The Effort

There are a number of hiking trails that you can travel when you go to one of our beautiful National Parks such as Olympic (pictured above). The trails range from easy to difficult; from short to long. How far you hike depends on how much time you want to spend and the effort you’re willing to expend.

That's the same way it goes for hitting the trails, uh, bars and nightclubs, and seeking out women. Let me remind you, As I've pointed out numerous times, it's up to the male to make first contact.  So the male must carefully weigh if making the effort is worth the time, money and emotional risk.

It can be perilous, but often the journey is as enjoyable as the destination.

I bring this up because as I age I have made some changes in my evaluation as to effort level. In the past factors might include a female's looks, athletic ability (hey, I got a degree in Phys Ed as well as Journalism), voice, well, a lot of superficial things because on first contact you don't really have much else to go by.

Nowadays, I've begun to add age. 

Yes, I blogged about older men going for younger females, but this is more about making the effort. We older guys like to chase younger females because of their looks obviously, but also it makes us feel younger too (and boosts self esteem). Of course, when weighing the effort level, it also figures in that younger age increases the effort value. If we're still going by superficial values (we still don't know if they have a great personality until we make the effort) then why not go younger?

All of this doesn't mean that we older guys are not attracted to older women, or won't try to go out with them. It just means we are less likely to make the bigger effort. We want to hike the shorter trails with older females.

The problem is that females still want to play those old, wily games they could get away with when younger even as they age out of the long trail hike range.

Even though older, and perhaps wiser, they still refuse to try first contact, still are coy about talking/interacting to an approaching male, well, you know their guile. If you exchange numbers, they still refuse to call first. They still won't make an early commitment. Still don't think they need to make much effort to keep things rolling.

A number of years ago I remember reading an article that noted that older women were less likely to get remarried than men.  Although the gap is closing (from more recent studies) there is still a difference and my guess is because of the effort quotient. Guys just prefer younger females and are more likely to make the effort for them than for older ones. Again, it’s not that they wouldn’t try, it’s just the older the less likely to make the effort.

So just as I postulated in one of my earliest blogs, that love was a math equation, likewise, it again boils down to math when it comes to chasing a mate. As the female’s age goes up, the male’s effort level goes down. It just adds up.