I do not have experience with on-line dating

Perhaps my morals are skewed, but I don’t think an age difference of two years is a “fundamental detail.” Seriously, what is the difference between 32 & 34 y/o woman that a man in his thirties wouldn’t even dream of crossing that number?

I also think the stay hopeful, wish upon a star way of viewing things leaves too much to chance in a dating world that skews heavily against women as they age

What no regrets, coyote mentioned is a good compromise. Change the age in the filtering section, but leave a quick blurb somewhere in your profile explaining the truth. posted by elleyebeebeewhy at 9:10 PM on [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I was totally against this until I read this article that made clear how much of a difference age makes, and how irrelevant it can be to the actual physical attractiveness of the woman in question. On average dudes are apparently shallow and shitty about age.

On the one hand, you don’t want any guy who is shallow and shitty about age. On the other hand, there are a lot of guys who pick their age ranges based on these arbitrary standards influenced by society without considering whether it’s reasonable, and it’s possible once actually on a few dates they would not care. Personally, I don’t think a couple of years is that big a deal–it’s not like you’re taking off a decade. I think the only guy who would give a huge crap about a couple years is either someone really over-invested in fertility, or is way too serious about the reliability of information in an online dating profile and believes the information provided should be the equivalent of sworn testimony in court. You probably don’t want either of these people. posted by Anonymous at 9:17 PM on

Isn’t this one of those little white lies that’s not really hurting anyone? There are so many worse things that people can and do lie about in their profiles.

If they are aghast at this, and couldn’t possibly bear to be around someone who would dare try to start a relationship based on such an earth shattering lie, maybe they’re not someone you would want to date anyway

If you meet someone and get along with them, surely they won’t be completely put off if you turn out to actually be 34 instead of 32?!

I say try it, change your age to 32 for a couple of weeks, and see if it does actually change the responses you get. posted by peppermintfreddo at 9:27 PM on [1 favorite]

A guy lied to me about his age once (saying he was younger, of course) and I found out and never contacted him again. I agree that if someone would lie about something so basic, I would feel like I couldn’t trust them about larger issues.

If you really want to you could try and see if you’d get more dates but I doubt that guys would be thaaat much likelier to date someone who’s 32 as Porto Riko mailorder gelin opposed to 34. And I know that it’s pretty trite but I do think it’s true that you wouldn’t want to date someone who wouldn’t like you if he knew your real age. posted by mlle valentine at 9:29 PM on

I am much older than 34. Having said that, the first thing that came to my mind is that the age is the red herring for why you are not getting hits. I obviously have not seen your profile, but my guess is that people read 34 in couple with the rest of your profile and think “wants to get n boorish assumption, but it is my experience with my friends who married later than me or not at all that 34 in and of itself was not the issue, the biological clock was. If you don’t want kids, add that to your profile.