online dating

Helpful Chart Finally Explains Why You Dated So Many Creepy Thirtysomething Dudes in College

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Almost every woman I know — myself included! — went through a phase in college where they exclusively dated older men. But despite the short-lived trend of hooking up with guys with real jobs, you were always expected to follow the Standard Creepiness Rule: Never date a person younger than half your age plus seven. That means guys who were 36 shouldn’t have been dating 21-year-olds. And yet …

Computer scientist Randal Olson recently crunched the numbers and created a chart that plots the Standard Creepiness Rule against the age ranges that men on OkCupid use to search for matches. As it turns out, most guys on OkCupid aren’t all that creepy, typically staying within the Rule’s designated age range. But there was one aberration: Men 34 to 38 tended to look for girls in their early and mid-20s, even though that’s basically kind of yuck.

Finally, we have a chart to explain why dudes who had already paid off their student loans were always hitting on you in college.

30-Something Men Are the Creepiest Online Daters