Why I won’t date younger women

I recently got some good news I’d like to share: I’m thirty-six years old. Yes, I know I’m chronologically seventy — but a blood and urine test I had reveals that I’m biologically thirty-six. (Your chronological age is the number of years you’ve lived; your biological age is how old your cells are.) Dr. Alka Patel, a brilliant British longevity expert tells me that she has never seen such a big gap between chronological and biological age as mine.

So, what does this mean? It means I will probably live to a ripe old age, free of any related diseases. But to me it means that while, on the outside, I might look like an old white guy with a wobbly chin, sad eyes and the scar tissue of one too many failed romances — inside, I’m a vigorous and virile thirty-six-year-old man. Oh, the wonders of science!

And all you hi-tech bros — such as the entrepreneur Bryan Johnson — who are spending fortunes following crazy fitness programs, dietary regimes, surgical procedures and popping hundreds of pills a day to be biologically younger — you can kiss my thirty-six-year-old tuchis!

I know that the quest for longevity has become very fashionable and I’ve leapt on the bandwagon and become a health nut. I text friends about my Omega imbalance and oxidative stress levels — and for some reason, they never reply. Consequently, I’m healthier and happier than ever before — but a complete bore at cocktail parties.

Anyway, my new discovery raises an interesting question: now that I’m biologically only thirty-six, can I date younger women? Let me make it clear. I’m not one of these old lecherous guys who lust after them. I actually prefer dating more age-appropriate women, for reasons I won’t go in to now. Even when I was in my twenties, I liked older women. It’s just that now I’m having trouble finding anyone — young or mature — to go out on dates with and I’d like to broaden my horizons.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. I admit it. I’m not having sex! There I said it. (Have a good chuckle on me.) One minute you’re a young lothario about town, the next you’re a seventy-year-old incel. (Without the nastiness!) How did that happen? Life happened.

When it comes to dating, romance and sex involving younger women — by which I mean women who are fifteen to thirty years younger than you — I’ve always had one rule: don’t do it. The spectacle of older men in hot pursuit of young women is not a good one. To do it requires the right mix of self-confidence and self-delusion; a mix which creates a form of erotic entitlement. Do the ancient lotharios of the world ever stop and wonder: am I too old for this woman? Do they ever ask if they really love their droopy butts and wobbly chicken necks?

It’s always struck me as unfair that older men who are rich, famous or of high status should be able to attract young, beautiful women. Even more unfair are the ones who are none of these things and still attract young women. But at least you know they must have charm or humor on their side. My no-younger-women rule began in my twenties when I saw an older man who constantly pursued young women. Actually he pursued any woman with a pulse. That man was my dad. Even in his nineties he was trying to chat-up younger women. I watched in horror as he approached, with the aid of his Zimmer frame, a pretty young woman at a bus stop and said, in his most debonair and raffish way: “Hello gorgeous would you care to join me for coffee — or maybe a cocktail or two?”

I would pull him away, explaining to the bemused or horrified woman that Mr. Landesman had not taken his medication and please accept our apologies. Once he turned and shouted: “Call me!”

Now here’s the funny thing. Every so often some young woman would actually join him for a cocktail. And they would later tell me what a “charming and interesting man” he was. Go figure.

Then there was the time when he was pissed at London’s Groucho club and made a kamikaze-lips lunge at a beautiful young woman next to him — and missed and crashed to the floor. I was sitting with a group of friends right at a table nearby and we witnessed the whole thing. This is where mere embarrassment mutates into trauma. Watching my dad spread out on the floor I made a solemn vow never to be like that.

And yet some women I know actually prefer dating older men. I asked my thirty-two-year-old friend why she liked them and she said she got fed up dating younger men because they had “no conversation, no desire for commitment and think anal sex is a form of foreplay.”

Still, I think I’m going to stick to my no-young-women rule. I may be thirty-six on the inside, but on the outside I definitely look seventy.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s April 2025 World edition.