16 years later

They finally notice. Feelings versus reality:

Women feel invisible to the opposite sex at the age of 51, it emerged yesterday. A detailed study of 2,000 women revealed a large percentage felt they no longer received the level of attention they once did after hitting 51.

Many even went as far as to admit they felt ‘ignored’.

The women claimed their confidence plummeted after hitting 50 and blamed greying hair, having to to wear glasses or even struggling to find fashionable clothes.

This is mildly amusing for two reasons. First, welcome to equality. No one notices 99 percent of the men of any age, unless they are less than three years old. Second, the idea that men pay attention to women who are 49, or 45, or even 40, is absurd. 35 is probably the maximum age at which men pay any noticeable attention to strange women in public.

There are the occasional outliers, of course, just as the most exceptional men will command female attention in public. But, for the most part, men don't pay attention to unknown women over 35. This doesn't mean that women cease to be attractive at that age, only that they're no longer on the radar of the average male stranger.

I don't understand why this should be either surprising or upsetting to women. Men don't expect to remain competitive athletes for long outside their twenties; I'm years away from 51 and I'm already the second-oldest player on my veteran's soccer team.

Posted in: Rules of Attraction