I have a client who is lovely. She is 55 years old but looks 45 (which I rarely say!), extremely physically active, and has a smile for miles. I’m helping her manage her Match.com account—selecting men, helping arrange dates, etc.

She had a first date recently with a gentleman from the site, and they met at a dimly lit wine bar. I have clients fill out a short survey right after each date that I set up so I can get a sense of how it went. With permission from her to post, excerpts from the survey read: “Yes, this was a quality guy. Good find!” and “I found myself more and more attracted to him as the date passed.” On the scale of 1 to 10, she gave the date an 8, saying, “I liked him – he has a laid back disposition, he speaks calmly but he is very interesting and has done a lot of interesting things in his life – we had a lot of similar interests.”

I was thrilled. She was thrilled. They arranged a second date. That second date happened, and I received this email right afterward:

“I am just back from my second date. I am completely perplexed… I feel [he] is not what he put forward on his profile. He is laid back and very adventuresome… or was. But something tells me something is not right… such a difficult feeling to sort through. It’s not like I can say, ‘What year were you born? Show me your birth certificate!’ He is nice, but I feel he is much older than 58. Or, am I not in touch with myself and this is what a match is for me??”

I was certainly disheartened when I saw this note. The power of dim lighting on the first date perhaps had more of an impact than she thought? Much worse than the date not going well, though, my client started to doubt herself.

Now, I never do this, but I was curious, so, using the little information I had from his Match account, I did a bit of sleuthing and found her date’s profile on LinkedIn. (Honestly, I was surprised she hadn’t beaten me to it!) Assuming he graduated college at 22, using my elementary school math skills, that would have put him at 64 years old, not 58. For the record, lying online is not okay. Not ever.

When my client and I spoke, she was very upset. Rather than simply being upset with her date for portraying himself inaccurately, though, she was upset about her dating life as a whole. In her eyes, what message was she sending to attract this “old man”? Was she lowering her standards? Was this really the only type of man she could “get”? She went as far as asking me if she should start grilling all of her next dates about the year they are born and their past relationship history.

I cut her off with a resounding NO. She was, unfortunately, letting this one man’s lie impact her self-worth. He should not, nor should anyone, have that power. I told her that his lack of confidence made him hide his real age. That had nothing to do with her. I told her that she can’t project this one man’s behavior on other dates, thereby penalizing them before she even meets them.

She had a major high after the first date and then a major low after the second. I encouraged her, as I would with any client, to remember that your dating life is not only as good as your last date. Take each date for what it is—one date. Like in the law of large numbers, the more dates you go on, the less sway each one should have. With not very many in her sample size, each one can really impact what she perceives as the average. As she, and you, go on more dates, you’ll see that it’s important to treat each one separately, not let one person determine your self-worth, and try to go into each new experience with an open mind and an open heart.

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The Bachelor started back up a few weeks ago. Now, I didn’t start watching until two seasons ago, mainly because Ben Higgins was so darn cute, but every time a new season starts, I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s certainly entertaining… in much the same way that watching a train wreck is entertaining. You know you should look away, but you just can’t. The Bachelor is the rubbernecking god of ABC. On the other hand, the show is, in my opinion, wholly demeaning to women.

When there is a female Bachelorette, like JoJo last season, the focus on the men is their job. How many times, for example, did we see that Evan was an “erectile dysfunction specialist.” Trust me—it was a lot. (I guess that bodes well for Carly, though, who he proposed to on Bachelor in Paradise.) On that season, we learned that Alex was a U.S. Marine, Grant (formerly of Grace) was a firefighter, Wells was a radio DJ (Hey Wells, if you’re single, call me!), and James Taylor was, unironically, a singer-songwriter. We never, throughout the entire season, found out what, if anything, JoJo did for a living.

When there is, instead, a male Bachelor, it seems that the focus is less on what a woman has to offer the world in terms of her career and more on her looks/hair/figure, and perhaps more still, her age. Nick Viall, the new (old?) Bachelor is 36 years old. I like that. He’s old enough to presumably make mature decisions and has enough life experience to know what’s right for him and what’s not. Do you know what the ages of the suitor(esse)s that were presented to him are? They range from 23 to 31. That’s right—the oldest woman is still five years younger than our main man. Four of the ladies are 23, a whopping 13 years younger! Nick was entering college when they were entering kindergarten! In fact, all but three women are under 30.

I don’t claim to be unbiased in this discussion. As both a dating coach and a 35-year-old woman myself, it’s hard to see a show like this perpetuating the conventional wisdom that the man should be older than the woman. I have no doubt that the show would have rejected me, not because I can’t verbally spar with someone, but because I’m 35, much too “old” for this fine gentleman. So much of this says to the world, “Women are valued for their beauty, not their brains, success, or experience.” For everyone’s sake, I hope the women who do best this season are the attorney, the special ed teacher, or the neonatal nurse. (So far, so good—go Rachel, Vanessa, and Danielle!)

I often date men younger than I am, and even if it’s just by a year, people love to comment about it. “Ooh—robbing the cradle, I see.” “A younger man—good for you!” “Who knew he liked older women?” It’s also a conversation I have with my clients all the time, especially those over 50. I have found that 95 percent of my clients over age 50 tell me that the other gender doesn’t age as well as theirs. Even a recent 38-year-old male client refuses to date women over 31. But, you know, everyone ages, everyone gets wrinkles, everyone has baggage. Age doesn’t define us. You have to look at people as individuals.

In 2010, OkCupid did a study called “The Case for an Older Woman,” showing men’s age ranges that they look for in a partner. Their analysis showed this: “A man, as he gets older, searches for relatively younger and younger women. Meanwhile his upper acceptable limit hovers only a token amount above his own age. A 31-year-old guy, for example, sets his allowable match age range from 22 to 35—nine years younger, but only four years older, than himself. This skewed mindset worsens with age; the median 42-year-old will accept a woman up to fifteen years younger, but no more than three years older. Women, on the other hand, show an openness to both reasonably younger and reasonably older men.”

I loved the conclusion of the study, which encouraged men to date women their own age or older, putting them into the “zone of greatness.” Yes, please.

I’m not naïve to the fact that we can all be superficial and notice someone’s looks first, and men especially want a younger woman because she’ll supposedly preserve her beauty longer than someone who is older. (I know I’ve skipped the whole childbearing rationale… I could have written a novel if I included that.) But, I have to wonder, at a certain point, if you’re almost a generation apart, what do you have in common? I guess only time will tell this season. But Bachelor Nation, I hope this gives you some food for thought.

I was so fired up that I even discussed the dating double standards with my friends at Let’s Talk Live on ABC7.

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