Tonight I successfully scored a future dinner date with a gentleman at my university I’ve been flirting with for a few months. I like him, he’s funny and smart, we get along great and are interested in the same things, etc. etc.; the only problem is that he’s 27 and I’m still just 19. (I mean, it’s not a big problem, and probably not a problem at all – I’m just having some trouble conceptualizing what it means.)
So, I’m curious to hear stories of issues that arose (or didn’t arise!) in past relationships with a significant but not huge age difference. Eight years isn’t spectacular, but it’s certainly different. Share your stories and ease my mind! What worked? What didn’t? How did things end – or have they ended?
We’re both quite busy, so it’ll probably be a while before we hit the actual dinner date, rather than just bantering up a storm in the theater department lounge, but I’m thinking I’d like to strike up a relationship if all keeps going well.
The only practical thing I can see - and this might be a complete non-issue - is you’re under 21 and therefor can’t legally enjoy a glass of wine over dinner with him, if you do that. Or go to some clubs. (I grew up in Europe where the legal drinking/clubbing age was 18.)
I’ve dated two men with a big age difference. Number one, I lived with for two years when I was 22-24 and he was nine years older. We broke up, but for reasons unrelated to age. I don’t recall there being any issues with the age thing at all. Actually, I felt older and more sensible than him in many ways.
Number two, I married and we were together almost a decade. He was six years younger. Again, we divorced for reasons completely unrelated to age & maturity levels. He was under 25 when we married, and car insurance was a pain because his age made it more expensive. :dubious:
I say go slow, have fun, and don’t worry about chronological age as much as maturity levels.
Oddly enough, two of my ex wives have been older than me, both by 4 years. All the other women in my life have been younger. The greatest love of my life by almost 10 years. The last woman I dated was about 15 years my junior. She initiated the relationship.
I would probably been uncomfortable w/ a 19 year old when I was in my late 20’s, but times change and it seems more socially acceptable today, assuming comparable maturity.
I don’t think it’s the age difference per say but much more the milestones. One’s in college and one’s in highschool, one’s in college and one is a working professional, both are in college, both are working professionals. If you’re about in the same adult milestones I think the age is pretty immaterial. If you’re a college freshman and he’s 5 years into a serious career - well I’d say you’ve got some pretty strong differences in frame of reference/experience to overcome.
I met my college boyfriend when I was 19 and he was 25, which is a slightly bigger difference than you’re talking about – but I was between my sophomore and junior years, and he’d just finished law school and was studying for the bar.
We were together for four years, and continue to be friends 30+ years later.
I have a 40 year friend who is dating a 21 year ex-studente of his. They seem to get along fine… the problem is only about going out with friends. Obviously she wants more partying than he does.
I’m 33 and I’ve had the hots for a 21 year old that was very mature and very intelligent… it didn’t seem wrong at all… ( I didn’t manage to date her though)
Like others have said its more an issue of maturity and “life phase”. I bet you’re more mature than he is… we men can be very immature… even at my 33 years of age.
At first, she thought I was the coolest boyfriend in the world. One of the reasons being that if she wanted to go out partying and I didn’t; I’d tell her to just go ahead and go. (with her group of friends) I guess she really liked this about me because most of her ex-boyfriends were very jealous and possesive.
However, I digress. This quality about me soon went from her being smitten to her thinking I don’t give a shit about her OR “What am I doing with this boring old man that doesn’t ever want to leave the house?”
Basically what it boiled down to is me being of the mentality: “I like quite dinners and evenings spent at home”
To her being of the mentality: “Whoo-Hooo!! Girls Gone Wild!”
I think we both walked away from the relationship with something positive.
She learned what it’s like to be treated like a real woman.
And me?
Well, I just walked away with a really big ego boost.
Not like I really needed one, but there ya have it. disclaimer I don’t mean to imply youger Gents don’t know how to traet women. I’m only sayin in my particular case that’s how it turned out.
Can I just say the title combined with the OP’s name gave me a chuckle?
I’ve been on both sides of a significant age difference a few times. I left home at fifteen, and even before then I had to support myself somehow because my mother provided little more than shelter. So my priorities were not the same as people my age, and I found I had little common ground with them. At the same time, I was often told that my relationships couldn’t be valid or real if my partner was older, because obviously I was just being exploited. That I was actually being exploited in some cases, I didn’t figure out until much too late, of course. I was mature for my age, but I wasn’t too bright. :wally
As others have indicated, it’s mostly about priorities. If you want to go out and party til dawn and he wants to talk about the curtains you’ll buy for the kitchen of your retirement home, there’s a problem. If there’s too much power and age and experience difference, you run the risk of ugliness. But even when I was a vulnerable idiot teen, I managed to find true love with someone ten years my senior, for a little while, at least. Which is the other thing. The odds are low that it’s a long haul thing. Oh, it’s possible, but there are enough obstacles that even the hardiest of couples eventually hits one and goes off the rails.
When I was 17 I dated a guy who was 25. The biggest problem was that I was interested in dating and he was interested in settling down. He was one of my first boyfriends. Although I really feel I ended up married to my soul mate, I’ll always feel a little sorry about this one - just wrong place/wrong time. In another four years, it probably wouldn’t have been a problem, and I’d have probably ended up married to the guy.
I’ve watched people - particularly women - date men with that sort of age difference at that age, and sometimes its been a case of the guy wanted to date a younger woman for control, or because he has a case of arrested development. In that case, she usually grows out of the relationship.
But one of my friends has been happily married for over a decade to a girl he met in his twenties when she was a mere 16. So it works, as well. We spent the first five years revising the bets on when she’d dump him, but - shockingly to most of his friends - they’ve been perfect for each other.
At 19, you likely have a lot of growing yet to do and may end up finding you have different tases and wants by the time you get to his age. He probably already has a decent idea of what he wants or doesn’t want. You have a decent potential to grow out of any relationship you may be in now, so don’t get locked into anything you are not pretty certain about.
His sex drive will be waning while yours is increasing, for what its worth to you.
When I was 19, I started dating a guy who was 34. Big age difference, but it worked because we were at the same stage in life in a lot of ways–our kids were the same age, he was starting over in school because years of working in mills had ruined his wrists, both of us shared many of the same interests, we had friends in common.
We were together for 4 years and what destroyed that relationship was he was in recovery and went back to drinking. We remained friends until we both moved away.
My daughter is 24. Her husband is 45. They both weighed all of the perceived problems that could come up. They basically came to the conclusion that age is just a number. And they couldn’t be happier.
My Guy is exactly 15 years younger than I (we have the same birthday); when we met, he was 28 and I was 43. There have never been any age-related problems in our relationship, but there are certain assumptions that some other people make:
Some people assume that it’s a parental (in our case, daddy/boy) relationship. This may be more of an assumption with a same-sex couple than an opposite-sex.
Some people assume that he’s with me because I have lots of money (actually, he has more). This is especially the case because he’s very much of a hottie, and I’m not. I think there have been people who carry this assumption to the extreme, and think he’s an “escort” and I’m his John.
People who actually know us, know that we’re just another normal couple, and the age difference is no longer an issue for them.
I should probably mention that I’m a college sophomore and he’s a senior (he took a few years off to work, and I skipped a year of school when I was younger). When we first met and started talking/flirting, we each assumed the other was in their early twenties.
The drinking thing is the only really frustrating issue at the moment – a few weeks ago, he asked me if I’d like to grab a drink after the show, I said, “I’d love to, but I’m nineteen,” and he said, with genuine shock, “But you’re so smart!” (Newsflash: sincere compliments make girls like you even more!) I don’t think it’ll be a major issue, though, as neither of us are quite the bar-hopping type. At least, from what I know of him. He could be living a double life as a Norm Peterson, but I doubt it, he works very hard.
I am really glad to hear people say it wasn’t even an issue for them. I bet that difference will seem even smaller as I get older, but for now – even though I like to think of myself as a pretty mature person – it’s triggering little “should I be worried about this?” bells in my head.
Generally, I have no qualms about age differences. I have a couple of cautions, though. First, most folks go through some serious changes in their early twenties. He has already been through that, and you haven’t; will he like the woman you become at 23?
Second, I once knew a guy who didn’t want a woman, he wanted a girl. Time and again, when she grew up a little, he didn’t want her anymore, and she wanted a guy more mature than him.
Go for him if you want to, but keep your eyes open.
All of this information tips the scales in the direction of “potentially promising”, in my opinion. The age difference in my sister’s marriage is only about a year less, and it has worked out to be a healthy if strange dynamic – and the strangeness originates in the personalitities of the parties, not their ages.
The biggest age variation I have ever experienced was back when I was 30. I went from having an affair with a 42 year old woman to having an affair with an 18 year old woman.
I’ve done a 17-year age gap when I was 33-35 and she was 50-52. We had other things that were issues, but age wasn’t really one of them.
There are still leftovers of patriarchy, meaning that males still tend to have higher position, more power, better salary, & etc, all other things being equal, although nowhere near as much so as it was just decades ago. That tends to work as an overlay on age diff, and at your (the OP’s) age / his age the age diff already is going to tend to privilege him. Do you have any concerns about entering into the relationship as an equal, or are you satisfied that that’s not an issue?
I’m married to a man nine years older than me. When I met him, I was 18 and he was 27. We split in a friendly manner, then got together a year later and moved in. That was almost 6 years ago.
It works out really well, frankly. Most of the time the age gap really doesn’t occur to either of us. Sometimes we’ll have an incongruous perception of kid’s TV, or something (O He of the H.R. Pufnstuf Age!) but that’s usually it. Plus alot of the time I have the benefit of his experiences, so I do less blundering around; we’re both non-traditional students, but then I have his experience to draw from.
He’s good at helping me keep my perspective. I’m a pretty uptight 25 y.o., alot of the time he’s reminding me “You’re 25! RELAX!” Helps immensely. And I help him dress himself in the morning without looking like he’s a member of Poison. :smack:
What worked? What didn’t? How did things end – or have they ended?
