Half your age
How does dating someone much older or younger than you work?
In 2017, when I was 24 and my boyfriend was 33, we were at a bar and some footage of 9/11 played on a projector. I still don’t know why that was happening – it wasn’t 9/11 or anything – but it prompted him to ask me the single funniest question he’s ever asked me: “Were you even alive for 9/11?” In his defence, he was a few drinks in and he immediately realised the implications of dating someone who was born post-2001 (namely: the illegality of it).
For the most part, though, our nineyear age gap goes ignored: in our group of friends I’m one of the youngest, and he’s one of the oldest, but we know the same people. Besides that night at the bar, I can recall only two occasions when I was painfully cognisant of the age gap. The first was when I introduced him to my parents: I still feel twelve years old around them, which made him seem very thirty-three years old. The other time was when he showed me Paula Abdul’s ‘Opposites Attract’ music video, where she dances sensually with cartoon feline MC Skat Kat. He was dismayed to learn I’d never seen it, and so was I.
Most people don’t think age-gapped relationships are a big deal. A 2008 study found that couples only face societal disapproval when their age dierence is over ten years – I’m in the clear! Woo! Even big age gaps tend to become less taboo as people get older, and it certainly matters at what age the couple met. If you date someone you knew when they were a child, and you were a full-fledged adult, that’s... uh, uncomfortable.
While people certainly have a lot to say about women dating younger men, generally, society is more tolerant of the reverse pattern of men dating younger women (repeatedly, even, in the case of certainmalecelebrities,ahem)although we do tend to label women in those relationships as ‘gold diggers’ or ‘trophy wives’. Take a long moment to ponder the glaring lack of derogatory terms for men in the same circumstances.
Ponder it.
Keep pondering.