Written by Kate Shuttleworth | 29 June 2011

One of my biggest challenges in this business is dealing with the expectations of clients wanting to meet people in an age group far removed from their own.

A potential client who did not join the Kingdom of Hearts, a CA with an LLB who heads up a blue chip company,  insisted that he would only meet women 25 years younger than his age. At least. Without hesitating, he added “but they must not be after my money!” Did you skip Logic 101, Boet?

Very few women want to meet men who are younger than they are, and those that do inevitably look years younger than their actual age. In France it is common for men to pursue “women of a certain age” and mature women are valued for their warmth, wit and wisdom. Of course, French women do look after themselves.

When learning this business and working in the UK where we obtained mentorship from the Association of British Introduction Agencies, we learnt that the European Union standard for Introduction Agencies was not to introduce people to each other where there was a gap of more than 10 years either way.

With a relaxation of rules in Saudi Arabia, women are now not only allowed to drive cars, but also to marry foreigners. That is provided that they are drug and disease free, are followers of Islam and the age gap between the couple is not larger than 25 years.

Doctor Eve’s letters of advice regarding men looking for younger women say how this is due to the way men are programmed for reasons of reproduction, that even though they are over 50 and 60 and have no intention or desire to have more offspring are attracted to good looking breeding stock. Someone forgot to put the off switch into the wiring circuit.

Fortunately for older women, intellect and common sense kick in and hit that switch with many older men who understand that they have very few interests in common with women who grew up a generation younger than their own. Music, culture and memories differ vastly between a man who grew up in the deep shadow of World War 2 and a woman whose culture and mores have been fashioned by Woodstock and free love.

A favourite client puts it that at his ideal dinner party, Bill Clinton, Joni Mitchell, Helen Zille, Cleopatra, Woody Allen and His Truly would be present and how would a callow, shallow, barely formed nymphette cope with that?

An older man with a substantially younger, good looking woman is regarded at with envy, but it is inevitably mumbled “ it must be for his money”. What defies logic is that so many of them are prepared to be parodied in the same manner.