Scientists have found that as they age, many men and women want to choose younger and younger partners.
There are many people in this category who prefer to have romantic relationships with people much younger than themselves.
Psychologists and sociologists from the USA, Ireland and the Czech Republic came to this conclusion based on the results obtained from a large-scale study.
They studied data from nearly 36,000 residents of European countries, as well as Israel.
It turned out that at the beginning of a romantic relationship, 25-year-old guys chose partners who were, on average, three years younger than them, that is, 22-year-old girls.
On the contrary, 25-year-old women chose partners who were 3 years older than them, that is, 28-year-old men.
The scientists followed further age trends and found that as the years went by, gentlemen increasingly desired relationships with younger and younger ladies.
The age of women decreased by 1 year for every 5 additional years of life gained by men.
Thus, for 40-year-old men, the desired age difference with a new lover reached 6 years, for 50-year-olds – 8 years, for 60-year-olds – 10 years.
And gentlemen aged 70 and 80 years gave preference to ladies who were 12 and 14 years younger than them.
The situation is approximately the same for women who, after the age of 25, began to choose partners for relationships who were younger than themselves.
For every 10 years of their lives, ladies “reduced” the age of their gentlemen by 1 year.
Since young ladies mostly chose partners older than themselves, by the age of 50-60 they already preferred their peers, and after 60 - younger, by about 1.5-2 years.
