Jana Hocking reveals why men over 45 make better boyfriends

Jana Hocking made a surprising discovery about which men to avoid and which to date after she thought she had mastered the basics.

By the age of 35, and after plenty of years of practice, I thought I’d managed to master the basics of dating. Avoid blokes with criminal records, embrace the guys who message straight after a first date, don’t try and “fix” someone, tackle problems head on, and don’t drink a bottle of wine before a date.

So, imagine my shock when I recently stumbled upon a new discovery. Turns out, there’s a whopping great black hole smack bang in the middle of the dating scene.

Yes, there is an age bracket that shouldn’t be ventured into by any woman who wants to make future plans with a man. Should you be downloading a dating app and setting your age preferences, it would be best advised that you steer clear of anyone within the 30 to 40 year old age bracket.

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Jana Hocking steers clear of men in the 30-40 age bracket. Picture: Instagram @jana_hocking.

What? Have you gone mad Jana Hocking?! That’s a whopping 10 years! Sadly, I have not. You see, it seems, statistically speaking, that men within this age bracket are settling down and having babies. Therefore, off the market.

Never fear, before this age men are turning their available green light on for a romance, and after that age quite a few of them seem to be divorced. That’s why you want to focus on dating someone just before the age of 30 years old (you cheeky cougar you!) or take aim at that handsome elder gent who’s now looking for some loving after a disaster of a divorce.

Lord, I never cared about numbers, facts and figures, but who knew they could come in so handy.

Don’t believe me? Go for a merry swipe of Tinder or any of the numerous dating apps that now seem to be flooding the market. You will find a gazillion blokes in their 20s, and quite a few older mating partners, but the blokes in their 30s? Crickets.

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Men return to dating market after divorce and that’s when to nab them. Picture: Instagram @jana_hocking.

Now a word of warning, some of the older blokes tend to do a thing on the dating apps called “kittenfishing”. It’s like “catfishing” where they look completely different in real life compared to the pics they put on their profile, except the difference is that they look different not because of a filtered photo, but because the photos they use are from 10 years ago.

(That’s why I like to FaceTime before I go on a first date, nothing worse than accidentally going on a date with Grandpa.)

Anyway, what I am basically trying to say is, there’s a significant lack of men aged between 30 to 40 on the dating apps. That’s because according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the median age for marriage was 32.4 years for men.

Now, at the other end of the spectrum, according to the ABS, the median age for divorce was 45.9 years of age for males. So just to be on the safe side, why not set your age preferences for guys over 45 years old?

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Jana Hocking has hit re-set on her online dating profile and honed in on older men. Picture: Instagram @jana_hocking.

As someone who’s been doing that recently I can highly recommend it. They’re great at “old school dating”, you know, like picking up the phone for a chat, only dating one person at a time, and they tend to be terrible at playing games (hurrah!).

Sure they may come with some baggage, like the bitter remnants of a divorce and a few kids, but it also means that they’ve proven that they aren’t scared to commit (at least for a decent amount of time) and who doesn’t enjoy having the benefits of a ready made family. Scouring the toy aisle at Christmas time, heck yeah!

A lot of men get hotter as they get older so everyone’s a winner. Picture: Instagram @jana_hocking.

Also, for some unfair reason men tend to get better looking the older they get (think George Clooney).

Now, I can’t speak from too much experience at dating younger, lord what would I talk to them about?! But I hear they’ve got terrific stamina and can show a gal a good time (if that’s something you fancy).

So while we may be faced with a slight dilemma on the dating front, maybe it’s time to give something new a go?

Jana Hocking is a radio producer and collector of kind-of-boyfriends. Continue the conversation @Janahocking