One of the things that bothered me on PoF and OKCupid was the fact that so many of my matches didn’t fit my personal preferences. Again, I wasn’t making a judgement call when I said I wanted a guy with a college education who wasn’t a smoker. It boiled down to personal preference.
Why have the options if they’re going to be ignored?
Since I wasn’t finding what I was looking for, I decided to take my search to another level. That’s when I signed up for Elite Singles.
They claim that 80% of their users have a college education and beyond.
They weren’t lying. The vast majority of matches I was sent were doctors or did other jobs in the healthcare industry. I think there might have been a lawyer or two in there, as well as some engineers. Plenty of professors, as well.
Elite Doesn’t Mean Better
Elite Singles may have had men with higher educations, but I still didn’t find a match. As I was scrolling through my options, one thing I kept noticing was that under the “Do you want to have kids” option, many of them had said “Yes” or “At some point in the future.” This didn’t work for me at all.
Now, I understand that there are women out there who have kids in their 40s, and that’s totally fine. They can do what they want, and I’m going to do what I want.
I’m getting to the point in life where I don’t want to deal with diapers and getting up in the middle of the night. My kids are in double digits, and I’m happy they are testing boundaries and trying to become independent. The teen years are about to be in full swing in my house, and I’m dreading and looking forward to them.
I’m getting to the point in life where I want to see what’s beyond kids. What does life have in store for me when the kids finally start having lives of their own?
With that in mind, as I was looking at these profiles, I was thinking: “Who are they planning on having kids with?”
As a curious person, I decided to do some research to find out if men in the 40+ age category wanting kids was an occurrence that happened often.
Know what I found?
It is.
Older Men and Younger Women
If you come across a man who is 40+ and hasn’t been married and doesn’t have kids, chances are they structured their life that way. They decided to focus on their career to make sure they were financially secure before finally settling down. Some women take this route as well.
When these men finally feel good about where they are in their careers, they decide it’s time to start a family. Like so many others in this world, they turn to dating apps to help them find the perfect partner.
Most of these guys aren’t looking for women in their age bracket. Not only is it rare to find a middle-aged woman who wants to have babies late in life, but there’s also the fear of health concerns for baby and mom.
More often than not, these men are looking for women in the 27-35 age bracket.
Now, there are younger women who are looking for older men to have a relationship with. However, what I found in my research is that most women who are in their late twenties, early thirties are completely blindsided and confused when they get messages on the dating app from men who are as old as their dads.
Because here’s the thing: younger women who are looking for partners to start a family with generally want someone close to their age. This increases the chances that the father will still be around when the kid graduates from high school and that they’ll have the energy to play with their offspring and raise them.
That, of course, is a blanket statement, as I’m fully aware that there are people in their 60s and 70s who are in great shape. But the truth is: raising kids is hard work, and there’s a reason why most people are young when they take on the task!
There is, of course, men who are just looking to date younger women for whatever reason, so they overlook women in their age bracket. That’s fine. That’s their preference. I’m not gonna fault them for having filters.
Other Elite Issues
The other issue I ran into on Elite is the fact that there weren’t a lot of options within my distance requirements. In fact, I think out of the entire state, I was given three (maybe four) options.
This could be due to the fact that it costs to use the Elite dating app. There was a free option, but it didn’t get you much. I knew this going in, and I was willing to pay to see what I could find. Turns out, it was a waste of money.
I did connect with one guy on there. He was a psychiatrist somewhere on the East Coast. He wasn’t my type, although he seemed nice enough. We chatted for a while, but then I was just done.
By this point in time, I was becoming incredibly disillusioned with the whole dating app thing. It was not what I expected, and it was taking more energy than I was willing to expend.
Eventually, I took down all of my profiles and deleted the apps. I lost money in the process, but I gained some peace of mind.
Tune in next week to see what lessons I learned during my mis-adventures in dating!
