Trust me, Tinder is proof age isn’t just a number
As a woman who has dabbled on dating apps both before and after her 35th birthday, I can safely say that age matters.
Age 34, when I broke up with my long-term partner, I found I was fending suitors off. At 35, when another relationship ended, I noticed things had slowed considerably. At 36, at the end of still another relationship (a sadly shortened one) I could barely bring myself to even look online.
And lo and behold, my arms-length perusal made it immediately plain that, as a woman of 36, I’ve fallen over the precipice.
So I sympathised, really, with the 69-year-old Dutch pensioner Emile Ratelband who – in his desperate bid to find love online – has been trying to get the authorities to change his age to 49. Hilariously (though not necessarily intentionally) invoking the language of identity politics, Mr Ratelband claims to “identify” as being two decades younger, citing vigorous health and, evidently, a lust for, erm, life.
Mr Ratelband is convinced that being 49 on Tinder will open up a cornucopia of options. “When I’m on Tinder and it says I’m 69, I don’t get an answer. When I’m 49, with the face I have, I will be in a luxurious position.”
Poor chap. This is all a bit misplaced, for Tinder is a young person’s game, and one hardly ever sees anyone above millennial age. Even 40-year-olds tend to keep away, preferring the more reliable environment of a proper dating site. A man of 49, whether identified or really that age, isn’t going to have much more luck than one of 69.
My advice to Mr Ratelband is to work less hard on the number and more on being an attractive person, which – so I’m told – one can be at 49, 69 or 89. Just not on Tinder.