I'm 43, you're experience matches mine. I will say that in my experience women prefer to talk than use text based communication. However, it's more convenient to use text messages and nowadays they are comfortable with that. That being said, women like confidence and if you are confident enough to call them (and you can hold a conversation), that's got to be a plus.
Yeah, you and I are the same age, and we started dating long before cell-phones, or even the internet. So it's just a different mentality we've grown up with. When I date women who are closer to my age, online/text interaction is far less frequent than when I date younger women. I just kinda go with the flow.
But like I said earlier, I actually
enjoy non-verbal communication, and feel that I excel at it. Texting is great for stuff like "meet you there at 7", but for actual communication, and establishing a point of view it's not ideal, especially when putting yourself out there for a first date. For example, I can't joke or be flirty in a text, I can't really reference a previous conversation without a wall of text, which is just awkward - all the tools that help establish a mood and appropriate intentions, and ultimately a connection, aren't available to me in text.
I actually find this difference/disparity between
old dating Gaf vs
young dating Gaf endlessly fascinating, especially when I'm dating younger women, though I mostly date around my age, and I do try to stick to the rule of half my age + 7 and the girl I called last night is right at that cutt-off. I did once go out with a 26 year old (didn't know she was that young, and she didn't know I was this old), and she was honestly
too young - she was sweet, but just tough to relate to.