The Plankton Generation - that's women who are barely visible

and at the bottom of the food chain for romance - just because they're over 45



When it comes to romance, we all like a happy ending — which is what makes a new blog by an older, single woman such a heart-wrenching read.



The woman, who is divorced but says she would love to be married again, describes herself as being ‘on the wrong side of 45 with a brace of kids’ and bewails her place in ‘relationship no-man’s land’, condemned to be alone for the rest of her days.



She writes under the name ‘The Plankton’, explaining that, like the plankton in the ocean, she is barely visible and ‘at the bottom of the food chain for love and relationships’.

Growing problem: Many over-45s describe themselves as 'invisible' to the opposite sex

Her outpourings, which convey with unflinching honesty the huge difficulties older women can face finding a man, have caused quite a stir on women’s internet chat forums. They have certainly proved a talking point among my single women friends.

‘I almost wept when I read her blog about going to a wonderful party hoping to meet someone,’ my friend Ruthie explained. ‘I have felt like that so often. You know you are being unrealistic and that it won’t happen — yet when it doesn’t, you can’t help being disappointed.’



Ruthie is 47 and one of the most attractive women — of any age — that I know. Never married, she has a son James, now 13, by a man she parted from before her son was born. Ruthie has been looking for a boyfriend for the past decade.

Ruthie thought that she would have lots of boyfriends when she got older - just as she did in her younger years - but found this was not the case

‘I always had boyfriends when I was younger and assumed I would again after James was born,’ she says. ‘When he was three, I started chatting online. These chats were fun — and sometimes quite flirty — but if I ever suggested we meet, the men would often back off, saying they were not looking for a relationship.’



A dozen or so dates followed over the years, none of them quite right. When she last registered with an online dating site she was 44 — and few men made contact. ‘Forty is a huge cut-off point for a lot of men,’ Ruthie explains. ‘There was just one I met and we had a fantastic evening. I was surprised afterwards when he didn’t get in touch.



‘Six months later, he did contact me. It turned out he’d seen some other women when he saw me and gone on to have brief relationships with them. When those relationships failed, he came back to me and I just felt, “He’ll be off again”, so I didn’t pursue it.’



WHO KNEW?

Divorce in England and Wales in the 45- plus age group rose by more than 30 per cent between 1997 and 2007



For people like me — I’ve been married and out of the dating game for nearly 20 years — the idea that there are vast numbers of single women, but no single men, seems nonsensical. Official statistics reveal that among those aged 45 to 64 there are equal numbers of men and women living alone, it is only in the 65 and over age group that the lone women outnumber men — and that’s easily explained by the fact that men die younger. So what’s going wrong?



The imbalance, it seems, is because middle-aged men are looking for partners who are far younger than them. ‘A man can pick from a wider pool of women — his age and under, by several decades,’ The Plankton writes. ‘I have a friend in her late 30s who lives with, and has children by, a man in his mid-60s. He is paunchy with grey chest hair and not especially rich. He plucked her from a surfeit of willing women, watching him like vultures before my friend “got” him.’



This may be the case in some circles, but is it generally true? Sadly, yes, according to Dr Bernie Hogan, a research fellow at Oxford University. He pointed me towards a research website called OkTrends, which draws on data supplied by more than a million members of OkCupid, one of the biggest dating websites in the world. In a report entitled The Case For An Older Woman, it states that 45-year-olds have a much harder time finding romance because ‘the male fixation on youth distorts the dating pool’.

Age game: Research has shown that middle-aged men are looking for partners who are far younger than them, examples include Michael Douglas, 66 and his wife Catherine Zeta Jones, 41

The typical 42-year-old man will accept a woman up to 15 years younger, but no more than three years older — and the women he enters into online conversation with are almost always at the younger end of the spectrum. The typical woman, by contrast, states she’d like to meet a man a few years older or younger than herself — and these are the men she contacts.



These attitudes explain why many over-45s — including The Plankton — describe themselves as ‘invisible’ to the opposite sex. Charlotte Phipps is divorced and lives in Newmarket, Suffolk. Aged 53, she works as a secretary. ‘The hardest time for me is when I come home from work at six o’clock,’ she says.



‘My two terriers run barking to greet me, but apart from them, there is silence. I own a lovely two- bedroomed cottage with a beautiful garden, which I enjoy, but night after night I sit on my own watching TV. It is incredibly boring and I am lonely. Whenever I go out, men do not tend to look at me. I’ve lost a lot of confidence.’



The opportunities to meet other single people tend to peter out as we move from youth to middle age, according to Bernie Hogan. ‘Over 40, most of the people you meet socially will already be in a relationship,’ he points out. Which is why online is increasingly regarded as the place where over-40s will have the greatest chance of success.



After scores of dodgy dates, Charlotte Cory found Kevin Parrott although they seemed to have little in common

Bernie Hogan’s department, the Oxford Internet Institute, surveyed 25,000 couples in 19 countries — including the UK — who had been living together for over a year. Of those who had got together within the past 15 years and were aged 40 or over when they met, four out of ten had met online.



But online dating has its own set of rules — and sometimes brutal behaviour. Sarah Browne is 46 and works in communications for a skincare company. She lives in a large Edwardian balcony flat in Brighton. Sarah has no children and has never married.



‘I keep trying to date men over the internet, but it is often hopeless,’ she says. ‘I can’t count the times a guy has seemed really keen to arrange a date, and then, with sometimes only five minutes to go, I get a text saying sorry, he can’t make it. I’ve been told they cry off as they have met someone more suitable.’



Yet it’s not always doom and gloom. Charlotte Cory, a writer and artist, left her husband after 20 years and, at the age of 50, started surfing for love online. ‘There are still some very nice men out there, looking to share their lives with women their own age,’ Cory insists.



Some older women may be missing out on the chance of finding love, she thinks, because, bruised and rejected in earlier relationships, they lack the confidence and persistence to keep dating until they find a match. Lots of people are self-punishing,’ she told me. ‘They go out with a few people and say, “It doesn’t work”, but I have met so many people who have done as I did — and are blissfully happy.’



After scores of dodgy dates, Cory found Kevin Parrott: ‘On our first meeting, he handed me his card,’ she recalls. ‘I read “Professor Parrott” and nearly fell off my chair laughing. I said, “If I marry you, I’m going to have to change my name to Polly.”’ When they did marry, two years later, she signed herself ‘Polly’ in the register.



Older women may also be scuppering their chances by being too picky. In Cory’s case, she had low expectations of her initial meeting with Kevin because they seemed to have little in common: Kevin is a maths professor, while Cory only scraped maths O-level — and he’d listed ballroom dancing among his interests.



Many studies suggest men who become single after years of marriage are quick to find a new mate, while women are more cautious



However, there can be a more subtle reason why many women who say they’d love to find a man remain single. ‘Some just don’t want to make the compromises that having a man can mean,’ says Dr Maye Taylor, a counsellor and life coach.



‘Many studies suggest men who become single after years of marriage are quick to find a new mate, while women are more cautious. For some, it amounts to a positive decision to remain single.’



I contacted The Plankton and she said the huge response to her lament proves there are many older women who feel just as she does. ‘I have had so many comments saying that finally someone has come out and said the unsayable, the self-same thoughts they’ve had for so long, but never voiced to a soul in the world,’ she told me.



‘Perhaps the most moving of all was the one who said she was going to have to unsubscribe to my blog, not because she didn’t agree with it, but because it said everything she had ever thought and reduced her to tears every day and she couldn’t cry any more!’



So behind this deep sense of loss and disappointment lie many reasons why older women miss out — male attitudes, the dearth of social opportunities, the emotional investment needed to date successfully online.



And many, perhaps even The Plankton herself, would simply rather be alone than with the wrong man. So, no matter how much we might all wish it, when it comes to affairs of the heart, for the older single woman, there just isn’t a happy ending every time.