The old man and the she: Why older men pursue far younger women

A viral video captures a professor proposing to a student during class, raising discussions on classroom behaviour and societal dynamics.

In Short

• Age-gap relationships rooted in evolution, psychology, longstanding cultural narratives
• Men consistently prefer younger partners, while women’s preferences evolve with age
• Data shows large age gaps often reduce women’s satisfaction over time

A professor at a medical college on the outskirts of Bengaluru walked into his classroom in a video that went viral recently. He adjusted his microphone, and proposed to a student in front of the entire batch. Mid-lecture.

She said no. Loudly. Her classmates agreed. With slippers.

You could call it an isolated incident. But it isn't isolated. It is a very old story — and one that science, psychology, and mythology have been trying to explain for centuries. It's a story about older men — and the mirrors they mistake for partners.

YOU’VE SEEN THIS BEFORE

Leonardo DiCaprio is 50. He has never, in documented history, publicly dated a woman over 25. His current girlfriend is 27, which makes her, by his own historical standards, practically a senior citizen. Tobey Maguire, also 50, is dating someone who was born roughly the year Spider-Man went into post-production. Kanye West and Bianca Censori — 17 years apart — have turned their relationship into something between a romance and a press release. Roberto Cavalli died at 83, survived by a Swedish model 55 years his junior. And Milind Soman and Ankita Konwar remain India's most aerobically fit 26-year gap, running ultramarathons while the rest of us have opinions about it online.

The Bengaluru professor does not have a private jet or a fashion label. But he is working from the same script.

THE GODS GOT HERE FIRST

Before the scientists arrived, the mythmakers already had a theory.

Zeus was king of the Greek gods. He was married to Hera but his cupbearer was Hebe — goddess of youth — whose name literally means the bloom of life. He didn't just chase younger women. He made it a theological position.

In the book Metamorphoses authored by Roman poet Ovid, Pygmalion, a sculptor, chisels his ideal woman from ivory, falls in love with his own creation, and has a goddess bring her to life. An entire psychological concept carries his name now. The older man who doesn't find love so much as design a recipient for it. The ancient world was not being subtle.

WHAT DARWIN WOULD SAY

In 1989, psychologist David Buss asked over 10,000 people across 37 cultures what they wanted in a partner. The results were boring because they were almost tediously consistent.

Men everywhere preferred younger women. Women everywhere preferred older men with resources. Sao Paulo. Lagos. Rural Indonesia. Suburban Ohio. Same answer, every time.

The logic is older than Buss. American evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers established that whichever sex invests more in offspring—by way of time, energy, resources—becomes the selective one. Women, historically, invest considerably more. So they got more picky or, shall we say, more careful. Men, who are watching out for the reproductive potential of their partners, get drawn to the biological signals that advertise it: youth, energy, symmetry. The whole billboard.

Christian Rudder ran millions of OkCupid interactions. Men of every age — 22, 35, 50 — rated women aged 20 to 23 as most attractive. Women's preferences shifted with their own age. Men's didn't.

This is a mechanism. Not an excuse. The difference matters.

THE UNCOMFORTABLE PART

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung described the anima — the internal feminine ideal every man carries. In younger men, it gets projected onto women their own age. As men get older, it sometimes just freezes. So the 55-year-old searches for his anima in the 25-year-old. Not for who she is. For what she reflects back. A version of him that still has time. Still has options. Still is the protagonist.

American psychologist Daniel Levinson found that somewhere between 40 and 45, most men conduct a serious audit. Mortality arrives. Relevance wobbles. Some men respond with wisdom. Some respond with a fitness regime, a sports car, and a 28-year-old.

Psychologist Geoffrey Miller, also an American, adds the final layer. The younger partner is also a broadcast. Roberto Cavalli built an empire on visible luxury. His relationship with Lina Nilsson was, among other things, on-brand. Kanye West designing Bianca Censori's wardrobe — or rather, its absence — is Pygmalion with a better Spotify following.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS

Do these relationships actually work?

Not especially.

A 2018 study in Social Science & Medicine found that large age gaps correlated with higher life satisfaction for men and lower satisfaction for women — and that divergence widened over time. Some studies suggest that couples with gaps greater than ten years have a higher separation rate than similarly-aged counterparts. Leo DiCaprio's runway, in short, has data to back it.

HANG ON, THERE’S MORE

But here is the plot twist. The Economist recently analysed decades of American census data and found something that should embarrass every man on this list: the trophy wife is going out of fashion. In 1980, one in twelve husbands in the top 1% of earners was married to someone at least ten years younger. By 2024, the wealthiest group looked no different from the national average. As women earn more, the Economist found, they consistently choose partners closer to their own age. The age gap, it turns out, is no longer a marker of wealth. It has quietly migrated downward — most common now among men at the bottom of the income scale, not the top.

Which means the celebrities in our opening are not the vanguard of anything. They are the last, loud holdouts of a pattern the rest of the world is quietly leaving behind.

THE QUESTION NOBODY ASKS

Here is the part of this conversation that almost never happens.

What do the women want?

Not what are they tolerating. What do they actually want.

David Buss's own research found that women in age-gap relationships are frequently there by genuine choice. Financial stability is real. The kind of settled, unperformative confidence that takes decades to develop is, for many women, a real attraction instead of being a consolation prize. Ankita Konwar has said as much, publicly and repeatedly. The relationship with Milind Soman is, by her account, a deliberate choice made on her terms.

But the Economist's data makes the direction of travel clear. As women gain economic independence, the calculation shifts. The age gap was never really about desire. It was about options. And options, slowly, are changing.

BACK TO BENGALURU

The professor with the microphone was not Leonardo DiCaprio. He had a classroom, a captive audience, and a read of the room so wrong it required physical correction.

But the operating logic was identical. The assumption that desire, loudly declared, becomes a kind of argument. That his feelings were evidence of hers. That she had said something she hadn't — or if she had, that it meant what he needed it to mean.

The student didn't write an op-ed. She didn't wait. She — and her entire batch — made their position clear immediately, collectively, and with whatever was available.

The age gap is ancient, documented, and wired into our mythology. What shifts, slowly and not always visibly, is whether the woman in the story is a symbol inside someone else's narrative. Or someone who hits back.

- Ends