i wouldn’t find anything common with a 25 year old myself. i think it would be less of an issue if the younger was 30+. obviously the older you are the wider the acceptable gap. once both parties are 35+ i think the gap doesn’t matter at all.
It’s weird, but not NEARLY as weird as your obsession with age-gap relationships.
How many accounts are you going to get banned on this question?
It has zero impact on my life therefore I don’t care.
I think it’s kinda weird and likely indicates that one or both have some unresolved parental issues. I even may silently judge, but it’s none of my business otherwise.
It’s like having an allergy to 8+ classes of medication in the chart including “cardiac arrest” for Bendryl. Get the DSM-V.
I’d even remove the “may” from the statement and say that I will silently judge but its none of my business so within a minute I’ll have forgotten that they exist.
I say may, only because there are edge cases and exceptions to the rule. Few and far between I’ll grant you.
Still, unresolved parental issues need a partner too, so no skin off my nose…
Both adults.
I have other things to care about.
Weird for sure. Why do you keep on asking this question in different ways on different accounts? Are you trying to justify it? Is it a fetish?
Inquiring minds want to know!
Inquiring minds want to know!
Read it, you can read it, you can read it, you can read it…
Are you seeking validation, or condemnation?
People in different stages of life like that generally don’t have a ton to relate on. Can it work? Sure. Does it usually work long term? Nah
The older one of them is the less either need to worry about long term
I’ve seen it before. Never seen it work out, but I have seen it. How do I feel about it? Assuming it’s an otherwise healthy relationship with good communication and there’s no abuse, I personally couldn’t care less. I have no idea what those two people would have in common in terms of personality, interests, or goals, but that’s not my business.
The problem is that every time I’ve seen it, the power balance is incredibly lopsided. Generally an insecure older person who projects strength and wisdom and a troubled younger person who craves stability and authority. The older one usually gets controlling and jealous and the younger eventually catches on and uses that jealousy to manipulate the older person. It’s always a toxic mess when it gets to that point.
I’ve seen it before. Never seen it work out, but I have seen it.
It’s also almost universally something that the people involved cannot take outside advice on. It seems to be one of those things that must be experienced personally.
Thats really well put
I’m going to go with bad, it makes me feel bad
My age gap is only 9 years but I was 22 at the time and I turn 40 this year and looking back I’m thinking “where were all the adults who were supposed to give me good advice??” Instead of encouraging me into a wildly imbalanced relationship which has been incredibly damaging to me
Whatever. They’re both old enough to know better.
Hey man I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum, idgaf, enjoy each other
It’s not so much “Yucking someones yum” so much as “I think such a large age gap is going to be a big strain on this relationship. But if you wanna… fine.” Like, one of these people was born around when 9-11 occurred and the other was born around the time when Pac-Man was the new hot game in arcades and these “CD” things were starting to catch on for music storage. That’s quite a generational gap.
However, they’re both old enough to both know the what they’re doing… and maybe it will all work out. Thus my “They’re both old enough to know better” comment. Maybe they’re star crossed lovers and it will all work out… but in the end, it’s a case of “Not my circus, not my monkeys”.
apologies for pedantry, but if they’re star-crossed it won’t work out by definition
TIL that I’ve been using “star crossed lovers” wrong my entire life. I thought it meant fated lovers.
None of my fucking business.
See, that’s the thing about people being grown-ass adults. They get to decide what does and doesn’t work for them.
And, despite people that want to knee jerk the matter, there’s less difference between those two ages than there is between a 21 and 25 year old.
Personal development is heavily front loaded. By the mid to late twenties, most people are who they’ll always be. Friendship, romance, whatever. The only real barrier to age gaps are cultural touchstones and a handful of probable experiences (like job stuff, kids, etc) that aren’t even guaranteed to not be present.
Folks just get all het up over it because they’re morons that can’t look outside of themselves long enough to realize that their motivations and concepts towards other people aren’t actually universal.
Two consenting adults are just fine, and nobody else has an opinion that matters about them
Yeah, when I was 23 I had to break up with my 18yo girlfriend after less than a month.
At first it was like, “hell yeah, 18yo tail,” but it very quickly became, “holy shit, this is wrong; she’s still a child.”
It’s not about the age gap. They’re adults. The same rules apply to any relationship. If nobody’s being manipulated, abused, taken advantage of or harmed, then people need to mind their own business.
When I was 25, I would have said “of course it’s not a problem, they’re both adults. As long as they’re happy it’s fine.” and that is true, but now that I’m closer to 46 I have some additional caveats around “as long as they’re happy”.
You know how in order to really develop a skill, you have to do it for a long time? I think relationships are like that. If I were to compare it to chess, this scenario is kind of like someone who’s been playing chess competitively for 20 years playing against someone playing their first major tournament. It doesn’t mean that the more experienced player is guaranteed to win, or even that they’re better at chess, but it does confer some advantage because playing in a tournament is very different from playing chess casually or in clubs. There’s money at stake, your reputation is on the line, people may be watching you play and commentating in real time. It’s just a different activity altogether, even though it is still technically “just playing chess”. It really helps to get a few tournaments under your belt to get comfortable with the nerves, the additional tournament rules, publicly making a really stupid error, etc. If it’s your first time you might make some rookie errors. That’s part of being a rookie.
Where the analogy breaks down is that with chess, there is a brief competition with clear rules and referees, and there is (almost) always a clear outcome: win, lose, or draw. With relationships, A) it’s supposed to be cooperative, not a competition, and B) if your relationship partner is skilled at manipulation, you could be in a losing position for a long time and not know it, because you haven’t had the time to develop the skills necessary to identify what a dysfunctional adult relationship looks like.
This doesn’t mean that a relationship with a small age gap can’t be toxic, or that relationships with a large age gap can’t be healthy and happy.
But
I have observed a pattern of older people (usually, but not exclusively, men) who serially date young adults because those young people don’t recognize the signs of a toxic relationship. These are rookie errors, and there is no shame in them. Everyone that does anything new has a rookie period, and this includes adult relationships. These older people take advantage of that naivete instead of working on themselves to become the kind of partner that people want to stay with after really getting to know them. As soon as these young partners begin to understand these problems and challenge them, they end the relationship and trade them out for a younger model. You can be unhappy in a toxic relationship for a long time and be unable to identify why you are so unhappy, because they know the tricks. Undercut your partner’s relationships with their other friends or family, accuse them of not being smart enough or loving enough or patient enough, make them financially dependent on you. There are a lot of tricks, and people refine their techniques with each partner. And when you’ve just started having adult relationships, you are at a serious disadvantage if you wind up in a relationship like this because you just haven’t lived long enough to see firsthand how this kind of thing plays out.
It’s not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with it, but it does ping my danger radar. My danger radar sometimes gets false readings, but I still pay attention to it.
This is an excellent take and lines up pretty strongly with my personal experience.
