SCHALK & LOUISE

An 8-year age gap

Louise is 33, Schalk is 25; they met two-and-a-half years ago. ‘I love watching stand-up comedy, so I’d been to some of Schalk’s shows,’ says Louise. ‘We knew each other vaguely but moved in different circles.’ When they met properly, Schalk made a deal with her: she would come to see the play he was in that night, and if she liked it he could take her on a date. ‘I thought it was quite ballsy! But I did like the play, so we made a date for the following Wednesday. The rest is history!’

‘From the beginning there were no juvenile hard-to-get games,’ says Louise. ‘Schalk was graduating and I had quit my job, so we were both starting a new life in a way. But he had already established a career for himself while studying; he was part of the adult hustle. It was definitely an issue – more for me than for him – but Schalk reassured me that if you get on with someone and you really love them, age doesn’t matter.’

Schalk says that every age gap has its own challenges: ‘If I were dating a girl two years younger than me, she might still be in a big party phase, and that has its own pressures. It’s nice that Louise has figured things out and there’s no bullshit. It’s less about age and more about who the person is.’

‘We’re also very independent,’ says Louise. ‘We don’t need each other, but we enhance each other’s lives greatly.

‘The whole biological-clock-ticking thing does come up. But the truth is, I’ve just become an aunt – my sister became pregnant at 40. It’s a modern world, and if that’s something we want to do and it’s not when everyone else is doing it, there are other ways. I would rather have that part of my life with Schalk, when we’re both ready, than have it with some random dude who bores me to death because it’s ageappropriate, biologically.

‘I love that Schalk is always up for anything; it’s always fun with him. We have a similar outlook on life, which is much more important than being age-appropriate.’