Why You’re Getting Attention You Didn’t Ask For

If you’re newly single after decades of marriage, the dating landscape probably feels like a foreign country.

The apps. The messaging dynamics. The cultural expectations. Everything’s shifted.

And somewhere between setting up your profile and swiping through a few rounds, you notice something: your inbox is filling up with guys who weren’t even born when you graduated high school.

We hear a lot about men dating younger women. It’s normalized. Expected. The reverse feels confusing, maybe even uncomfortable. Like you’re breaking some unspoken rule just by existing in a dating app at your age and looking the way you do.

The truth is more complicated. And way more interesting.

A listener reached out about exactly this.

She asked:

“I am separated a year in the process of divorce after 29 years of marriage. I am 52 and told that I look a lot younger than my age. On dating apps, I’m getting a hit up by a lot of 30 somethings, and even some late twenties. Is there something going on like cougar? I have very little interest in somebody under the age of 40. Considering I have a 30-year-old myself, I’m just wondering, how do I get men in my age range that would have an interest in me?”

If this resonates with your situation, you’re not alone. Women reentering the dating scene after long marriages are experiencing this exact phenomenon. And the question underneath it all is worth exploring.

(04:20) It’s Not Random. The Algorithm Knows What It’s Doing

Dating apps operate on a simple principle: show people to the users who are most likely to engage with them.

When a profile gets set up with certain photos, certain language, and a certain age, the algorithm starts learning. It learns who clicks. Who messages. Who shows up. And it serves that profile to more of those people.

Some dating apps let users do open searches across ages. 

Some are swipe-based with fuzzy matching on both sides. 

Some even let people pay extra to break through the noise and land in specific DMs. 

So when a woman in her 50s starts seeing a flood of matches from guys in their 30s, it’s rarely random.

The algorithm found them because they fit a profile someone is actively searching for. Whether that’s intentional or not depends on the woman. But the matches themselves? They’re not accidents. They’re the system working exactly as designed.

(07:40) Women in Their 50s Are a High-Risk Target for Scammers

This is the part nobody wants to talk about, but it’s critical.

Women who are 50-plus, recently separated or divorced, and financially stable are literally the profile that scammers look for. They’re fishing in these waters deliberately.

The reasoning is calculated. Scammers may believe awoman who just left a long marriage might be lonely, might be grateful for attention, might be out of practice reading manipulative behavior. She might have resources, property, retirement accounts. She might be eager to believe someone is genuinely interested in her.

Scammers operate from these assumptions. They build profiles designed to catch exactly this person.

The warning signs aren’t about age. They’re about behavior:

• Fast escalation of emotional language or talk of a future together 
• Reasons why they can’t video call or meet in person 
• Stories about financial hardship, emergencies, or needing help 
• Requests for money, favors, or access to information early on 
• Inconsistencies in their story or availability

A 35-year-old can be a scammer. So can a 58-year-old. What matters is whether the person’s actions align with their words. Whether they’re moving toward a real meeting or keeping everything digital and vague.

(09:20) Pop Culture is Telling Us Something’s Shifted

Notice what’s happening in movies and television right now.

Baby Girl is a mainstream theatrical release. Milf Manor is a dating show on a major network. All Fours was a bestselling novel that spent weeks on the New York Times list. These aren’t indie productions or niche content. They’re playing in theaters, streaming on major platforms, being discussed at dinner parties across the country.

Now think back twenty years: The Graduate in the 1970s was basically the only mainstream film that explored an older woman and a younger man, and it was treated as scandalous, transgressive, unusual.

That gap tells a story: Culture doesn’t create these stories in a vacuum. Artists make work about what’s already happening in society.

If there’s a genre of entertainment dedicated to older women dating younger men, it’s because enough women are living that reality that there’s an audience for it. 

Visibility creates legitimacy. And legitimacy makes what felt taboo feel normal.

(15:40) Your Profile Language Determines Who Shows Up

This is the thing that changes everything but gets overlooked.

The words in a dating profile aren’t just a description. They’re a filter. They tell people whether you’re serious or tentative, confident or lost, ready or still figuring it out.

Compare these two profiles:

“I’m new to dating apps and a little nervous. I was married for 30 years so I’m still figuring this out. Please be patient with me.”

vs.

“I’m looking for someone ready to build something real. I know what I want and I’m not settling.”

Both could be written by the same woman. But the first one attracts men who want to rescue her or take advantage of uncertainty. The second one attracts men who are actually looking for a partner, not a project.

Tentative language signals you’re not sure if you belong on the app. Confident language signals you know exactly why you’re there.

When a woman’s profile is clear about her life stage and her intentions, it does the filtering work before the matching even happens. The wrong people self-select out. The right people see themselves in it.

(18:00) Your Divorce Status Might Be More Relevant Than Your Age

A lot of people who are relationship-minded, especially those in their 50s and 60s, have a hard boundary: they won’t date someone who isn’t actually divorced yet.

It’s not judgment. It’s a boundary learned from experience. They’ve been burned before.

They’ve waited for someone to finish their divorce, only to have them get back together with their ex, or drag them through years of legal complications, or realize they weren’t actually over the relationship.

So they made a rule. No dating until papers are signed.

This means that while someone is separated and in the divorce process, they might be narrowing their options without realizing it. The relationship-minded people their age are off the table. The younger people who message them might not have that boundary yet because they haven’t been through it.

This isn’t an argument for dating younger men. It’s an argument for understanding that rushing back into dating while still technically married, even if you’re separated, might be costing her time and options without her realizing it.

What if the real permission she needs isn’t permission to date. It’s permission to wait. To take time figuring out who she is when she’s not a wife. To explore what she actually wants without the pressure to couple up again.

The matches will still be there when the divorce is final. And she’ll be so much clearer about what she’s actually looking for.

(26:00) The Hidden Thing That Actually Attracts People

Let’s talk about flexibility. Not physical flexibility. Emotional flexibility. Life flexibility.

The willingness to change your routines. The openness to someone new disrupting your schedule. The ability to evolve instead of staying locked in a particular way of doing things.

By the time people hit their 50s, a lot of them have stopped evolving. 

• They know what they like. 
• They know how they do things. 
• They’re looking for someone who will fit into the life they’ve already built, not someone who will ask them to change.

But a woman who just got divorced from a 30-year marriage isn’t in that place. She’s rebuilding. She’s figuring out who she is when she’s not following someone else’s script. She’s open to new things because everything is new right now.

That openness is magnetic. It has nothing to do with age and everything to do with energy.

A man looking for someone who’s alive and interested in possibility will see that. A man looking for someone to maintain the status quo won’t.

The real work isn’t about filtering for the right age. It’s about getting clear on who you actually are now and what you actually want. That clarity, that aliveness, that flexibility: that’s what attracts the right people, whatever their age.

 

💌 Navigating age gaps after decades of marriage, wondering about cougar culture, or just trying to figure out what’s next?

Whether it’s about protecting yourself from scammers, understanding your own boundaries, or getting clear on what you actually want, we’re here for all of it.

DM @DamonaHoffman on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, or leave a voicemail or text at 424-246-6255. Your question might be featured in an upcoming Dear Damona segment.

And remember: Dates & Mates covers all the relationships that matter in your life—your dating situations, your friendships, your family dynamics, your work relationships, and the relationship you have with yourself.

📝 Want to keep track of what’s working in your dating life? Download the free Date Tracker at damonahoffman.com/datetracker