Ten Year Olds, Dude

[joeymichaels]

“I’ll be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?”

Some of you might remember my formula for calculating appropriate ages a person can date without meeting societal disapproval. Basically, take your own age,divided it in half and add 7. For example, I'm 48 so the youngest person I can date without ooging people out is 31. I think that's reasonable. Yeah Yeah age is just a number, but age difference can suggest power difference and a big power difference isn't always healthy in a romantic relationship.

Anyhow, so Trump is 70. Were he to be single again, I'd expect him to stuck to women 42 years and up.

When I first started teaching high school, I was 27 (lowest age range: 21). I had some male friends who said gross things like "oh you get to hand around wuth all those hot teenage girls." I was all like "what the fuck?"

The first year I was teaching, I had to chaperone the prom. One of the 18 year old women (lowest age for date: 16; highest age: 22) arrived with her 30 year old boyfriend (low: 22, high 46). He was older than me and wanted to sit with the chaperones, not his girlfriend's friends. Sorry, dude, you date a teenager, you have to hang out with teenagers.

I get being attracted to youth especially as I get older but i don't get why you'd want to date somebody that had almost no shared life experiences - and almost no experience at life. This if what that formula is partially about - the range of people you can date expands as you get older and theta greater odds of shared life experience and shared power levels.

I know every relationship is different and maybe there's some March/December romances out there that work perfectly well. The thought of a 50+ year old man bragging about dating a ten year old when she ages up to 20, however, squicks me out.

Comments

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I'm amused at the 30yo dude coming to prom. But also surprised he'd even want to go to a prom in the first place at that age.

I could talk about this sort of thing at length, because power dynamics and large age gaps are things that can and do bother me, especially when relating them to other people, and certain women I perceive as not being mature enough to understand the power inequality. And yet... yet I'm someone who has personally not stuck within your formula. When I was 17, my first boyfriend was 23 or 24. The first guy I ever kissed, again when I was 17, was 28. And I went into both of those things knowing I wanted to. I didn't think I was pressured into it. I think I've had a history of feeling more mature than other people my own age, though, which is how that happened. Although nowadays I tend to mainly look for partners who are in their 30s, or maybe mid-late 20s, so they're closer to my own age (32, what?)

"The thought of a 50+ year old man bragging about dating a ten year old when she ages up to 20, however, squicks me out."
I would hope that would squick any decent person out.

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Obviously, my math formula isn't set in stone - but it does, I think, reflect how American society regards relationships with age gaps.

[kickthehobbit.livejournal.com]

My current partner is seven years older than I am (36 to my soon-to-be 29). I think that's enough of a gap.

I've dated people that were significantly older than me, including when I was in my teens. I look back on it now and I'm unsurprised that the relationships I had with them were abusive—because it's impossible to have a relationship of "equals" when you're 28 and dating an 18-year-old. I don't think every older/younger relationship skews that way, but as someone who is in their late 20s, I can't fathom dating a teenager. :|

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Yeah man, our brains aren't even fully formed until our early 20's. Its hard to see that when we're younger, but reflecting on being a teenager I can certainly see that, for myself, I wasn't the same person mentally.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

One of my coworkers (early 40s) dated a woman in her early 20s. They met at work when she was still in high school. He didn't ask her out until after she graduated.

They had issues. He'd bitch about her behavior much of the time. We always told him that the age gap between them was too great, she's 20 years old, SHE'S A KID, of course she's going to act like that! Gradually we learned that my coworker's *issues* had a lot to do with why he'd choose to date someone that young.

They broke up back during the summer. Last we heard she's dating a guy much closer to her age and my coworker's attempting to play the field with women closer to his age. He's dated one a few times. We'll see if it sticks.

ETA: I've always been the older party in all my relationships. SO is 5 years younger than me. The only man I dated who was older than me (by 2 years) was my ex-fiance. I could've never, ever dated a man *that* much older than me. Conversely I could've never dated a man *that* much younger than me, especially since I'd now probably be their mother's age :shudder:

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Obviously, every couple is different and some will work and some won't work based on a thousand different factors, but wow does a generation gap make a relationship more of a struggle.

[scarlet-begonia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had a friend who dated an older man. He was like 30 and she was 17. She brought him to band functions and school functions.

I never liked men that old at that age, but in adulthood I have developed man crushes on men at least twelve years older than me.... My current crush is fifteen... I ciuldn't see him at high school functions but with adult friends, yes.

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

As we get older, the differences sort of shrink - one of the interesting things about my formula is that at a certain point, people can date people with some pretty big age gaps between them.

[scarykarrey.livejournal.com]

Hey, Nineteen/No, we can't dance together/No, we can't talk at all.

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Exactly!

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

I personally subscribe to your tskebe formula RELIGIOUSLY. And Trump is the grossest. And how are we in our forties?

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Wait, when did we get to our forties? Holy cats.