Those exceptions take effort, and online dating is like Amazon Prime for sex.(And love, ideally.) If it weren't for the algorithms, I could meet all of these people IRL and they wouldn't know I was 40 unless I showed them my birth certificate — ah, the very idea made me irate.Then there are the men I've met online who are actually my age, chronologically and emotionally, who seem to click with my weirdness in all the right ways.

Data scientist Dale Markowitz wrote via email, "When it comes to receiving quality messages on Ok Cupid (that is, first messages that turn into conversations), there is no penalty to being 40 or over.

It never occurred to me in a serious way before this to lie about my age, even when I hit 30 or 35.

In the context of dating, those ages felt a lot less damning than 40; they felt a lot more viable. As ambivalent as I am about having my own children, there's something haunting about that scene from where Marisa Tomei stomps her foot about her biological clock ticking.

My friend Brooke, who is a similarly fresh-faced 40-year-old, divulged over Gchat, "I joined OKCupid [when I was 39] and actually had to quit because I was INUNDATED by men in their 20s — though I put an age range and that is well below it. And can teach their useless baby bodies what to do?

They were like 'Would you consider a guy below your age range? " While I have encountered a few boychiks who are curious about bedding older ladies and nothing more, my inbox hasn't been a total waste of space.