Not in my experience.
I was married to a man 10.5 years older, and now I’m dating a man 4 years younger. With both, there are definitely some cultural touchstones that aren’t quite the same, but otherwise it’s all good.
Every time I’m attracted to the tight, pert bodies of young women, I have the realistic part of my brain say, “You’ll have to talk with her sometime” and that pretty much kills the mood.
“Within 5 years” is, while not a firm rule, close enough to my idea that she should be “within the neighborhood”.
shrug I’ve never had a <30 year old woman complain on a first date about how bad her sex life had been or what a jerk her last three squeezes all were. As for educable, what I mean is that most women (and people in general) tend to get very fixed about their interests after a certain age. Although I’m painting broadly from my fairly narrow range of dating experience, two contrasting incidents I’ve had server to highlight this.
To a twenty-six year old law student: “The Arclight is having a festival showing of Rear Window; interested?.” Her: “I’ve never seen it but it sounds interesting.”
To a late-thirty-something year old finance professional: “How about the midnight showing of The Third Man at The Rialto?” Her (curtly): “I hate old movies.”
While it is inaccurate to generalize from just a couple of examples, this reflects my experience overall; younger women are more willing to try new things. It may not be politically correct, but reality rarely is.
Stranger
Oni no Husband is 4 1/2 years older than me.
The boys who catch my eye on the street or online tend to be about 10-15 years younger than me. In one notable case, I was flirting like crazy with a fellow (online) when I realized he was 16 - I was more than twice that. (In my defense, 1) he was a very mature 16 and 2) he was in England, and therefore of the age of consent in his home jurisdiction!).
Most of the guys I’ve dated in general have been 2-5 years younger than I, but it’s no hard and fast rule.
ETA: Bi female, 39.
‘Cultural touchstones’, I rather like that phrase. I tend to culturally hit it off better with people of the generation before mine. There are so many references to music, tv shows, books, etc. that just don’t click with people my age. There were definitely times back in high school where I would meet a friends parents and hit it off better with them then I did my own friends. Now, the majority of my friends are about 5-10 years older than I am, so it’s surprising to me I’ve never dated anyone more than a few years older than me.
Do you have older siblings? My mom had lots of older sibs so she was more into big band than Elvis though she was the right age for Elvis. Then I had five older siblings and I ended up exposed both to my mom’s “old-fashioned” music and to the stuff my oldest siblings were listening to. So that stuff feels as much mine as it does theirs.
No idea if that made a lick of sense.
33/F. Mr. Snicks is a year and a half younger than I, and we’ve been married for 10 years, so I haven’t dated in a long time. But if something were to happen to him, I’ve decided that any eligible guy for me must have been born in the '70s. Why? I’m just more comfortable with that - I think I’d have difficult relating to someone who wasn’t coming from the same timespace. I’d go older than that maybe, meaning I’d date someone born in '68 or '69 probably, but I don’t think I’d go younger - just too young.
33/F. Mr. Snicks is a year and a half younger than I, and we’ve been married for 10 years, so I haven’t dated in a long time. But if something were to happen to him, I’ve decided that any eligible guy for me must have been born in the '70s. Why? I’m just more comfortable with that - I think I’d have difficult relating to someone who wasn’t coming from the same timespace. I’d go older than that maybe, meaning I’d date someone born in '68 or '69 probably, but I don’t think I’d go younger - just too young.
Yes, that made sense. And yup, that’s probably it. My sister’s 5.5 years older than I am, and I definitely was influenced by a lot of what she watched/listened to, etc. Also, I adopted my parents music, so 60s/70s rock is something I tend to get excited about, while others my age are like, “Who?” and I’m like, “Dr. Hook, it’s Dr. Hook!!” and then I get blank stares.
Makes sense to me. My current SO is quite a bit older than me (I’m one of those ‘Don’t date too far out of your age range… unless you, like, really, really hit it off’ types), and we still get almost all of the same cultural references, because, I think, I have several older siblings and got their hand-me-down records, magazines, etc. But I should mention that popular culture is very important to both of our senses of humor – we make a bazillion references a day, so having similar taste meant we had a lot less catching up to do.
As for being able to ‘educate’ a younger woman, even though I’m not entirely sure in what spirit this was intended, I have observed way too many young college women being ‘educated’ by some older blowhard who simply must know better since he’s been alive longer and had more time for life experience. (People are free to do what they wish, but I do think this is where some of my prejudice against much younger woman (or girl)/older man relationships comes from.)
For dating I like within five years of my own age.
I have decided that for just fun I’ll go younger down to 18 years old. I was going to say 21 but fuck it, who am I to discriminate?
Straight male, early 40s (late Generation X), ±5 years. In reality, a bit more down than up.
As I wrote in an earlier post, there’s a couple of big turnoffs I often encounter from women in my age group -
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Uber-moms who lost all sense of self, and whose primary identity is now that of “mommy”. They don’t have any identity or interests of their own outside of parenthood. They only talk about parenting or their kids.
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Women who “frump down” because they either gave up, believe it’s expected of women their age, or “don’t have time to look nice” because they’re uber-moms. Short and plain hairstyle, unflattering clothes, and so on.
I am a straight male and I prefer to date people that want to sleep with me.
You’re so picky.
I read it the same way.
So many other threads are starting to make more and more sense.
I’m a straight girl and I’ve always dated men older than myself. Right now I’m 28 and my boyfriend is 39, but my last three were a 29-yr-old outlier and two others in their 40s.
In my ideal world, I’d find a man closer to my age, but only because they’d have more in common with my friend group. Some of my 20-something girlfriends are not entirely used to considering 40-something men as peers. Or perhaps my 20-something girlfriends just need to grow up a little 
I’m a 30 year-old straight male, and I tend to prefer women who are about five years younger, if only because I have zero interest in settling down any time soon, and it’s been my experience that women closer to my own age have different views on the matter.
Straight female, 33. I generally prefer guys from a couple of years older to five years younger. Being somewhat immature, I have more in common with a guy of 28 than one in his late 30s.
I’m a 43 year old straight female. I prefer to date men within 10 years of my age. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it is a preference.
In general, I prefer to spend time with people who get the same pop culture/social references and are at a similar point in their lives as me.
32 year old straight female. I generally prefer men that are older than me, but not more than 10 years. The oldest man I dated was 14 years older than me. It was a little weird for me. My mom is 10 years older than my stepdad, which was fine when she was in her thirties and forties. Now that she’s in her early sixties though, she gets a little weirded out that her husband is in his seventies. Of course, he still thinks he’s in his twenties, so I guess it all evens out. 