I found this article in the Guardian that seeks to explain why female columnists have apparently been complaining about a "man shortage".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jan/21/william-leith

His theory is that younger men and older women are both experiencing these kinds of problems but only the older women tend to be columnists. The younger men just grumble to their friends instead.

He proposes it is all down to women seeking stablity and men seeking fertility. Therefore men might experience a relationship famine until they are rich enough to become attractive, at which point both younger and older women compete for them.

And, of course, some men fail to ever become rich.

I guess he felt it his role, as an older male columnist, to explain such things! He fails to state whether he has become wealthy enough ...

Interesting article. I think I'll shelve myself for 15 years or so. Then the world's my oyster!

*Laughs deleriously*

As a theory it certainly explains a few things, albeit with recourse to evolutionary biology.

Being struck by true love, which the French describe as a "lightning strike", would surely throw all of these cards up into the air however.

True, but the article must refer to a general trend, an average if you will. In which case I only aspire to be average... ho hum

You should be careful of averages.

For example I suspect that very few users of Flirtbox have the average numbers of legs! This is because the average number of legs will always be less than two, due to people with just one leg or no legs at all.

Anyway this theory is something to bear in mind when young blokes complain about poor responses from, or poor access to, women. It may be due to a lack of wealth!

On "mulch dot com", where I did the free two week trail before I join FB, I noticed that a lot of women, who were looking for men of my age, sought earnings in excess of £50k! On the mulch site you could actually make that kind of request.

However there is also the issue of older men responding to signs of fertility in younger women, which often seems a bit creepy to me.

Well I guess at least if they request a high salary they are honest... Is this stupid, but what are signs of high fertility? Is it possible to assess them online? Should there be a 'rate your fertility' feature in flirtbox?

There are a lot more cues than that but breasts and body shape are certainly part of it. Fitness, skin condition, symmetry, posture all spring to mind.

There are even less apparent things like human pheromones, if they exist, or people just smelling right. We probably have these assessments built in.

The sad thing is that older fathers are being increasingly associated with a whole range of conditions that effect the child.

I probably ought to state that this theory doesn't favour me at all. I'm clearly in the the older bracket but I'm neither a rich man nor a pauper.

This could in some ways this could be a relief as children are off the agenda for me. I would prefer that women, the few who are interested in me, spend time working out who I am and whether we'd make a good match!