Is it true that age is only just a number? See how members of the popular dating website, NaughtyDate.com feel about the topic.
When it comes to online dating, people always feel one way or another. Either you should date within your age bracket or throw caution into the wind and date whomever you want — regardless of age. The problem with that is if you do decide to date outside of your bracket, you become a discussion piece and you and your partner become the focus of some not so nice discussions. Women who tend to date older men are seen as gold diggers and women who date younger guys are viewed as cougars and “preying” on the naiveté of the young men.
NaughtyDate.com was intrigued by this age old (no pun intended) debate and decided to ask its members what are their views on age gaps while dating. You may be surprised by what some people said.
The Poll
We started off the poll fairly mildly. We asked our members what is an acceptable age gap between the people dating. 40 percent of the male members believe that there is no age limit when it comes to dating; however 42 percent of the ladies feel that an acceptable age gap is between 5 to 10 years difference.
To further explain these results, we asked what age group our members preferred to date. 33 percent of both men and women preferred to date younger than themselves, whereas only 7 percent of men liked the older ladies and 42 percent of women enjoyed the company of the silver foxes. It is safe to say that the majority of men (46 percent) really doesn’t care about the age of their partner.
So, the age may not play a factor when it comes to dating, but what does people really want when it comes to their ideal partner? You may think that the vast majority of men want to date women who are under 25 years old. Surprise surprise — only 16 percent of the fellas want a serious relationship with the 25 and under crowd, and even more interesting, zero percent of women find this age group to be ideal for an ideal mate. Could it be because the under 25 crowd are probably not ready to settle down?
The Benefits
So, now that we have a better understanding of what age groups the men and women look for, we had to know why. Surely there is no coincidence that women prefer to date older men and vice versa. We asked men and women the same question of the benefits of dating people older than them. 67 percent of men and 58 percent of women that were polled stated they choose to date older individuals is because they are more mature than those of the same age or younger. Along with maturity, 25 percent of men and 33 percent of women feel the older generations are more sophisticated and have more respect than the younger counter parts.
One thing that may surprise you though is that 8 percent of men stated they date older women for financial security, whereas 8 percent of women date older men to get that father figure in their lives. When we asked the group what was the top reason they chose to date younger, 40 percent of men and 67 percent of women stated they wanted to reclaim some of the energy they had when they were younger.
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