Hi Tina, I am a 25-year-old girl who is not ready to get into a serious relationship with someone close to my own age due to career pressures at present but, I would love to have a no-strings-attached casual relationship with older men in their 40s or 50s.

I have been using Tinder, Bumble and Plenty of Fish to meet older men but sadly I haven't got a match yet.

About me, I'm respectful of people in general and have no judgments about those who don’t want to date older men but I believe most people need some sort of physical intimacy from time to time don't they? I feel a man of that age would be less judgmental.

Could you advise how to succeed in it, please? Thank you.

Tina's Response:

I have always considered Tinder to be for younger people, in other words people of your own age, so really not appropriate if you're trying to date people in their late 40s or 50s.

Bumble seems to be a favourite of the non-Irish according to a couple of my daughter's friends who are in their early 30's. They love to date Brazilians and Continentals who they say are fans of Bumble... not so many hang ups apparently.

Funnily enough, you are the fourth lady who has mailed me recently looking to hook up with older men which makes me wonder, are younger men just not up to the job of attracting and keeping more discerning women being too self absorbed at that age or, whether you ladies are not prepared to accept an ok relationship with a younger guy preferring to date an older man who hopefully knows the ropes from every aspect, sex, dating and knowing how to treat a lady, by that stage, they should have had a few years of heavy duty training!

My daughter says the topic has come up in conversations with several of her girl friends who have shown an interest, well more than interest in older good-looking men as they pass by.

Now before readers start clutching their throats in horror, I'm talking about an age difference of ten, twenty years or even older, they are not children, these ladies are all consenting adults.

You are 25 looking for dates with men in their mid 40s-50s so twenty plus years older than yourself. As I've said before, if it was an older man with a much younger woman as your date would be, no-one would blink an eye and in fact, his friends would probably congratulate him on being able to pull a younger model. Sadly some people automatically assume when it's the other way around that the girl has a father complex.

Recent research suggests that a rising number of younger women are seeking to date older men and older women are seeking younger men who seem more than happy to oblige so basically no one needs to feel left out, everyone gets a bite of the cherry!

One survey found that 81% of women as they get older are open to dating someone 10+ years younger than themselves, and nearly 90% of young men are interested in dating a woman 10 years older or more. That survey was on 22 Sept 2021 so I doubt things have changed too much.

Like most things in life there's an upside and a downside. Older men are possibly divorced or widowed. The downside is, if divorced they have probably lost their home and are still paying a chunk of maintenance if their kids are still at school or college. This doesn't leave a lot of spare cash for wining and dining and holidays abroad.

If you happen to fall for one of these gentlemen, they may not want any more children having been there before and knowing the expense incurred so that's another thing to take into consideration if you're hoping for anything more than a fling. Of course things could be very different and you could end up living together happily ever after.

Older women who date younger men can be more playful. They are more relaxed and in most cases have passed their sell by date for getting pregnant which is an ever present danger for any man not looking for a long term relationship. In other words, an older man has to be careful not to get trapped into looking after yet another child late in life if he dates a much younger woman.

Back to my own acquaintances. A couple of these men have made the leap and are very happy with the outcome saying it's refreshing to be in the company of someone young and lively who is not complaining about her aches and pains, what the kids have done or moaning about their ex husbands. These young girls are just out there to have a good time, no strings attached like yourself!

I recently overheard a younger girl in a cafe who had spent an interesting evening…well night, with what appeared to be a very attractive older man and she was being asked by a male friend how the evening went.

She said, a lady would never divulge, however I will say, 'nothing to teach…everything to learn' was all she was willing to offer…I'd say that was a successful evening wouldn't you!

I think you need to look at some of the older dating, (I hesitate to say adult) websites!

If you Google younger women dating older men, I'm sure lots would come up in searches. I know for older women looking to date younger men there is an Irish Cougar Dating site, Sugar Momma is another one.

Plenty of Fish is free and since you have nothing to lose, I'd be very straight and honest about what you're looking for because you're right, there are a lot of older gentlemen out there who are looking for intimacy from time to time without getting caught up in a long term relationship with all that entails but, please do be careful when using these websites, get to suss the person out properly before heading into lonely places and condoms are a must even if you're on the Pill to avoid STI’s.

At the end of the day, from what my daughter's friends tell me, what you are looking for in a no strings attached, physical intimacy get together is considered perfectly normal amongst the younger crowd so why not mix and match!