I’m pleased to announce that, based on your submissions, I can declare myself the unequivocal winner of my argument with Dr. F. I will inform her of this result when we meet tomorrow at 9 am. For those of you who missed the discussion (where were you?), the question at stake was whether or not, as I controversially asserted, a woman’s attractiveness to men can be said to diminish with age.
Of the readers who took part in the survey who had an opposite-sex partner, in 1 case the woman was older, and in the 5 other cases the man was older. Moreover, while the difference in age within most couples was only a year or so, there were a couple of female-male couples in which the man was 5 or 6 years older than the woman.
So, I now have evidence to back up my startling claim that men, in general, prefer slightly younger women, and that aging therefore disadvantages women interested in men. It does also seem significant to the duck-rabbit that the only female reader who took part in the survey whose partner is younger, and, I will say, significantly younger, is a woman partnered with another woman.
Interesting.
Speaking of which, I thought you might also find of interest some demographic data on my readers that I’ve put together based entirely on the information provided by the highly representative sampling of readers who took part in my survey.
- Percentage of readers who are women: 86
- Percentage of readers who are academics: 57
- Percentage of readers who are academics partnered with other academics: 25
- Percentage of readers who left academia to pursue other endeavors: 29
- Percentage of readers whose partner works in the film industry: 29
- Percentage of readers whose partner works in the film industry who live in Los Angeles: 0
- Percentage of readers who live in England: 43
- Percentage of readers who are English: 29
- Percentage of readers who live much too far away: 71
- Percentage of readers who went to Harvard: 71
- Of readers who attended Harvard, percentage who lived with the duck-rabbit while they were there: 50
- Of those readers who lived with the duck-rabbit, percentage who are still friends with it: 100
- Percentage of readers who learned to drive from the same driving instructor as the duck-rabbit: 14
- Percentage of readers who have driven the duck-rabbit somewhere: 100
- Percentage of readers whom the duck-rabbit has driven somewhere: 0
- Percentage of readers who are listed in the duck-rabbit’s book’s Acknowledgements: 100
- Percentage of readers listed in the duck-rabbit’s book’s Acknowledgements whose names are spelled correctly: 100. Ahem.
- Percentage of readers who have interviewed the duck-rabbit for an academic job: 14
- Percentage of readers with whom the duck-rabbit has studied for an exam: 29
- Percentage of readers with whom the duck-rabbit has exchanged hilarious notes during a class: 29
- Percentage of readers who sign their emails to me with xxxxs: 43
- Percentage of readers who modeled for me when I was practicing life drawing: 14
- Percentage of readers for whom I have served as a life drawing model: 14
- Percentage of readers who have baked me a cake: 43
- Percentage of readers whom I’ve heard use the word “Pshaw!” non-ironically as an exclamation: 14
- Percentage of readers with whom I’ve shared a changing room while trying on clothes: 57
- Percentage of readers whom I called the day after my Dad died: 14
- Percentage of readers whom I texted while my water was breaking: 14
- Percentage of readers who’ve seen me cry: 57
- Percentage of readers who’ve seen me wearing a sari: 29
- Percentage of readers with whom I’ve danced: 71
- Percentage of readers with whom I’ve jetéd, ineptly, across the floor: 14
- Percentage of readers with whom I’ve watched Indonesian dance: 29
- Percentage of readers with whom I’ve eaten gingersnap-molasses ice-cream while watching Clueless: 14
- Percentage of readers to whom I’ve declared, “I love you,” in writing: 43
- Percentage of readers to whom I’ve declared, “I love you,” in writing who are the same readers who have baked me a cake: not as big as you might think.
- Percentage of readers with whom I’ve agreed to live when everyone else we know has died: 14
- Percentage of readers named after a character in a Thomas Hardy novel: 14
- Percentage of readers for whose friendship I am deeply grateful: 100
I’m delighted to hear that you’ve passed more students on to Ivan! What percentage of those also took surfing lessons from him?
Ahh … I see your confusion: I have not in fact passed more students onto Ivan: you and you alone constitute the 14 percent of readers (out of the total of 7 readers who responded to my poll and who therefore constituted my entire sample) with whom I shared a driving instructor. You ARE the 14 percent!
Btw, it looks like The Guardian has your back: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/21/why-are-older-men-looking-at-women-half-their-age
I just read it. God, it’s depressing. But she articulated exactly what I suspected: that over the course of their forties women gradually become invisible to men their own age.
I found this bit quite funny, when the 50-year old woman canvases her male friend of the same age, to see where he stands:
“You’re not like that, though, are you? Given a choice, you’d pick the older, more interesting woman, the passionate, well-read, intrepid, low-maintenance woman.”
“Nice of you to think so,” Jack said. “But I’d go for the firm arse and tits, always, without question.”
Percentage of readers who think about everything they enjoy in terms of “I’d like that at my funeral” : (at least) 7. Percentage of readers who think you should insist that biography in a list should be read out at your (may it be many years from now) funeral: (at least) 7. As one of those with whom you will have been living, in unattractive to men and none the sadder for it decrepitude, I will make sure it happens. Should I go first, you’ll be in charge of making sure of my playlist and flowers…
Deal.