Affluent 50 to 60-Something Men Still Choose Beauty First

Fabulous-Old-Man-Fashion-Looks-71

“…all older women hear (and thus believe) that older men are only looking for much younger women. OK, many of them are. But are they getting them? Not really, unless they’re wealthy and powerful. (And I have always believed that it’s good to identify those men and remove them from the 50-something dating pool ASAP; I’m not interested in men like that so move along, men, and good luck!”). Vicki Larson, journalist

I hate to tell you people this, but a simple fact can save you a lot of heartache:

Reasonably attractive, healthy and successful older men have lots of choices when it comes to choosing partners.

Too many, in most cases, which is why so many of them are single or serial monogamists, the emphasis on serial.

~~~

When it gets down to it, money and power are the great equalizers.

Conversely, youth and beauty are also commodities openly traded on the human stock exchange.

Whether you’re young or old, you have different assets to barter, but something is always for sale.

Most of the older successful guys I know have an exacting set of standards they apply to the acquired women in their lives.

These are the very same standards, by the way, they applied to their ex-wives before they divorced them 20 years later.

The fact is successful men prefer to date younger women is because THEY CAN.

Generally speaking, women over the age of 17 are not attracted to youth.

They’re attracted to confidence and power.

Therefore when a beautiful woman in her 20s or 30s meets a man who is in his 50s, with the world in the palm of his hands, it’s sexy and alluring to her.

His age becomes irrelevant.

Walk into any upscale restaurant or bar and what you will see are drop-dead gorgeous women accompanying successful older men.

These women were not forced at gunpoint, believe me.

To many men I know, it’s almost irrelevant whether these women are truly in love with them or merely out to make better lives for themselves.

It matters that they are in the company of a beautiful, intelligent and uncomplicated young woman.

The rest they leave to a suspension of disbelief.

She is everything their wives once were before time took its pound of flesh and soul.

No wonder so many middle aged women without much to leverage scream and yell about all of this.

But put them in the position to do what these young women are doing and you wouldn’t hear a peep.

The fact is average men and women receive average returns, and exceptional beauty and youth will always win out where successful older men are concerned.

Is it fair?

No.

But pretending that “real men” don’t want younger women is delusion. That they want an equal is naive at best, disastrous at worst.

According to one NYC matchmaker, this is the normal course of things:

“I recently had a 78-year-old client who wouldn’t even consider a woman older than 50. If you are 25 years old as you are reading this, let me put this in perspective: That would be like dating a 55-year-old.

That brings me to why I can’t take on women as clients; and no, misogyny has nothing to do with it. In this tough singles market, if a man pays top dollar for a matchmaker, he expects nothing less than a 29-year-old model.  As a result, I cannot find a husband for a 47-year-old schoolteacher with two kids and three mortgages.”

So where do relatively pretty, average 40-plus women find men of means?

They don’t.

What they can and do find are men of equal value, which is not a particularly palatable prospect for most.

My recommendation to such women:

1] Join a book club.

2] Enroll in a continuing education class at a local college.

3] Attend art openings.

4] Get out of the house – maximize exposure.

5] Go back to therapy.

Nature is neither kind nor compassionate, but the good news is that there are exceptions to every rule.

Just not very many.

New Boomer TV Show!

MW-EL309_Americ_20160426130800_MG

http://babyboomersinamerica.com/

And now for the bad news…

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/were-going-broke-chasing-the-american-dream-2016-04-27

As everyone knows, life exacts its pound of flesh one way or the other, but money is one reliable carbon credit for all the attrition.

Of course, you have to have it to use it.

My generation grew up with the misguided notion that we had to find a career that truly fulfilled us in order to succeed in life. the idea was that we wouldn’t put for the effort necessary to succeed doing something we didn’t personally enjoy.

What we weren’t reminded of is that money runs the world, and that without it, there are no vacations! where we get to do what we love.

I was guilty of the same misguided notions until I got lucky. But that’s for another blog…or you can just read my last book, Urban Dystrophy available on Amazon.

The article focuses on one Neal Gabler, who has written acclaimed biographies of Walt Disney and Walter Winchell among many others.

Unfortunately, Gabler was, as he freely admits, “a financial illiterate, or worse — an ignoramus.”

“I don’t ask for or expect any sympathy,” he writes. “I am responsible for my quagmire — no one else.”

His situation is the product of some bad luck and many poor choices, many of them common to all of us.

In brief, here they are:

1. He chose to be a writer, not the most stable profession.

2. He chose to write books, which don’t produce income for years.

3. He chose to live in high-cost New York City.

4. He chose to have two children, whom he sent to private school early on and then to Stanford and Emory for college.

5. His wife quit her job as a film executive to spend more time with the kids when they moved to eastern Long Island.

The article suggests that perhaps it’s time for us to redefine the American Dream beyond the purely material goals of the postwar years, when our growth seemed unstoppable.

It concludes that life should be more about the freedom to succeed or fail on our own terms.

But, in my view, there is no more “our own terms” because none of us lives in a box, impervious to media and life on the outside.

And while encompassing things like pride in our own personal achievements, family, friends, and community service that leaves a legacy of which we can be proud, we can not all afford therapy at $250/50 minutes.

Hey Big Spender: Affluent Boomers Rock Urbania

20-Unbelievably-Beautiful-Contemporary-Home-Exterior-Designs-Part-2-12-630x346

Though Baby Boomers are certainly the richest generation in U.S. history, few members of its cohort qualify as truly “elite,” according to a recent study.

Boomer Elites, according to Focalyst, a market research and consulting firm, are a select subgroup of Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) who are characterized by a household pretax annual income of $150,000 or $100,000 if retired.

Only 1 in 10 Baby Boomers can be classified as Elites.

Most Boomer Elites are married, 92% college educated [73% of non-Elite Boomers have college degrees], and live in homes valued at nearly twice that of the average Boomer. Boomer Elite’s home is $519,000, in contrast with the typical Boomer’s home valued at $282,000.

Okay, so now we know that 1 in 10 Boomer Elites can afford homes in the 500k range.

Is this supposed to impress anyone?

I’m being facetious, of course, but the honest to God truth is that most Boomers I know live in homes 4x that price – and much, much more –and there are lots of them.

For the most part, they are out of touch with reality for those even in the bottom end of the 1% equation.

But as fractionally small a this demographic may be, it’s positively massive to those who reside here.

And people wonder why politicians refer to people as numbers.

“Lyin’ Eyes” Reinterpreted

Don Henley was 28 when he and 27-year-old Glenn Frey wrote Lyin’Eyes.

The year was 1975.

The story goes that they were in their favorite LA restaurant/bar Dan Tana’s where they watched beautiful young women hitting on rich, older married men and decided to write about it.

From the vantage point of men in their 20’s, I can certainly understand their passionate disdain, as they felt entitled to the attention by virtue of youth alone.

Nonetheless, fast-forward to today’s urban world and I will comment on each verse from the perspective of an older man:

Henley/Frey

City girls just seem to find out early
How to open doors with just a smile
A rich old man
And she won’t have to worry
She’ll dress up all in lace and go in style

Comments:

City girls know exactly what they doing, which is why many of them are among the 1% without so much as a G.E.D., or discernible profession. 

Late at night a big old house gets lonely
I guess every form of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is only
Given to a man with hands as cold as ice

Comments:

I have yet to meet a gold-digger who was unhappy in a 10 million dollar home. Not one. Furthermore, most don’t care what’s in a John’s heart, or even that he has one, as long as she gets to travel. Put another way, it’s a symbiotic relationship.

So she tells him she must go out for the evening
To comfort an old friend who’s feelin’ down
But he knows where she’s goin’ as she’s leavin’
She is headed for the cheatin’ side of town

Comments:

Most gold-diggers cheat. So what? As long as the John doesn’t find out what difference does it make? She’s still faithful to the arrangement.

You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin eyes

Comments:

Most men I know set specific parameters like anyone running a successful enterprise. Applicants sign employment contracts and live within the parameters. 

On the other side of town a boy is waiting
With fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal
She drives on through the night anticipating
‘Cause he makes her feel the way she used to feel

Comments:

There will always be a boy somewhere waiting for pretty much anyone, anytime. It’s obviously not enough, so she parses.

She rushes to his arms; they fall together
She whispers that it’s only for awhile
She swears that soon she’ll be comin’ back forever
She pulls away and leaves him with a smile

Comments:

Unless he figures out how to make a bundle, he’ll only be a fleeting screw. Of course, most young guys who make a fortune when they’re young tend to go through women like water, so now who’s crying?

She gets up and pours herself a strong one,
And stares out at the stars up in the sky.
Another night, it’s gonna be a long one.
She draws the shade and hangs her head to cry.

Comments:

This is the funniest thing I have ever read. Her head is sitting in a $20,000 french armchair with a glass of champagne. Nice try, though. 

She wonders how it ever got this crazy.
She thinks about a boy she knew in school.
Did she get tired or did she just get lazy?
She’s so far gone she feels just like a fool.

Comments:

Lazy? Are you insane? Women like this work their butt’s off to live like this. What? You think money just falls from trees?

My oh my, you sure know how to arrange things.
You set it up so well, so carefully.
Ain’t it funny how your new life didn’t change things?
You’re still the same old girl you used to be.

Comments:

Most insightful verse in the song. I’ve never known a gold-digger to change his or her stripes. 

As young men, even they could see that people are what they do.

How Gold-Diggers Parse Love

10906284_10101678129372187_5245319915480882154_n11

The following account is real.

I bring this to you not because it news, but because it’s not:

~~~

Man:

Did you ever really love me?

GD:

Honestly, the first year of our relationship I was very much in love with you. We traveled all over the world, stayed in beautiful hotels, dined at great restaurants. It was wonderful. Then your business went downhill and we stopped doing things.

Man:

We stopped traveling but we still did things. 

GD:

What things? We mostly stayed at home and watched movies.

Man:

So you were in love with the lifestyle.

GD:

You were the lifestyle.

~~~

Understand that many men are simply incapable of falling in love with any woman who doesn’t satisfy an exacting set of physical standards.

The problem is that gold-diggers have those standards etched into the fabric of their DNA, so they hold all the cards.

And people wonder why so many affluent older men become trapped in vicious cycles of defeated expectations, as they try to get “perfect” women to love them for who they are.

In my world, fortunes come and go every day, mostly under these circumstances.

Aging is a weird thing. We learn more about a lot of things, but the basics never change: love, lust, money, but in the reverse order.

 

Cash-Strapped Russian Sugar Daddies Running Back to Their Wives

31BC326700000578-3471744-Strike_a_pose_Maria_pictured_urges_women_not_to_fall_in_love_wit-a-126_1456876617119It’s not just Russia.

Gold-Diggers state-side are on life support.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3471744/The-glamorous-Russian-sex-kittens-dumped-cash-strapped-sugar-daddies-hit-afford-five-star-hotel-trysts-running-wives.html

I have no further comments to make about this other than to just enjoy reading all about something you already know to be true…kind of like therapy.

lol.

Rich Men Prefer Skinny Women: New Research Exposé

street-style-leather-moto-jacket-over-the-shoulders-paris-fashion-week-ray-ban-wayfarer-sunglasses-layered-necklaces-simple-white-dress-peek-a-boo-bra-metallic-waist-thin-belt-small-chaiSs I stated many times before [on this blog], wealthy women prefer to date their financial equals and those withing a few years of their age.

Men? Not so much [on either count].

According to researchers at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., a new study to be published in the January 2016 edition of the peer-reviewed academic journal “Personality and Individual Differences,” validates what I have always believed, that men with more education had strong preferences for female partners who were “good looking,” “slender,” and “younger.” Some 95% of men with an advanced degree said it was “essential” that their partner was “good looking” versus 77% of those with a high school education or less, and 84% of those men said it was essential that their partner was slender versus just 12% of those with a high school education or less.

So what does it all mean?

A depressing confirmation of the worst gender stereotypes that suggests the dating game has not progressed much in the last 100 years? And maybe 1000 if you want to get technical about it.

Using an example from the animal kingdom, “Female bower birds select males with the nicest nest, and in many insects, the female selects a male who offers her a nice gift of prey he has captured.”

Translation: Women prefer nice neighborhoods with swimming pools, just like insects.

Furthermore men prefer slender bodies, which are associated with youth.

As the body’s metabolism slows as one grows older and, slender physiques could represent fertility for men.

I might also add that, beyond the specter of fertility, slender women look better in Chanel and are easier to physically dominate, which is a big deal for many.

The study may help people understand why the advertising industry (and society) puts so much emphasis on women being thin. And it may also throw light on why men strive so aggressively for higher income and assertively negotiate for raises.

Their income clearly affects not only their ability to pay for dates but also their likelihood of attracting a beautiful young, slender partner who looks good in Chanel.

As we all know, men are more visual than women and women have a stronger need to be taken care of both emotionally and financially.

So people with desirable traits are in a position to be more selective.

The study found that both genders reported nearly equally that being with someone physically attractive “to them” is important, which is at least hopeful because it allows for physical imperfections — not the unattainable physical flawlessness we’re bombarded with every day in the media.

Nonetheless, I have seen men with more money than God check each and every line item and then choose the more perfect human female the planet has ever witnessed. Of course, what people want and what they actually get are two different things.
If, for example, a man wants a physically flawless woman with a warm heart, he usually gets only one of them. There’s only so much you can expect from a mating dynamic based on a cold-blooded exchange of commodities.

REAL WORLD PREFERENCES OF AFFLUENT OLDER MEN AND THE WOMEN IN THEIR LIVES:

1] Slender women are preferred because they look best in designer apparel.

2] Slender women are preferred because they look better educated, and thus, more sophisticated.

3] Slender women are preferred because they are easy to physically dominate.

4] Slender women are preferred because in more sophisticated circles, image is everything.

5] Slender women are preferred because the chances of them becoming obese down the road are far less probable. 

Notice I didn’t mention anything whatsoever about character.

This is because men with money assume that women who crave it will just fall in line.

And while they appear to do just that, their reasons for doing have more to do with attracting even wealthier men who expect the same thing.

Why Everyone Hates Rich Older Men Who Date Beautiful Young Women

101176045-sb10062212g-001r.530x298

In general, the economy sucks: The jobs market is flat, the stock market [at this writing] is down over 400 points [ended the day down 276…thank God!], all major global economies are on thin ice, terrorism continues to rage, and, all the while, the old dude in the above caption couldn’t care less. 

No wonder people are pissed off.

There are a select few men who live in the socioeconomic stratosphere, an invisible force field that renders them impervious to the vagaries of mortal life on earth. It is here that they are able to pick from an infinite line-up of beautiful young woman trying to gain access to the same invisible force field. 

While no one is truly impervious, being well fortified is plenty.

www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/11695827/Why-does-everyone-hate-it-when-rich-old-men-date-young-attractive-women.html

HARD COLD TRUTH

When you have enough money, nothing hobbles your lifestyle. Think $50,000,000 and above and it’s all an abstraction. At that amount, $10 million here or there is irrelevant. Start with a quarter of that amount and suddenly everything becomes a much bigger deal. Catch my drift? Ad to this the fact that beautiful young women are not driven by physical beauty as much as physical money, this begins to make sense.  

In the above article, Duncan Bannatyne, 66, is 534th on the Sunday Times Rich list with an estimated net worth of $257,000,000.

His stunning young girlfriend, Nigora Whitehorn, 35, is from Uzbekistan and works as a dental treatment coordinator and has no discernible net worth.

So it all balances out as you can see.

What the take away from these and stories like it?

RICH GUYS STILL GET THE GIRLS.

Money first, love second.

Better yet, object first, human second.

Feminists are pissed off because women who marry into wealth are perceived to be prostituting themselves and somehow betraying those women who choose to tough it out in the workplace.

Young men rant about it because they loath swallowing the fact fact that their good looks and youth had been trumped by Bannatyne’s wealth and charisma.

According to one one rich guy, “At heart, we’re all still cavemen. The men want the biggest cave at the top of the hill and the women want to feel safe living in that cave at the top of the hill. The guy with the biggest cave will always get the girl.” 

Yes this sucks.

But if you had that cave you wouldn’t be complaining.

Go ahead and hate on.

They don’t care a wit because they don’t have to…

Note:

According to a recent US News and World report article, there were 211,235 ultra-wealthy individuals in 2014, a 6 percent increase from a year before. That community’s combined wealth is believed to have fallen just short of $30 trillion, a 7 percent increase from 2013.

Growth in 2014 is slightly above average in terms of longer-term trends in the ultra-wealthy community. Over the past 20 year period, the group’s population has grown at an average annual rate of 4.6 percent, with wealth growing an estimated 6.7 percent each year.

This growth trend is expected to continue at least until 2040, at which time both the size of the ultra-wealthy population and their net worth “will have approximately trebled” to more than half a million individuals worth a combined $88 trillion, according to the report. The fastest growing wealth tiers are billionaires and those the report classifies as “at the bottom” — people whose worth is $30 million to $50 million. 

…and don’t for one second think the ladies aren’t paying attention. At my health club, they’ve been thrown out of the parking lot for grabbing license plate numbers and running them on financial databases.

Coming to Terms With Aging […without visiting the “Devil’s Crossroads”]

hi-res-108017587_crop_northJohn Patrick McEnroe, Jr., 56

We all reach a point where we realize we are no longer in our physical prime.

We blame everyone – and everything – but ourselves.

Many of us live in denial until we start tripping over our delusions, one after the next, until we come to terms kicking and screaming.

John McEnroe comes to mind.

For him, life has always been a nightmare, which apparently hasn’t abated much to this very day.

Both talented and tempestuous, he bludgeoned his way to 17 Grand Slam titles before falling victim to the very angst that made him a champion, back when youth forgave most transgressions.

This is not where you want to be at middle age.

I’ve been an athlete – active in sports and weight training – for the vast majority of my life, and I’ve had my fair share of injuries. Most of them I’ve forgotten, some won’t let me.

Nonetheless, I still go to the gym and bust my ass: multiple dead-lifts, wall balls, crunches to failure – you get the picture – but my body doesn’t heal the way it used to.

My joints ache, my muscles are tighter, and there always some nagging injury.

It’s at these times that the thought starts to creep in my mind, “It’s not that I can’t do this, but should I?”

The simple answer is, I don’t know. No one does. 

My doctor runs every test in the book and declares I’m fit to be tied, but I know that he knows it’s mixed blessings.

I’m technically healthy enough to do what I do, but I also know the recovery time will be two or three times what it was back in my 20’s – and rest will not be a casual decision, but a necessity.

There are times I leave the gym thinking I’m too exhausted even to drive home, and I’m sure the I am not alone.

We all pay a heavy price to keep up with where we were, which is our first mistake because we are no longer where we were.

60 is not 20 no matter how you spin the narrative. 

This is where coming to terms with myself, my ego, and my competitive nature has been the hardest thing I’ve ever faced.

Thankfully, the school of hard knocks has finally pounded into me that as I age my self worth should not and, for the sake of sanity, cannot be tied to physical performance.

I simply cannot allow physical performance to trump inner strength.

I am only human and my youth was a fleeting stretch of life some 25 years ago, a lifetime for many pro athletes.

My advice to all of you in my age demographic [Baby Boomers] is to stay as active as your body will allow, explore new hobbies [if you don’t already have 10 or 15 like me], live a balanced life, and enjoy yourself.

While my absolute performance in certain physical endeavors may have declined with advancing years, the enjoyment of my journey, however different, is something that will never fade.

KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER

1] Beliefs about aging are sometimes more powerful than the physical changes themselves.

2] Ignore people who say things like “Why are you doing that? You’re going to hurt yourself!” It’s just projection, so, like I said, ignore it.

3] Psychological skills are a bigger part of your training than anything else.  

4] Skills develop through practice, which is why people half your age can’t do many of the things you’ve been doing for years, so there’s an upside. 

5] Your own performance in a given sport is relative to your age. The rest you make up in attitude. 

6] Stop comparing yourself to that of 20-year-olds. Most of them won’t be even close to where you are when they grow up. 

7] Be patient with yourself…and kind. Beating up on yourself is not going to somehow reverse time.

8] Hire a personal trainer if you can afford it. Having said this, I’ve learned that it’s more expensive not having one.

9] Get plenty of rest.

10] Keep a psychotherapist and massage therapist on speed dial. 

and…

11] For God’s sake, don’t end up like John McEnroe.

Riffing Off the Past: How Some Boomers Stay Relevant

Jan 18, 2009; Glendale, AZ, USA; NFL on FOX analyst Terry Bradshaw during the trophy presentation following the NFC Championship Game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Arizona Cardinals at University of Phoenix Stadium. The Cardinals won the game 32-25 to advance to Super Bowl XLIII. Mandatory Credit: Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE [Via MerlinFTP Drop]

Mandatory Credit: Chris Morrison-US PRESSWIRE [Via MerlinFTP Drop]

If I were a famous retired pro athlete trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, I might consider a career in sportscasting.

I’d have immediate sponsorship interest, and therefore, a viable shot at chapter 2 of an already illustrious career.

I could also have a home life and time to travel, given the fact that sportscasting isn’t exactly a 9-5 job.

We see this all the time within the ranks of the rich and famous.

In fact, some say “once famous, always so.”

America loves underdogs, particularly those who’ve already climbed the mountain and are ready to do it all over again.

But what about a guy who was successful in something that didn’t earn him international fame, notoriety, and thus, cultural relevance?

His commodity value is now relative to what he did, not what he wants to do now that his career is, for all intents and purposes, over.

And people wonder why so many successful older men freak out.

I’ll elaborate…[and offer a few solutions].

~~~

The 45 to 64 group that makes up nearly half of all new startups in the country, increasing 19 percent since 1996. The older market has seen the most significant growth over the last 15 years.

But as we all know, starting up a new business isn’t a cakewalk for most.

For one thing, there’s FUNDING.

If you’re not famous, you’re less likely to have sponsors beating down the doors.

Adding fuel to the fire, you got your butt kicked in the downturn and are less willing to risk retirement savings on a new venture that’s by it’s very nature, risky.

The next issue is WORK-LIFE BALANCE.

Rigid schedules, family sacrifices…the realities of doing what you had to do at the beginning of the journey.

If you’re not Terry Bradshaw, you need to know that no one’s doing anything but you – probably 12 hours a day.

This dovetails nicely with the final issue: BOUNDARIES.

You may be good at one thing, but not something else…like managing people.

You could outsource, but that’s not cheap and you still have to oversee the work.

SUMMARY

If you’re not already rich and famous, get used to the IRS considering anything you do a hobby.

They’re not dumb.

They know you won’t risk more than you absolutely have to, and that after a certain point you see it as something you enjoy that also helps defray taxes.

This is why they assess a “hobby” tax on successful older people who try to start new businesses and then write off the losses.

No one in their right mind wouldn’t do this since so much money is already being spent trying to make something work.

From personal experience, all I can tell you is this:

1] If you’re not rich and famous and had a career that is still viable, try consulting.

I know lots of retired lawyers who do freelance consulting on the side.

All you need is a cellphone and list of contacts – not a brick and mortar structure filled with expensive equipment and people.

2] If you don’t mind breaking even, or operating at a slight loss, understand that eventually you will have to pay the IRS for your indulgences.

3] If you are rich and famous, do whatever the hell you want.

While you’ll still have to show up once in a while, you’ll still feel relevant.

Just ask Keith Richards.