I’m not sure if this belongs in Great Debates, but I’ll put it here for now because I’m interested in your personal opinions about this.
Do you think it’s bad form to include college students in your potential dating pool? Let’s suppose you were 25 and the college student was 20.
Is this more an issue of maturity levels and not so much about age? Or do you think there’s some significant line of separation between students and post-school adults that shouldn’t be crossed?
I can’t see anything inherently wrong with it, though personally I’d think maturity issues would crop up dating anyone under the age of 21.
Someone 25 isn’t particularly mature as adults go. On the face of it, 25-20 is really not a meaningful difference. Both are adults, so have at it.
Calling them ‘kids’ probably isn’t a great sign…
Obviously not all college students are created equally. Some are teenagers who might as well still be children. Some are single parents busting their asses at two jobs to build a future.
Certainly it depends on maturity levels, but, as has been demonstrated on the Dope, somehow the hottest high school and college students manage to also be, like, incredibly mature for their ages.
If we’re talking undergrads and you are out of your 20s, I’d say lay off for several reasons: For one, your schedules and priorities will likely be very different. They are probably making little to no money, and spending that on food and booze. If you have a steady income, the relationship will be lopsided from the get go.
Can you take 2+ weeks off for spring break? If so, do you want to go skiing or to Mexico with a bunch of their college friends? If not, do you mind if they go with them?
Above anything else, I think people’s early 20s are for finding themselves and developing their personalities. Yes, some can have great relationships with older people, but I’ve see too many friends basically waste 3-4 years of their lives having their tastes and views shaped by a single source of influence (yes, this can happen with a partner who’s the same age, but IMO it’s much more common when one partner is much older).
I think the best way to date a college kid is to take a core sample. This way you don’t have to chop them down to count the rings.
Someone 20 is even less mature as adults go. I’m 28, and have been working in a university setting for the past two years so I spend a lot of time around undergrads. Trust me, there’s a huge difference between the average college sophomore/junior and someone who is out of school and working full time. Even at 25 I would have been very hesitant to date an undergrad.
I don’t think it’s immoral, but I’ve never known such a relationship to work out. A casual fling might be one thing, but not a serious long-term relationship. The woman I know who most recently tried it (she was 23-24, the guy was a senior so 21-22) swore she’d never make the mistake of dating an undergrad again. As Cat Fight says, even just scheduling dates is going to be problematic.
Yes, if you are a college kid.
Recent college grads who meet appealing current college students in the course of ordinary events or while socializing on a college campus are ok, too.
Persons who make a point of hunting out college kids preferentially to those a few years older–not so ok.
But, if you are out of college for a few years, your frame of reference changes–if you are working a 9 to 5 job, you probably only want to go out drinking on Friday and Saturday, and may find you don’t want to stay out all night. You may want to watch your pennies so you can save money for a down payment on a house–while the college kid can always ask Mom and Dad for more. Or you may have money to burn while the college kid is scrimping to get by without any more student loans.
Many college students may have long term relationships which they kind of expect to dissolve at college graduation–assuming that they don’t find jobs where their partners do–and not making finding jobs together a high priority. Others don’t have this attitude. And of course, not all 25 year olds have any particular approach to dating life.
And, um, when you say college kids, are you considering dating those who are under 21? 'Cause if you like to drink alcohol on a date, and your would-be date is too young to do so legally, that’s a can of worms you just don’t need to open.
But mostly, these are cautionary points–it’s not a hard and fast thou shalt not cross this line without consequences. But I do think that in broad strokes there are differences between most college students and most people who’ve spent a few years out of college and in the real world which make relationships between them problematic in ways that a similar age gap between slightly older people are not.
But any particular individual may or may not fit any of the pigeonholes I’ve just suggested, so you may have heartbreak associated with something I’ve never thought of instead.
A college woman who is actually interested in older men (mid- to late 20s) is probably not that satisfied with the college dating scene and may find many of her own peers to be immature (or at least she’s dissatisfied for the moment). I don’t see anything inherently wrong with it, although the chances for relationship success remain rather slim IMHO, not based on age differences but on differences in lifestyle. A college student generally has access to all kinds of things that will ultimately prove more interesting than dating an older guy, unless she falls for you, of course.
28 year old here, dating a 21 year old college student. Yeah, it’s ok, but you have to be sensitive to the fact that they need to put school first, and discourage them from not doing assignments or skipping classes, and THEY need to understand that I need to make an income to survive. It does sometimes seem like a parent-child relationship, which some people may find creepy. We both have different sleep schedules too, which can cause issues.
College girls were fair game for me until I was about 29, after which it started to be a little weird.
In general, you should ask yourself 1) is she over 18? and 2) is the age gap less than 7 years?
If the answer to both of those questions is yes, then go for it!
You never heard of thursday night happy hours?
Mature like they’ve outgrown permiscuous sex, drug and alchohol use or mature like they are baning 38 year old investment bankers and have graduated to coke and scotch?
To answer the OP’s question, it is perfectly fine to date a college student as long as she is of legal drinking age. I graduated college 2 years before my college sweetheart. Should I have stopped seeing her because now I’m an “adult”? And if you go to school in an urban center like New York or Boston where there are a lot of colleges and companies where young people work, it’s not out of the question that you could be out in a bar with your crew of 28 year old lawyer friends and meet some nice NYU girl.
And what about grad school? Is it ok for a 27 year old MBA student to date a 21 year old undergrad?
I say, unless it’s illegal, just do whatever the heck you want. Who are you worried about it being “OK” with? All your loser peers who can’t hook up with a college-aged hottie?
golf clap
Many of these objections apply more generally to any significant disparity in age, dating and sexual experience, income or socioeconomic level, occupational demands, et cetera. It seems like the largest issue (in terms of a long term relationship) is that graduating from college and going to work or graduate school is (and should be) a watershed occasion and being in a relationship with someone who has already succeeded that event may stunt the impact of that and development therefrom.
Stranger
I think it is great!!! The Second Stone. 46. Now, where was that campus?
Well, in my experience, it doesn’t work out. I’ve had two relationships with college students when I was not one myself. Its not so much the age difference as the different points in each partner’s life. The college student and non-college student are going to have different priorities, and that can cause problems.
For me, I had a job where having 8 hours of sleep/being on time were extremely important, so I couldn’t go flitting off to hang out at the beach at 11PM on a Thursday night. I also ran into problems with being a bit too liberal with giving out advice.
No relationship is foolproof, but it takes one or two to crash and burn to really understand what other people were saying when they warn you about factors that may complicate things (partner in college/has kids/siamese twin/etc)
I’m thirty and a graduate student. I would sooner eat my hat than date an undergrad. They’re…kids. I’m actually taking an undergrad class (an introductory language class) and the freshmen in the class were born in 1990.
NINETEEN NINETY.
Jesus christ, what happened?
/old fogey
Don’t feel bad. They all look like jail bait to me too. I’m 25 and got around to college last year.
I’m thinking about asking this 30 year old chick out in in one of my computer classes.
My college BF and I hooked up when I was 19 and he was 25, and we were together for 4 years (until I moved across the country to go to grad school).
He and I have been friends now for 35 years.
The last guy I dated was (is still) a college student, an undergrad. We were both 26-27 while we dated. The schedule differences and the income differences truly sucked and caused a lot of problems.
As others have said, I don’t think the age difference is the problem it’s the schedule and time-of-life differences.
Hey, I’m still a college kid, and have been so for almost the last 8 years. Crap, where did time go!
I think it is a bit funny how some of you are stereotyping the college “kids” (undergrads?)… Going out all the time, wasting mom and dad’s money, lots of beer, vacations out of nowhere. I wish I had that when I was an undergrad!
Sure, some students are like that… but not all, and I think most are not like that.
Some of you are also presenting as if the “out of college” are somehow more… I don’t know, strict? Yea, they may go out only Fridays and Saturdays, but again, the groups I’m around tend to stay out very late when they go out. And drink a lot, without regards to money (again they’re making money, so they spend it there).
That said, I’m 25, and it would be difficult for me to consider dating a 20 year old. Not impossible, but just less likely. Also, even though I work in a college setting and live in a college town, I do not interact with male undergrads that often (other than in training). Heck, I have a hard time interacting with older male graduate students!
Guilty as charged. It is my firm belief that on average there is a maturity gap between the average undergraduate college student and the average person who has been in the workforce and fully responsible for their own rent/mortgage/bills/food for a few years. I believe this gap to be significant but not necessarily insurmountable, and in many cases far more subtle than a reading of my above post may suggest. Some of that gap is due to life experience, some due to lifestyle, and some is no doubt attributable to other factors altogether.
And at the end of the day, probably as many or more young couples dealing with that maturity gap break up for reasons unrelated to that maturity gap than for reasons related to it.