impossible to predict. In Europe, however, it is the norm. And the fact that almost a whole continent of women can do it proves that it's totally achievable.

But here is the thing: European women don't just happen to wear heels and keep their hair long; it isn't a stroke of genetic luck or some fluke of cultural development. The decision to do those things is rooted in their mindset, in their beliefs. They do these things because as they age, European women continue to think of themselves as sexual beings. The wear dresses and stay in shape because they have zero doubt that they can still be very attractive to the opposite sex - and they are absolutely right.

In the United States, women either don't believe this, or they aren't motivated by American men to do this.* Probably it is some combination of these two factors, but I am skeptical about the importance of the latter, mainly because most European men are pussies, and they still manage to motivate their women to look sexy. Anyway, for the sake of not turning this post into a critique of cultures, I am limiting the discussion to the point about belief - or more specifically, American women's disbelief.

So let's get right to the point: that disbelief is unfounded, because you can totally look sexy to men well into your 50s. The exact same things that make you attractive to men in your 20s continue making you attractive well into your later years; there is no reason to abandon them.

Get rid of this idea that some clothes are "age-inappropriate," or that you have to somehow limit your wardrobe as you get older. The only clothes that are age-inappropriate are those that make women who aren't ready for sex look sexual. If anything, increased age should expand your wardrobe, since you'll be more confident, have stronger boundaries, and therefore be able to pull off sexier looks.

Nope, you don't need more makeup, and you don't need a boob job. Yes, believe it or not, your body is still sexy in spite of the wrinkles and grey hairs. Shit, I don't care if your hair is completely grey. If you are in good shape and you dress in a feminine, sexual manner, you are going to give men erections for a long, long time. The male need for Viagra says just as much about women's unwillingness to think of themselves as sexually desirable beings as it says about the impotence of their men.

Yeah it might be tough to see yourself getting older, especially in light of knowing how much men care about looks. I get that. But it is flat-out wrong and incredibly short-sighted to think that just because you are on a downward slope, the game is over.

Remember this as you age. And for those of you already well past your prime, recognize that it is never too late to reverse your thinking. You can still be sexy; you just need to make an effort and shed these puritanical American ideas. True, you'll be fighting your culture in doing so, and you'll have to learn to come to terms with looks of disapproval from the women who decided that it was acceptable to wear sneakers to the grocery store. But if your personal style is rooted in a firm belief about the kind of woman you want to be, you'll see those criticisms for what they are: comments from women motivated primarily by jealousy and the will to believe they don't have to work.

---------------------------------------
* Some people might argue that American women stop trying to be sexy because the ones who get married and have children foster a culture that prioritizes raising children over being sexually attractive. This might be true, but it misses the point. The error lies not in American women's efforts to be good mothers, but in their belief that this somehow precludes being sexy. There is no reason why women can't do both, as evidenced by European women, who are also great mothers. In fact, this is a topic for another post, but I would argue that you actually can't be a great mother without continuing to think of yourself as a sexual being.


Related Posts
1. Female Game for Women in Their 30s
2. The Advantage of Dating After 30
3. Some Older Women Are Smart
4. What Men Think About Older Women

Friday, February 15, 2013

The Advantage of Dating After 30

Two women step out of their front doors on a Friday night in New York City. It is the middle of winter and a light snow is just starting to fall. Both women are dressed up and heading out to meet with their respective friends for some drinks. One woman is 23 years old and the other is 32. Both are single and want little more than to ultimately find true love.

The 23-year-old has had one serious boyfriend in her life. She slept with him during all of the 3 years they dated, until he broke up with her soon after they graduated from college. She recently had an exciting night of sex with a guy she met in a bar who was incredibly attractive. He had seemed interested in her - he was even affectionate in bed; but now he isn't calling. In the back of her mind she knows there will be attractive men out tonight, and she is hoping to eventually meet someone she can date seriously. However, she hasn't thought too much beyond the evening and maybe the start of a relationship. Right now, the excitement and nervousness of going to a high-end nightclub for the first time occupies her mind, as she grew up and went to college in the rural South where all they had were a few dive bars.

The 32-year-old has had five "official" boyfriends in her life. She's slept with eight men - four were her boyfriends and two were guys she was "just dating." They seemed interested but faded away after sex. The other two were drunken one-night stands during college, before she knew better - or more accurately, when she learned better. She is growing more and more self-conscious and concerned about the fact that she is still single in her thirties. While she knows she was probably too immature to get married previously, she also knows that her friends and extended family have started raising eyebrows. However, in the past two years she's really started to see trends and mistakes in her dating history, and she encountered a few ideas in books and online, and these have really changed her outlook. She knows now what she did wrong before. While she knows Manhattan is a horrible place for a single girl to live, she hasn't lost hope yet.

As the 23-year-old gets out of her cab in front of the nightclub where she'll meet her friends, the sharp cold bites at her face. It excites her because she only recently moved north, and this is the first time she's gone out to party in the snow. Stepping out onto the busy Manhattan sidewalk wearing high heels and her her new coat, she feels like she is on the set of Sex and The City, or one of her favorite romantic comedies. If she is honest with herself, she sort of expects to meet a guy in New York, though she definitely isn't ready to get married. She has a career and other aspirations to meet before she is ready to settle down.

As the 32-year-old gets out of the cab in front of the lounge where she'll meet her friends, the sharp cold bites at her face. It reminds her of the time three years ago when she first met her ex boyfriend. It was snowing then, too. She'd seen him looking at her earlier across the bar she was at with her friends, but he didn't approach. Then, by fate (she knows now it was just coincidence), they had both walked out of a bar at the same time (closing time). She'd been a little tipsy and given in when her girlfriends pressured her to go ask him for his number. It had felt a bit strange to do it, but in the end they dated for eight months, so for a while she thought it was the right move - at least until he dumped her for a girl who he said was more "his type."

The 23-year-old meets her girlfriends, who are waiting in a big crowd at the velvet rope outside the nightclub. The single question that consumes her mind is whether or not she is hot enough to be let inside. She starts to feel nervous. She knows she is hot, but the other girls waiting to get in look like supermodels. But as the bouncer lifts the rope and chooses her and her friends before all the others, her excitement and ego both skyrocket. "I love nightclubs already" she thinks to herself, as she looks over her shoulder and sees the other girls outside in the cold, watching with jealously as she walks through the door. She feels sorry for the few girls who were clearly older than the others - probably over 30; they definitely aren't getting in.

The 32-year-old meets her two girlfriends at an upscale lounge that they've come to like, mostly because it is never too loud and has a good layout, conducive to meeting new people. It doesn't hurt that the men who go there are generally older professionals, men who have their shit together and don't drink until they fall down. They pick a good spot at the bar and order a drink. They've arrived early so the crowd is still a bit sparse, but this gives them time to actually hang out and talk before anyone else arrives and they get involved in other conversations. As the 32-year-old orders her drink, she chats with the bartender for a bit, because she knows that even a brief conversation with a stranger (male or female) will get her into a more social mood, which might help later if any men want to talk to her. She learned that trick when she first moved to the city and sometimes went out alone. In fact, she'd met one of the girls she was with tonight that way.

The 23-year-old is amazed by the decor and energy inside the club - she's never seen anything like it. She feels like a celebrity, surrounded by the dancers, the music, the lights, the men - the men! Through the heavy club atmosphere she sees them and wonders who these guys are... standing on couches, dancing with beautiful women and drinking expensive champagne by the bottle. Some of them look like they might be famous but she isn't sure. Almost all of the men are drunk already. A guy standing next to her, who looks a bit out-of-place in his simplicity (though he is fairly attractive), raises his voice to ask her what she thinks about the DJ tonight, adding that he would prefer more popular music, but overall he was quite good. "He is good" she says without making eye contact, but she turns away immediately. "What a stupid question," she thinks to herself (though if she is honest, she also admits that she didn't really know what to say in response). She wonders how she can get an invite to drink at one of the tables...

The 32-year-old returns to her friends after her conversation with the bartender to find that a tall, very stylish and attractive man was asking her friends if they could introduce him to her. Her friends oblige, and he immediately isolates her from the group. This screams "predator" to her, but she knows that not all men have great game, so she doesn't bail yet. They talk for a few minutes, but the 32-year-old is further turned off by his constant smirk and the way he keeps touching her arm. She's met men like this before - in fact, one of her ex boyfriends approached her with the same cocky, sexual demeanor. They dated for about a year, but that transparent facade of pseudo-confidence remained throughout the relationship. She eventually dumped him and now considers the whole year wasted - at least from a dating perspective. When the arm-touching becomes a little too much to handle, she tells him it was nice to meet him and politely excuses herself to use the restroom.

The 23-year old and her friends are approached by a bouncer who invites them to drink with "some gentlemen at the VIP table." They gladly agree, and follow the bouncer as he ushers them through the crowd like celebrities. The "gentlemen" welcome them with free shots of a vodka, which looks like it is top-shelf (she gets a glimpse of the label; it is called Stolichayna or Stolishnaya - something like that. It looks so exotic - Russian, she thinks.) The 23-year-old takes a liking to the only guy at the table dressed in a suit; he is very good-looking and seems to be the leader, even though she guesses he is only 24 or 25. She is sure that she can have him because she knows she is hotter than her friends. By now she is getting fairly drunk and they start to dance. After several minutes his hands are holding her waist (she loves that feeling) and they kiss. He sits down with her to "take a break from dancing" and they start to make out on the couch. The music and alcohol drown out everything else and she is lost in the moment...

The 32-year-old returns from the bathroom. Her two friends are now talking to a group of three guys, one of whom is listening more than participating. She can tell from his posture that is isn't shy or socially awkward - but rather patient. This interests her. She intentionally positions herself  right next to him as she re-joins the group. He introduces himself and they start to make small talk. She wouldn't have picked him out from the crowd for his looks, but his understated and confident demeanor is confirmed and grows on her as they talk. A couple times he mentions things in passing that really spike her interest. She would stop him and ask him to elaborate but she is also interested in what he is telling her at the moment. He is clearly experienced and intelligent, and she judges that he is probably at least in his mid-thirties. Although he is older, she's learned over time that this is better than the opposite. At one point it crosses her mind how glad she is to be in a venue where she can hear him clearly. Conversations like this were always impossible in the nightclubs she used to go to in her twenties. Their conversational chemistry is great, and they continue talking for almost two hours...

The 23-year-old is hammered by the time the lights come on at closing time, and she considers herself the luckiest girl in the club because of the guy she "picked up." He invites her back to his hotel room to "keep the party going." Despite her drunkenness, she hesitates. She knows she doesn't want to sleep with him - she remembers how that turned out last time. But she agrees to go anyway, reasoning to herself that she can always tell him no later. As he takes her hand and leads her out of the club and into a taxi, she catches a glimpse of the out-of-place guy who'd asked her about the DJ at the beginning of the night. He has a strangely smug look on his face as she trips into the cab with the guy in the suit. It occurs to her as they pull away in the taxi that the suited guy still hasn't asked for her name...

The 32-year-old is still talking to the quiet-but-confident guy when she realizes it is already a few minutes past midnight. Normally she leaves bars by 11 pm, but she really wasn't paying close attention to the time tonight. She tells him that she really needs to get home so that she can get up at a reasonable hour for her workout. He asks her for her name and then her phone number. She knows this drill; she'd been through it probably a hundred times before, but her gauge of personalities has gotten better and better over the years. She has a pretty good feeling about this guy, so she decides to give him her last name too. He suggests that they should meet up next week sometime for coffee. They say goodnight and go their separate ways. As she walks out the door, she catches a glimpse of the cocky, stylish guy that had approached her earlier. He had obviously been watching in confused surprise as she gave the less-attractive guy her number. "Filtered him out." she thought as she smiled to herself and slipped out the front door and into a passing cab. "Wouldn't have done that ten years ago..."


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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Male Age and Attractiveness

When I first published the post Your Age and Your Attractiveness (which graphically illustrates the change in a woman's attractiveness as she ages) I received a number of requests to create similar charts for men. I declined, since - being a straight male - I didn't consider myself an objective judge of male attractiveness. And anyway it was outside of the scope of this blog.

But recently I was reading an interesting post on Hooking Up Smart, and I followed a link to another post that does exactly what those readers requested of me - it plots male attractiveness against time, and even breaks it down into its primary components. I've included the main plot on the right, but the post is definitely worth a read. Here is the link:

The Socionist: Male Attractiveness Over Time

It is a striking complement to the post I wrote on here. There are a lot of similarities. The author discusses variations on typical attractiveness curves and his plots are similarly generated. In fact, if he didn't write his a couple months before mine I'd probably start throwing around accusations of plagiarism. But he did, so I should probably start expecting one from him...


Related Posts
1. Your Age And Your Attractiveness
2. Some Older Women Are Smart
3. Don't Let a Guy Waste Your Most Eligible Years
4. What Men Think About Older Women

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Some Older Women Are Smart

"You want to check out Vin de Syrah?" I asked my brother, as we walked up Fifth Avenue.

"Yeah sounds good. I liked that place last time."

"OK, but I need to piss pretty bad... let me run into Seersucker right here and use the bathroom, then we'll go."

Seersucker is a newer, swankier bar in the Gaslamp area of San Diego and has quickly become a popular place for people in their thirties. The crowd is generally a little classier and more mature than in most of the surrounding bars and nightclubs, but the women are usually older - even though they know how to dress and present themselves well.

I knew we'd only be in there a few minutes, but as we walked through the crowd towards the bathroom I couldn't help but to scan the crowd for girls. Two immediately caught my attention. They were both attractive, and although I could tell that they were probably a couple years older than me, one was definitely my type. She had long, black, straight hair and light skin, with dark eyes and a wide smile. More importantly, she was wearing a small, tight cocktail dress and high heels. There was no way I could leave without at least trying to talk to her.

In the bathroom I asked my brother "Did you see those two girls? The dark-haired one had a slamming hot body. She looks a little older than me, but she is gorgeous, and that dress and those heels are ridiculous. I just want to talk to her quickly before we leave."

On the way out I walked over and said hello and started talking to them. They were friendly, and we had a fun conversation. A couple times I took a natural opportunity to look down at the dark-haired woman's body, and I almost had to stop myself from drooling. It was impeccable. I wanted to tear off that tiny dress and handle her small, perfect, frame. After seeing the girls up-close, though, my suspicion about their age was confirmed. When they asked about my brother's and my ages, I asked them how old they were. The one I liked was 29 and her beauty was clearly starting to fade. Five years ago should would have been a ten. That night she was probably about an eight.

Our conversation was interrupted by another guy who wanted to talk to the girls. He had zero game, and the interaction turned awkward quickly. The girls excused themselves to go to the bathroom.

"Never let a girl choose to leave the interaction and then be found waiting for her to come back," I told him, imparting one lesson I'd learned a few times the hard way. "You will look like a chump. Let's go sit at the bar until they come out." And that is what we did.

A few minutes later they walked out of the restrooms. I could tell they were looking around for us where we'd been talking to them earlier. They didn't see us, so they started making motions to leave the bar. As they walked past us on the way to the door, I caught eye contact with them and asked them if they were heading out. I had to get the dark-haired girl's phone number. I knew from how smoothly the conversation went earlier that she would give it to me. I knew that I couldn't date a girl her age, but neither could I resist that body and hair.

We made small talk for a few moments about where they were going next, then they started towards the door again.

"Before you go, let me take your phone number." I said to the dark-haired girl as I pulled out my phone. "I'd like to talk to you again."

The dark-haired girl laughed. "You want to take my number?" she asked, amused. "But you're 28!"

"Yeah, haha, I know. And you are 29. Listen, the only girl I've loved was a year older than me. It can work." I said this - truthfully - as I opened a new contact in my phone, ignoring her resistance - which I assumed was just an attempt to see how serious I was about her. It might be true that I was too young for her, but I knew that wishful thinking prevented most women from actually acknowledging this, so the possibility didn't cross my mind.

At this point, any other girl who had shown as much attraction to me as this girl would have stepped in to look over my shoulder as I put her number into my phone. But this girl's body language didn't include even the slightest motion towards granting my request. She literally laughed it off. I forget now exactly what she said next, but in that moment I realized that she was absolutely serious in her refusal, despite of how playful she was about communicating it. The sum total of her words and body language said "Ha! You must think I am stupid if you think I am going to give my phone number to a guy younger than me. You know as well as I do that it won't go anywhere; don't play dumb. I like you, but let's not be naive here. Goodnight."

As she said "Goodnight," and walked out the door with her friend. I sat there, stunned and confused, as my brother and I watched them walk out the door into the street.

"What the hell was that?" I asked my brother. But the question was rhetorical, because I knew exactly what it was. It was smart.


Related Posts
1. Your Age and Your Attractiveness
2. What Men Think About Older Women
3. Don't Let a Guy Waste Your Most Eligible Years
4. The Advantage of Dating Over 30

Saturday, February 4, 2012

What Men Think About Older Women

I spent about a year dating almost exclusively women older than myself. What follows are my observations from that time in my life. For the purpose of this post, by "older women" I do not mean old women or women of any certain age or age range; I mainly mean women who are older than the man in question.

Older women are easier to have sex with. 
Older women are more confident and comfortable around men - especially younger men, since they know that their experience cancels out some of his natural power over her. This translates into sexual openness. Some men know that older women are easier to nail, which is often why they pursue them. Older women should be cynical about younger men who claim they want to date seriously, or remain silent about commitment.

Older women are not as physically attractive as younger women.
This is obvious. Women peak somewhere in their twenties for external attractiveness. All honest men acknowledge this, as do most women. In general, men disagree about the age at which women "peak" - partially because it varies depending on the woman and partially because guys have different taste. But I think it also has to do with the difficulty that men have distinguishing between external and internal attractiveness; often the latter is confused for the former.

Older women are still pretty hot. A woman's attractiveness doesn't take a swan dive after 30. It tapers out slowly and often quite gracefully - far more slowly than it arises in a girl's late teens. The rate of the decline is obviously affected by her genetics and lifestyle, but it is also largely a function of how willing she is to accept that decline gracefully. I think the women who become ugliest due to age are the ones that recognize they are getting older, wrongly assume that they are no longer beautiful, and therefore stop their gym membership, cut their hair short and give up. Some women go instead to the opposite extreme, getting plastic surgery or increasing their make up until they over-compensate. Neither of these is the appropriate or confident response to the onset of aging (in the same way that wearing a toupee is a poor response to the onset of male baldness, for example). An acceptance of reality is the best response, and the reality is not nearly as bad as so many women believe. Although most men of course prefer the looks or bodies of women in their twenties, we would still love to fuck those same women well into their forties - assuming they take care of themselves.

Guys interested in long term relationships will not consider older women seriously.
On a few occasions I was dating women who were older by six to ten years, and really enjoyed their beauty and company. However, when it came time to cut it off or have a relationship, I cut it off. Reconsidering my motivations for those decisions now, I recognize one that dominated the others: despite my attraction for those women at the time, I didn't want to look around myself ten years later and see a hotter, younger girl - closer to my own age - and think "I could have been with a girl like that instead." When my wife starts aging, I want the other girls I could have had (i.e. those in my age-range) to be aging with her, so that I won't be constantly reminded of the sacrifice I made to be with her - even if it was one I know was worth it. The grass is already always greener on the other side, and a man doesn't need an age disparity contributing to that effect when his woman starts losing her initial shine.

Older women are more internally attractive than younger women. 
Older women have miles more personality than younger women. Since the time when I dated older women (a couple years ago now), I've found one, maybe two girls younger than me that I was attracted to and able to connect with - out of all the women I've encountered or even dated. Older women are simply more interesting to be around. This is because of the natural accumulation of experiences over time. Older women are more confident than younger women, because they know themselves and the world better. Their words carry more weight because they have experienced what they are talking about. They are comfortable in their own skin. They are relaxed in social settings. Perhaps most importantly, they are not afraid of men, so their inhibitions in a man's presence are less severe. All of this allows for an openness that makes a date or casual interaction much more enjoyable.


Related Posts
1. Your Age and Your Attractiveness
2. Some Older Women Are Smart
3. Don't Let a Guy Waste Your Most Eligible Years

Friday, January 27, 2012

Don't Let a Guy Waste Your Most Eligible Years

If you are interested in getting married, you need to be well aware of the fact that you are probably most attractive sometime in your mid- to late-twenties. This means that your mid- to late-twenties are the years in which you are most likely to attract the highest quality man you can get. And while I've written a fair amount about maximizing your attractiveness, it all counts for nothing if you aren't single when the right guy comes along, or if you aren't putting yourself out there because you are involved with someone who is only half-committed to you. So in addition to looking your best, you need to make sure you aren't spending time in dead-end relationships.

Time and time again I see or hear about girls who allow a guy to date them for three or four years in their twenties without proposing. This blows my mind. I understand that these girls are holding out in the hope of eventually getting a proposal, but they don't give enough consideration to the possibility that they'll be strung along for another two or three years, only to have him decide that he wants someone else - or worse yet, someone younger. Combine this with a girl's reduced odds of finding someone (let alone someone better) once she begins to age and things begin to fall into perspective; it seems crazy to consider dating someone for more than a year without a very strong confidence about the direction in which the relationship is heading.

If the same graph showed the value of a house you owned over time, there is no way in hell you'd be renting it out for long periods of time between 20 and 30 years, when it's value is highest. You would either leave it vacant during that time for prospective buyers, or at most, only agree to month-to-month leases so that it would be available to sell when a buyer came along with a good price. You'd also be actively advertising the property, because you'd want to take advantage of its high value. I'll let you draw the analogy.

Don't give a guy your most eligible years with nothing to show for it. This is bullshit. If you ultimately want to get married and your current relationship isn't constantly growing stronger (i.e. approaching something permanent), then you need to start asking questions. And if you aren't getting satisfactory answers, it is time to look elsewhere. The clock is ticking.

Furthermore, your time is your responsibility - not his. For better or worse, men will not make commitments that aren't required of them. If he isn't taking things to the next level when you think it is appropriate, break up with him. You can do this nicely, and you should explain your reasoning clearly, but you should still break up with him. More easily said than done? Probably. But it is the best move nonetheless. If he really wants you, he will try to get you back; but if he doesn't, remember: during your most eligible years, you are better off being back on the market than tied up in a dead-end relationship.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Your Age And Your Attractiveness


Notes:
  1. These curves are based on observation and careful thought, not empirical data.
  2. Internal attractiveness consists of personality, femininity, openness, etc.
  3. External attractiveness consists of weight, natural looks, hair, clothes, etc.
  4. Percentage of potential means the level a woman achieves relative to what she could achieve, taking into account uncontrollable limitations such as body shape (not to be confused with weight), facial structure, etc.
  5. Combined attractiveness is a weighted average of internal and external attractiveness. 
    • Internal attractiveness is weighted at 40 % importance.
    • External attractiveness is weighted at 60 % importance.
  6. Don't pay too much attention to the values on the vertical axis. What matter more here are the rough values on the horizontal axis, i.e. when the peaks or changes occur.
  7. This is typical, not representative of all women. See this page for example variations.
  8. Other sources have real studies that are interesting and tend to agree with this illustration.

While I think this plot can largely speak for itself, I do want to highlight and qualify a few things.

The graph is not meant to hone in on the exact age of peak attractiveness. Don't draw conclusions based on the peak (A) occurring at 32 rather than 29 or 33. Instead, draw conclusions based on the peak occurring at 32 rather than 22 or 26 (which are more typical assumptions). More importantly, consider that although physical attractiveness peaks at one point (C), internal attractiveness plateaus later (D). While the "late" (i.e. post-30) peak in overall attractiveness is likely to draw some criticism, I doubt that such criticism is honest, or considers a woman's internal attractiveness. Furthermore, a recent study seems to back up this conclusion.

I shaped the curves for internal and external attractiveness separately, without giving consideration to each's effect on the combined curve. When I plotted internal and external attractiveness combined, and saw the "lull" in the early twenties (A), I was a little surprised. But upon reflection, it made sense. The "lull" is the point where a girl looks beautiful but has yet to come into herself. She is hot but boring to spend time with. So many girls in their early twenties are this way. Their overall attractiveness stalls until they develops their personality throughout their twenties. Some women never make this internal development, as illustrated in one of the example variations, posted here.

Notice that the full potential for combined attractiveness is never reached, because the peak of internal and external attractiveness do not occur simultaneously. While this is not always the case, I think it is often so, because women tend to spend their effort on looks or personality at different times in their life.

Notice, too, how the decline in external attractiveness is ameliorated by the increase in internal attractiveness, flattening out the decline.

Read Next: American Women Are the Best

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