Theorem 5.1 – Four Stages: The age discrimination between roughly same age males and females in the heterosexual hook-up and dating world changes hands depending on which stage of life they are in.  The four stages are as follows:

1)     the school years
2)     the post-school twenties
3)     the thirties
4)     the forties and beyond

Generally speaking, the female tends to age discriminate during the first two stages—the school years and post-school twenties.  During the third stage (a person’s thirties), age discrimination begins to slowly change hands from the female to the male.  For the entire fourth stage (a person’s forties and beyond), the male tends to age discriminate throughout.

Proof:  A male and female enter high school the same age, roughly at fifteen.  The female does not give the male the time of day in the hallway, but instead is all google-y eyed for the junior and senior males who are the stars of the football team.  However, time passes by, only to find the male and female, now age seventeen, both seniors in the same school.  All of a sudden, the female introduces herself to the male, who is now one of the stars of the football team.

As fate would have it, the male and female attend the same college as freshmen.  Early on in the first semester, the male runs into the female at an off-campus party, only to be completely overlooked by the female.  She is simply too busy adjusting her outerwear lingerie with the hope that the junior and senior males throwing the party will notice her.  Once again, time passes by and all of sudden, the same-aged male now lives off-campus and is the one throwing the parties.  All of a sudden, that same-age female recalls knowing the male from high school and proceeds to party with him.

Upon entering the real world, the male is back home living with his parents and starts his $50,000 a year corporate job in the big city.  As fate would have it, he runs into that same female at a Thursday after-work happy hour.  While the female does say hello, and even gives him the time of day for that matter, she is off to the races as soon as her girlfriends return from the ladies room.  Why should she waste any time with a $50,000 guy who lives with his parents when there are older, more [financially] mature males at that happy hour?  These are males who are pulling in six-figure salaries, live on their own and have a summer house to boot.

However, as time goes by, the same-age male starts to build his social—that is, power—portfolio.  He moves out at age twenty-five, sets up an awesome summer house by age twenty-seven, and finds himself making a six-figure salary by age thirty.  As fate would have it, that same female ends up getting a similar paying job at the same company.  Ironically, the female is the first one to recognize the male, shortly after which they end up hooking up with each other no less.

But as time passes on again, the male’s attention toward the same age female weakens through no fault of her own.  He is instead drawn away by the multitudes of recent female college grads enhancing and displaying themselves both at his office and at every happy hour in town.  He starts to notice that the same-age female is no longer as fit as those new entrants.

It starts to bring back memories as he watches them not only blowing off males the same age, but playing up to the males who are older than they are, including him.  He terminates the contract with the same-age female and upgrades to—oops, sets his sights on—the younger batch.