I work at a small liberal arts college. I have a co-worker with whom I’m work chums (we’re not bosom buddies but we like each other at work- I’m sure you’ve had one). He ended a long-term relationship last year (non live-in) and I was glad when he said he’d met someone who really “did it for him”- bright, vivacious, intellectual and, I just learned when I met her- 19 years old. She’s a student at the college where we work. (He’s technically a professor but he’s non-teaching, so she’s not ever going to be in any of his classes, so that’s not an issue.)
Hmmm… she’s certainly cute and seems really nice, but I can’t get over the age difference. I’m not going to say anything to him or her about it because it’s none of my business, but it majorly bothers me (two levels: he’s still a professor and she’s still a student even if the college doesn’t have a dating ban [unless students are in the professor’s class] and the fact that she’s by some definitions a minor and he’s closing in on middle age]). I’m curious to see what others think: if you had friends in this type of relationship, would you think “She’s a BABY!” or would you think “one can’t control where the heart will lead”? 1.3239 pennies for your thoughts.
My parents had an 18 year age difference (she was 16 and he was 34 when they married [and he was her high-school teacher]- this was rural Alabama in the early 1950s when that wasn’t so scandalous) and the marriage lasted for 30 years. Unfortunately. (It wasn’t a happy union, it’s just that its unhappiness got tenure.)
How much of my parents’ unhappiness was based in the age difference I don’t know, but I can’t shake the feeling that when a guy goes after a gal half-his-age, however else he may justify it the lust for firm young flesh is high on the list of REAL motivations (not to say that he can’t be intellectually attracted as well). I’m honestly not sure what motivates a 19 year old girl to go after a guy twice her age (it’s definitely not money with this kid as judging by her car and clothes she’s from a very well-to-do family).
You are absolutely right. It IS none of your business.
Maybe you would do well to adopt my motto: I don’t care WHAT you do, as long as you don’t do it to me.
Or what I tell my kids- you worry about YOURself, and let others worry about THEMselves.
Just my opinion, love.
As a Prof. at a small Liberal Arts College in New England, I’ll say this. Wht he is doing is very taboo among the upper echelon of college profs. Though not conpletely unheard of, it does happen, but it is not a norm by any means. Sounds like your 38 year old prof. work-buddy, needs to re-think his situation. It is not advisable to date students at your institution, and though I have personal objections to the age difference, in this situation it is more of a professional indecency.
And it is non-of your business, but you’ll probably be called upon to pick up the pieces when it falls apart. I feel for the girl…If she only knew what she was getting into…
I like the much older guys myself. On the other hand, this does seem a bit icky to me. I think it’s because the girl is “just a baby”. Before I started dating men twenty years older than me, I dated men the same age as myself, and one much younger. Makes me wonder if this girl knows what she is doing, but hey! Could be she just wised up a lot faster than me.
In conclusion, this is none of our business, so let’s just give a little shudder and forget about it.
This is similar to my sister’s situation and I’m pretty worried about it. She’s 19 and apparently not just seeing, but sleeping with a 35 year old Scottish man that none of her family has ever met or knows anything about. She let it slip to me (I’m 28 FWIW) when she had had one too many beers at a party exacting a promise that I wasn’t to tell our mother. Well I told my older sister and she told my mother so technically I didn’t tell but my mother doesn’t know what to do. My younger sister has a history of telling lies about who she’s socialising with and what she gets up to when she goes out and despite numerous talks with her six older siblings (she’s the youngest in the family) she can’t seem to see the problem with this.
OK part of me says it’s her life and she should do what she wants, and we can’t lock her up because she’s not a minor anymore, but I honestly do question the motivation of the average 35 year old man who wants to go out with a 19 yr old. He’s either too much of a loser to get someone his own age or he is mainly motivated by sex rather than a desire to build a ‘future’ with his partner (and equal partners? - unlikely with this age-gap until they’re maybe 55 and 70). Also the fact that he’s from Scotland - for all she knows he could be married and just coming over here for a bit of action every now and then…
I would be interested to find out how much the 19 yr old mentioned in the OP’s family know about her ‘relationship’ with your colleague. My view is that if you have to tell lies/ feel uncomfortable about introducing your partner to your family and friends (given that you have an otherwise excellent relationship with your family - some mileages may vary) your gut instinct should be telling you that something is wrong with this situation and it doesn’t bode well. I just wish my little sister could see that and I fear for her safety (she lost her virginity last year by being drugged and raped by a 40 yr old at a party no one knew she was at because she had lied).
You’d say age should not be a factor? For such great age differences, I can’t believe this is true beyond the superficial layer called lust (and/or gold digging)? When the luster is gone, the younger one probably won’t be around for the long haul. It is a fool’s paradise. …And, it’ll never work. Seen it first-hand. It tears families apart - because it has impact and fallout concerning more than just the once-happy couple. It’s even worse should they marry AND have kids. Then, it generates perhaps the ugliest of all divorces. That’s when their age differences really show the most…when the younger one esp. just cannot handle it.
I WAG it is the older one’s way of foolishly thinking one can escape a mid-life crisis in this fashion…only to wake up one day with a total stranger when reality comes a-calling. - Jinx
I’m 43 and the guy in the OP is my hero. The only upside of being middle-aged is that you can date women half your age and no one gets to say “boo” about it. From the age of 32 to 37, I dated a woman 17 years my senior. My last date was with a 25-year-old. As long as nobody’s breaking the law and everyone’s having fun, I don’t see a problem here.
I’m very sorry your sister endured this, but the rapist in question could just as easily have been 20 years old. Sexual predation isn’t something one grows into.
Point taken but the point I’m making is that it’s much less likely to be a level playing field emotionally between the two when the guy is 15-20 years older. I do believe that at later ages gaps are less relevant but there is generally a huge difference in maturity/ life experience between a 38 year old man and a 19 year old girl.
The point is that these affairs break up more often than stick together in the long run, and when affairs break up someone nearly always gets hurt no matter what we would like to believe. I think the younger and less-experienced of the two is more likey to get hurt in this situation. That’s why I can’t help feeling that guys who go out with much younger girls are often sleazy because they aren’t necessarily being honest about what they’re prepared to offer their young girlfriend who is often so starry-eyed and flattered at being given attention by an older man that she doesn’t fully appreciate the reality of the situation. I’m painting a bleak picture I know but I think it’s a bit more realistic than the happy sunny picture a lot of other people paint of such an un-equal relationship.
And yeah there’s nothing much you can do about it other than express disapproval when they’re both ‘consenting adults’ but there are adults and there are adults, so yes, I do reserve my right to disapprove in general (while conceding that in certain rare circumstances it may work out well).
Like others and yourself have noted, it’s none of your business. I agree it’s very strange, but they are both adults and (hopefully) capable of making their own decisions.
I won’t say anything about it because I learned long ago that nobody (myself most certainly included) is going to listen to anybody else where their sex-life is concerned and, as somebody here pointed out, 19 is above the age of consent in every state, but here’s another weirdity (is that a word?)- the lady he just broke up with was a grandmother. She was a very young grandmother (she had a kid when she was about 18 and that child had a child when she was about 22- the lady was slightly older than my co-worker- probably 41-42- and became a grandmother after they started dating- and though I’m gay I can still say she looks better in a pair of tight jeans than any “granny” I ever saw). It’s just particularly unusual to go from dating a grandmother to dating a teenager (unless you’re Woody Allen).
I think part of my revulsion is being gay: middle aged gay guys (and for the purposes of this I’ll count myself [I’m 37] as middle aged) who go after teens (I’m not talking ephebophiles, but 18+) are pretty much universally reviled as “chicken hawks”- it’s fine to look but touching is another matter. I’ve wondered if there’s as much of a stigma in the straight community, or if there’d be as much or more of a stigma if a 19 year old guy was dating a hot 38 year old woman. (I don’t think I mentioned that my co-worker is a particularly young looking 38; if I were to cast him in a movie I’d probably go with Seth Meyers from SNL- so it could be jealousy since if I were to cast myself I’d probably go with Burl Ives .)
Now otoh, I don’t have the slightest problem looking at male strippers who aren’t much if any older than 19 anymore than most straight guys would mind looking at female strippers that age, but somehow that’s different because… it just is.
I’m with Phlosphr. This does not seem like a smart career move. It may not technically be against the rules, but does he really want to be known as “that creepy prof who sleazes on students”? And he will be known as that.
I’m a 38 year old guy. Usually, I pursue/date women who are between their early 30s and early 40s. Saturday, I had a date with a woman who is 40.
Although I don’t think I could date someone who is 19, I can understand how such a relationship could happen. I’ve never been married, so parts of my life are in an arrested stage of development. I’ve got the material belongings and maybe the maturity of somebody in their 30s, but because I never got married or had children, my social life resembles someone who is just out of college. In a way, I can identify very closely with someone who is in their late teens or early 20s. If I was with someone who was college-aged, I wouldn’t feel that we didn’t share a similar set of experiences.
The tricky thing to being a never married single guy in your 30s is that you may think a woman who is actually in your age group is much older … not that she looks like she’s in her 50s, but just too old for you. I’m finding that as I get older, I have a much more difficult time estimating a woman’s age. It’s hard to conceptualize that a woman your age would have two teenage kids, or be driving a minivan.
May-December attractions have their risks and downsides, but generally speaking, acquaintance rape isn’t one of them. Most college-age women who are drugged and raped, are drugged and raped by their generational peers, frequently by fellow students. What your sister endured was a horrible crime, but it wasn’t part of a larger general pattern of older men slipping roofies into younger women’s drinks. It was far more the exception than the rule.
I guess I don’t see a lot of evidence to back any claim that people get more mature, interesting, or insightful as they age. They seem to become less bouncy and less hyper, but the same stunning immaturity hangs around for life. An older person has more opportunity to become educated; however, an older person also has more opportunity to become enlsaved to intellectual blinders. I’d rather be with an intellectually curious 19 year old than 34 year old habitual thinker.
I would also suggest that before one complains, one should produce a pool of age appropriate candidate mates that demonstrates the availability of viable romance candidates. If similar age is such a selling point, why didn’t the offending gentleman make the obvious choice to date a woman his age?
When I attended college, I felt far too young to be pursued by the professor who was interested in me. (I was about nineteen years old, myself.) I hid behind trees whenever I thought I saw him across the green. Ended up leaving that college due to my discomfort. If he’d been even five years younger, I wouldn’t have felt so weirded out. And he was only in his mid-thirties.
The age difference does bother me, and I’d probably try to convince any friend of mine who was dating a much older man or woman to move on to someone younger. But that’s not from any rational thought process, only my singular bad experience.
.)