Besides that night at the bar, I can recall only two occasions when I was painfully cognizant of the age gap. The first was when I introduced him to my parents: I still feel twelve years old around them, which made him seem very thirty three years old. Even big age gaps tend to become less taboo as people get older, and it certainly matters at what age the couple met. It's almost a point of pride for me, because the expectation is that he would make more money.
He was 40, filling in over the summer as an adviser and copy editor. I was 22 and engaged to another man close to my own age. We married a few years later and had two children.
Looking back, our early relationship was inappropriate for a college adviser and student. That and I thought she might be a Republican. She also keeps me in the know about who the new cool rapper or cool model is, which I no longer have the energy to figure out by myself.
Often younger people have less queer trauma. And then you have to deal with all the haters. Age-gap relationships come with a certain amount of stigma, and that external skepticism can start to infiltrate your couple. The age thing definitely freaks people out.
People would shout stuff at us on the street, or mistake her for my mother, which always totally weirded me out. Also, there are physical realities. But her biggest anxiety is longevity. A novelty fuck, if you will. While it was an ego boner to be desired by someone with eerily smooth skin who wanted to fuck nine times a day, it also shined a light on my own stupid, petty insecurities.
I would love to be the person who introduces that to you, anxiety-free! But, as the memes say: With power comes responsibility. But imbalances are inevitable—whether it be age, attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, success, family, mental health, IG followers, et cetera. But people bring different things to the romantic table. Younger guys dating older women are gigolos, fetishists, playboys. Younger women dating older men are victims, bimbos with daddy issues, gold diggers.
Older men dating younger women are marked exploitative and creepy or a dim geriatric being hoodwinked by a devious ingenue — as was often said about Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas , with their year age gap and successful marriage of over two decades. Writing in the Guardian , gay journalist James Greig noted correctly that much criticism around age gaps comes from within the community. Much protesting under the guise of protecting the vulnerable comes from a desire to judge or express otherwise unacceptable prejudices.
You see it play out daily in transphobia too. When I was single, in my mid-thirties, I sometimes dated younger men. The results were mixed and any disappointment was down to my own expectations. Some were so switched-on that I felt like a small-town hick fresh off the Greyhound. Others were so green I felt monstrously avuncular; I found myself peering at them over nonexistent half-moon specs. Age is an unreliable metric; my only conclusion was that not fancying me was a hobby men of all ages could enjoy.
My friends love him and I get on great with his.
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