Not Just a Number—A Look into Netflix’s 'Age of Attraction'
By Isabella Kelly-Goss
In Netflix’s most recent dip into the dating pool, Age of Attraction, the show set out to answer the question that spans generations: Is age really just a number?
The eight-episode dating show falls in the same vein as the streaming service’s other hit reality dating series, Love is Blind, where contestants began dating each other without ever seeing their partners. While “Age of Attraction” allows its contestants to see each other, they’re forbidden from knowing each other's ages until they’re ready to commit.
Courtesy of Netflix
Hosted by real-life eighteen-year age gap couple Nick Viall and Natalie Joy, forty singles ranging from 22 to 60 years old went on the show looking for love. Just twelve of those forty singles turned into couples and moved on with age gaps that ranged from 16 to 33 years.
Before discussing the couples themselves, it’s important to acknowledge the show itself. At times, it has sweet, stereotypical romantic parts that you’d see in any reality romance show. At others, it feels more like a social experiment than a dating show.
Aside from the show quite literally testing the hypothesis “Is age really just a number?”, the show consistently encourages its participants to push their boundaries. From white water rafting to zip lining on dates, the allegory is there. Then there’s the contestants.
Starting with 27-year-old Vanelle, who briefly flits between 44-year-old Justin S. and 60-year-old Jorge. Justin grossly tells Vanelle he can tell she’s young, but he can sense her “emotional maturity.” It’s here that Vanelle begins to reveal that she’s always been into older men, but her father has told her he will not accept her marrying anyone over 40. She openly states that she wishes to adhere to this.
Eventually, Jorge and Vanelle become one of the couples to take the step towards moving in together. Unfortunately, their foundation is rocky as Vanelle waits until the promise room to tell Jorge she’s celibate until marriage, and Jorge keeps his two children a secret, despite telling her he wouldn’t ever want children out of wedlock. Eventually, Jorge pushes Vanelle’s boundaries, and a glimpse into a jealous and controlling future leads her to be the first to break things off.
Courtesy of Netflix
Before the 6 couples are whisked away to their “real life” live-in experiment, a few others try but quickly sizzle out. One couple that resembled some of the major contenders was Tristan and Erin. While they seemed to have chemistry, 27-year-old Tristan’s blatant immaturity and overly sexual desire for an older woman cause major ick for 52-year-old Erin.
Two couples can be drawn as a comparison—Chris & Leah, and Logan & Vanessa.
Chris, 26, and Leah, 41, move in together during the second phase of the show, despite neither of them having lived with another person before. They butt heads and are generally incompatible. Chris claims he is ready for marriage and children, but in the face of someone like Leah—who desires it almost immediately after never getting close—he bows out at the end of the show’s run during the Commitment Ceremony.
Logan and Vanessa are a different side of the same coin. Vanessa, 49, has been engaged 4 times and never married. Logan, 29, is a self-proclaimed commitment phobe. He is hesitant for Vanessa to meet any of his friends and family during the live-in phase’s challenge. Before this, he tells Vanessa to her face that he worries about the “optics” of dating a visibly older woman. Not an unfair anxiety, but he doesn’t exactly handle it with grace. Eventually, Vanessa forgives him but doesn’t let him forget. During the Commitment Ceremony, after a fake-out breakup moment, Logan actually proposes to Vanessa and becomes her fifth fiancé.
Courtesy of Netflix
John, 27, and Theresa, 54, seemed to actually enjoy each other’s company, and age really didn’t matter. Until, that is, Theresa became fixated on the perception people may have of her. If anything, it made me sad to see this beautiful woman being terrified of her partner’s family knowing her real age, while the older men on the show never really seemed to care to the same extent. Theresa does, at least, acknowledge this double standard. Eventually, they made the choice to stay together during the Commitment Ceremony after a letter from Theresa’s kids—22, 25, and 29–to John saying they didn’t care about his age. However, a now private interview with Entertainment Tonight reveals their relationship succumbed to societal pressure just six months after filming wrapped.
The two final couples, Libby with 38-year-old Andrew and 23-year-old Pfeifer with 43-year-old Derrick, both stayed together as well. Both Derrick and Andrew had teenage children.
During their friends and family day, Libby’s friends give it to her straight. A 22-year-old recent college grad, Libby’s friend, tells her right out that she is not ready to be a step-mom. In an almost disgusting display of just how these age gaps actually work for younger women versus older men, Libby’s friends are discussing how much this could severely affect her life, while Andrew’s friends are in the corner laughing about how she’s practically a child herself.
Despite their 20-year age gap, Pfeifer and Derrick’s main issue seemed to be more about Pfeifer uprooting her life for a man she had only known for three weeks.
That’s right, in addition to the added pressure of the relationships all being long-distance, these people had just three weeks to decide if they wanted to be together long-term. Logan and Vanessa got engaged after three weeks. But when you know, you know, apparently.
However, according to Entertainment Tonight, Cosmopolitan, and other news sources, the only couples still together are Libby & Andrew and Logan & Vanessa.
Despite this poor success rate, the end of episode eight is a series of interviews with the show’s “winners.” They all essentially say the same sentiments about “Wow, gee, I guess age really is just a number!”
The show may be framed in a way that says they’ve proved their hypothesis, but in my opinion, true observations prove age is anything but. Additionally, they show that age imbalances in relationships are deeply rooted in sexism.
Throughout the duration of the show, many of the older men spend their time making jokes about their younger counterparts. Even during the Commitment Ceremony, Andrew can’t help but to say “I don’t know what your generation calls it these days, hard launch? Soft launch?” as his way of asking her to be his girlfriend. On the flip side, it was the younger women who had to make hard decisions on whether they were willing to change their entire lives to be with these men who could have been their fathers.
The male participants are nearly always referred to as “men” while the female participants are usually referred to as “girls,” even though half of the main cast are over the age of 40. The exception that stands out is Leah’s declaration that she “can’t turn a boy into a man” when Chris unexpectedly dumps her at the commitment altar.
I just have to wonder why we’re entertaining what I imagine Andrew would call a “soft launch” of what is blatantly an attempt to normalize age gap relationships. The idea that Netflix set out to prove that age is just a number to begin with is unsettling. But, to pair it with exit interviews that only showcase contestants stating the hypothesized point borders on propaganda.
This begs the question: why are we pushing propaganda surrounding age gap relationships during this current climate?
I won’t go into the specifics; everyone has heard about the horrors to come out of The Epstein Files. However, everyone has heard about the horrors to come out of The Epstein Files! Why do we find it socially acceptable to push age gaps in a time in which victims are fighting to be seen as victims of power imbalance, just because they were “legal” at the time? Why would Netflix find it acceptable to push a narrative like this while incels crawl the internet using AI to make child pornography, justified by the “age of consent”?
Courtesy of Netflix
Reality television is rarely fully real anyway, between being unable to tell what’s scripted and what’s actually happening on the first take. But, there’s never really that line drawn in the sand. They don’t let the viewers in on the real challenges: what comes after the show. Even though the reunion comes out on April 1, the stories they will show will never be the whole truth.
There are age gap relationships that work; real love can defy generations. But, the message this show sends—the message that young girls can go and find love with older men in less than three weeks—is not one we should teach. Success in love with an age gap is not the rule; it is the exception. And the show’s proof that age is just a number? Well, it’s just not there. The proof is in the breakups.
