they aren’t but you know , people gunna be judgy, much the same mindset as Conservatives fascinated with genetalia in bathrooms and sports fields, same stupidity, just ignore them.
If we’re going on “can’t date people who are statistically easy to trick” then half the population is right out just for being stupid, and then I guess when we get older that means dating is off the table, if phishing and scam calls are any indication.
What are we gonna use “A plane crashed between the border of Canada and America. Where do you bury the survivors?” As a “is this person fuckable” shibboleth?
21-25 is the prime “people think they are in charge but lying to themselves” years and idk, easy to trick i suppose.
Do you think if society was structured differently (i.e pre-adult education was actually deemed useful and allowed people to get job relevant skills) that age range would move down?
The idea that 21-25 are easily tricked by older people rings true but I’m also thinking there’s a lot of things about current society that infantilises those people, or rather, gets them to actually act immaturely and see themselves as immature
Your brain continues developing throughout your whole life, otherwise no one would be able to learn new skills or information after whatever the cutoff point is and things like strokes and TBIs would not be recoverable.
That study said 25 because that’s the age the cohort was at when it was cut off.
“I was twenty-five, a man in those days, master of a large plantation…”
(Which is both from W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Comet and the movie Interview With the Vampire. Did not know the former!)
Online discussion and arguments led me to believe there’s a significant difference in how fast Gen X grew up vs. Zoomers today, and later research confirmed it. We’re growing up slower, which is a sign of a society healthy enough to support that. Kinda odd to me though.
At 16 I was having sex, driving a car and working a bag boy job. Very few of us had cars, but I don’t know of any peers who didn’t have a license at 16, and almost every one of us passed first try. Losing one’s virginity and working a job at 16 wasn’t unusual one way or the other. Girl that snuck over and took my virginity was 14.
People today are not hitting those milestones until their early 20s.
I do not think it’s a sign of a society being healthy. It’s probably the most unhealthy thing for any society. I think it basically arises from the distinct lack of pathways into ‘adulthood’ - university is now marketed as a way to extend being a kid, home ownership and access to work is completely off the table for loads of people. Young Zoomers either live with their parents through university/after high school, or will have to live with them after graduating, or will have to “slum it” with their friends while desperately trying to get into work.
To some people, knowing and experiencing all this means they act out by being immature and irresponsible members of society. For others it just affects their self image, and they are racked with insecurity or anxiety. Both are bad, and i see both when i look around st my peers. And the ones who are doing okay are absolute rats about it, like “i climbed out of the bucket, so why couldn’t you??”
Yes - in fact they actually have no place in society, which is stressful, and grew up with teachers and parents always turning to them and going “oh by the way, the society you inherit from us isn’t going to work. Not sorry.” So they had the dread of knowing that, being informed they had to work harder and be smarter than generations before them.
There is a LOT of antipathy from Zoomers and Millennials towards Boomers, and some of it is even directed to Gen X, and some Zoomers hate Millennials.
When you get a job as gen z it’s always like “we’re doing you a favour, kid, we don’t really need you.” Other generations act like they’re babysitters for us. Many Gen Z rise to this position and act very immaturely because being obnoxious is in-vogue (e.g Looksmaxxing, Andrew Tate, tiktok bullying - it trickles down)
I never really understood that too. Then when i was like 35, i met this girl on tinder who was 26. I always thought she was just too young. But it was nice talking to her. Just before we met, she confessed that she was actually 22. I thought it was rude to just blow her off and we met anyway. And oh boy was it weird. It was likt hanging out with an actual child. We talk different, and she was really immature, but in a different way that i was, her stories were only interesting when you just finished school. The list goes on and on. The only upside was that i look really young and she looked older. I really started questioning people being into much younger people.
I think it’s more about life stage than age. Like say she hadn’t gone to college and had gotten into the work force at 18, and was now 4 years in to your same industry. You both had the same job, common references, etc. You’d still have some cultural differences but you’d likely be in a much more similar place in your life. It would make more sense then imo. I think a big part of what makes it weird is just how different your lives are. Which is why the same age gap at like 32 and 45 probably wouldn’t be a big deal.
Yup. When I was younger, it made me mad, I thought older people wrote me off as dumb. Now that I’m older, I understand it’s really just having different needs, goals, and experiences. You can be really smart and wise, have deep comprehension of things around you, but still be out of “sync” with people in different age brackets. It’s not just dating either - friendships, working relationships, time with family members, etc.
Made a vow to myself in my teens to never forget what it was like so I wouldn’t be an asshole adult. Apparently it worked because I get along famously with young folks. Made a comment (see ITT) about how they’re growing up more slowly now, so that’s a little odd to me.
I feel like this isn’t so much of an age thing actually and more about where you are in life. I started studying relatively late and ended up hanging around with people 5-10 years younger than me, but because we were all students we had something in common and got along well. However, I have very little in common with people my age, they’re all getting married and have children and talk about buying houses and so on and I can’t relate to any of that.
People like to criticize a power imbalance based on where someone is in life based off of age/maturity, because with age comes experience, and the argument is you can’t have a fair and balanced relationship if the people aren’t equal.
So i get that. But every aspect of society encourages it so it’s kind of bullshit. In truth vurtually no relationship is 100% balanced in every way.
Someone a little older than the other? Power imbalance through life experience and maturity.
Someone a little wealthier than the other? Power imbalance through financial portfolio and personal solvency.
Someone a different race than the other? Power imbalance because of racial profiling in society, and how laws/grants/conditions may apply differently at home or abroad.
Someone healthier than the other? Power imbalance through healthcare needs medical liabilities.
Someone simply smarter than the other? Power imbalance because the smarter partner will naturally have an upper hand in the relationship.
Just because a relationship has imbalance doesn’t means both people can’t be into each other and take care of a joint life together.
I def have a knee-jerk reaction when I see early 20’s friends (let’s be real: female friends) dating middle aged folks (again, being real, middle aged males) to be wary about the relationship. But intellectually, the conclusion I come to is that its fine.
I do specifically agree that the other people focusing on an age based power imbalance feels like they’d also be calling for you to only date in your income bracket, and then also to only date someone who’s as physically fit as you, which then leads to well you should only date someone of your race and/or ethnicity.
Something, something, slippery slope argument. But it is logically comparable.
I seriously considered dating a pretty 26-yo when I was 52. She really seemed to like me, but the 3 very young children just put me off. At my age most women, if they could and wanted to, had had kids, but 3 tiny ones? Gah! Couldn’t do it, met my 52-yo wife shortly after.
If you are over 30 you should understand.
I work with a lot of young people and their vulnerability is 100% obvious to anyone with a moral compass.
Sute they can be smart, witty and intelligent even tough but there is absolutely a power imbalance.
I talk a lot with them and it is insane how much differnce there is between us and how much they trust us older people and believe us. It would be very easy to manipulate them, even on accident.
I am sure there are some relationships with a bigger gap that aren’t predatory but in general it absolutely is a red flag.
I hung out with the neighbor kid and his friends starting when they were 17 or so and I was 49. Very shortly after they turned out to be wiser than I suspected, able to argue fine points about religion and politics, things I had assumed they’d be clueless about, or more likely parrot their parents.
They weren’t vulnerable with me! Maybe because I taught them not to be? But they didn’t automatically believe anything out my mouth and would be quick to push back if something I said struck them wrong. Often I was the wrong one! (I understand this is a very different dynamic than in a workplace.) Even if I tried to manipulate them, I bet they would have smiled and later talked among themselves, “See that shit Shalafi was trying to pull about $X?!”
Perhaps they were unusual? I suspect so, but of them and their “peripheral” friends I saw now and again, about half their cohort seemed just like them. Anyway, two are 23 now and counted among my handful of friends.
Other commenter s keep going on about a power gap and how easy it is to manipulate younger folks.
Yo, I don’t know what early 20’s people y’all interact with, but upwards of 50+% of the people I work with are 21-26 and gonna say this is patently false. Labeling them all as easily manipulatable or saying they lack the means to make ends meet feels like some kind of paternalistic ageism.
These young whipper snappers might be annoying with their mog maxxing and 6-7s and shit, but they’re also whole ass adults.
Tbf at 25 I thought I was an adult and was actually retarded, but I wouldn’t magically say I was so dumb that I needed to be full on treated like a child. If we treated people like children until 25 then they would just be dumbasses from 25-30. Then we would be arguing that dating a 29 year old is “sus”.
Nevermind how many 60 year olds I know that have the maturity of a toddler… Age, maturity, power and independence are completely different issues… You can be with someone your own age that is fully dependent on you. Age isn’t the driving factor…
But people just get all icky at the thought of the age gap…
the problem is people projecting their current self onto their past self. and being like ‘well i was stupid at 22’
yeah and when you are 60 you will think you were stupid at 40. that’s how life should work.
but you don’t get to generalize that for others. there are people who at 22 are vastly more matured and full of life experience than people in their 60s, because it’s mostly a matter of what you have been exposed to and things you have dealt with. Some folks like sheltered lives, others not so much.
I am in my 40s and I’m shocked how many 35+ year old adults are more sheltered and naive about life and relationships than I was at like 20.
Similarly, I was def a dumb ass as a ~23 year old. And I am consistently impressed with my co-worker s at that age. Despite thinking their lingo is dumb, I do they they’ve got their heads on straight in a really good way.
Hell, I get annoyed when people call teens, particularly latter teens, “children”. They’re not. We even have a word for that weird in-between stage, “adolescent”. “Child” is insulting. My kids are 11 and 13 and the gap in their behavior is spreading wider by the minute. Daughter’s very much a child around her brother, but around my wife and I, she’s suddenly a changed person.
LOL, even though I know exactly what’s happening, it’s still weird talking to her about sex and social dynamics. Fortunately I’m almost certain she’s a lesbian so won’t have to put up with asshole boys and men. Whew!
I’m 32 and if a 23 year old asked me out I’d say “Aren’t you adorable?”, pat her head and send her on her way.
That’s a college student. Who came up with this math? 😆 It does not compute.
EDIT: This is not a comment on younger people’s intelligence, of course. I love how much more progressive and bright the generation after mine is (at least in my country). But yea, I’m much more likely to take someone in their 20s under my wing than out to dinner!
The rule is well-known and easy to calculate from the mind. But it does have flaws in that awkwardness regard.
Still weirds me out that according to the rule, a 75 year old could date a 45 year old. Maybe the graph should be called “Legally OK, socially questionable” - ie. the grey zone.
A version that would exclude this socially grey zone could be;
(age * 0.75) + 3.25
The .25 is added to make more numbers less strange. Round to nearest full number.
If the outcome is higher than the person’s own age, that indicates you’re too young to date. In this case the ‘minimum’ would be 14 for all involved, similar to the original formula.
For 20, it’d be 18.
For 25, it’d be 22.
For 45, it’d be 37.
For 75, it’d be 60.
For 90, it’d be 71.
Inversely, it’d mean that the maximum ages would be calculated as:
(age / 0.75) - 3.25
20 and 23.
25 and 30.
45 and 57.
75 and 97.
90 and 117.
What the rule is saying there is that a 12 year old shouldn’t date, because that region of the graph is actually outside of the lower and upper bounds, which intercept (cross) at “14 years old” on the x axis
Or you could interpret the UB and LB as having swapped, in which case 12’s LB is (-7, ×2) =10 years old.
I’m just musing it’s kind of stupid to make it a math problem “one size fits all”. Who the hell should have the right to tell 50 year grownups they can’t date lol.
The big issue that remains after 18 is power disparity. A 40 year old with a stable career, savings, a house, etc has way more power in the relationship than someone who is still in college and has no real resources of their own as an example.
It’s really easy for a bad actor to isolate and abuse a younger partner to the point where it’s near impossible for them to leave because they have nothing to fall back on. Doesn’t mean it happens every time, but that’s inherently why people get pretty leery of age gaps like that even after 18. Because they can be used to trap people in abusive relationships and leave them with little choice but to rely on their abuser.
By that logic, isn’t it just as problematic when both parties are 40 but there’s a significant salary imbalance between them? Even more so when the lower-earning partner has something else to keep them stuck, like their own dependent children.
Yes it can be predatory people that age don’t go for other 40 year olds, they go for the younglings.
When the person with money is old,fragile and mentally declining a young person could also be a predator.
Mentally challenged people could be in a vulnerable position all of their life.
Many relationships can be predatory/manipulative/toxic problematic age gap relationships are just very common and obvious. Also if you are 40 dating as young as legally possible you would probably go younger and thats creepy as fuck.
When the person with money is old,fragile and mentally declining a young person could also be a predator.
Basically the definition of a gold-digger - young attractive person marries someone wealthy but frail in the hopes that they die and they get the inheritance.
There’s a good chance it’s not going to work. The wider the age gap, typically the less the couple will be able to relate to each other. My opinion is they should know about and accept the potential for problems going in or they’re going to learn the hard way.
That being said, if they’re both adults it’s nobody’s business but theirs.
“You’re 18 now, that means you’re old enough to vote and go to war, but your brain is licherally too underdeveloped to decide you want to fuck someone 20 years older than you, stupid child.”
Because it’s still really gross if a 50yo man is dating a 18yo girl. 18yo are really quite childish still, behaviour, decision making. 18 just happens to be the legal threshold in most places, but imo it only gets not weird at 25 or older dating whatever old age, than it’s really just two adults
This is the rule. I honestly can’t really fault it, it just feels right for so many different ages
EDIT: also go to any comment where someone lists an age gap experience that felt wrong, you’ll see that they weren’t following the 1/2 age + 7 rule. Not that that’s a crime, just that it’s a guide to a safe and happy love life
Oh no my friend, 18 is the age of majority, with almost all the rights of an adult. You’re talking about the age of consent. In the US, only 10 states peg that at 18, the rest are 16 & 17. And for anyone that finds that particular fact icky, do not for the love of god look at an EU map!
I never understood why age gaps are a big deal past 18
they aren’t but you know , people gunna be judgy, much the same mindset as Conservatives fascinated with genetalia in bathrooms and sports fields, same stupidity, just ignore them.
My mind is more like +21. 18 is a wee baby. Realistically after 25 it is truly irrelevant.
21-25 is the prime “people think they are in charge but lying to themselves” years and idk, easy to trick i suppose.
If we’re going on “can’t date people who are statistically easy to trick” then half the population is right out just for being stupid, and then I guess when we get older that means dating is off the table, if phishing and scam calls are any indication.
What are we gonna use “A plane crashed between the border of Canada and America. Where do you bury the survivors?” As a “is this person fuckable” shibboleth?
Do you think if society was structured differently (i.e pre-adult education was actually deemed useful and allowed people to get job relevant skills) that age range would move down?
The idea that 21-25 are easily tricked by older people rings true but I’m also thinking there’s a lot of things about current society that infantilises those people, or rather, gets them to
actuallyact immaturely and see themselves as immatureYour brain is still developing until your mid to late 20s so there will always be a bit of that.
Your brain continues developing throughout your whole life, otherwise no one would be able to learn new skills or information after whatever the cutoff point is and things like strokes and TBIs would not be recoverable.
That study said 25 because that’s the age the cohort was at when it was cut off.
“I was twenty-five, a man in those days, master of a large plantation…”
(Which is both from W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Comet and the movie Interview With the Vampire. Did not know the former!)
Online discussion and arguments led me to believe there’s a significant difference in how fast Gen X grew up vs. Zoomers today, and later research confirmed it. We’re growing up slower, which is a sign of a society healthy enough to support that. Kinda odd to me though.
At 16 I was having sex, driving a car and working a bag boy job. Very few of us had cars, but I don’t know of any peers who didn’t have a license at 16, and almost every one of us passed first try. Losing one’s virginity and working a job at 16 wasn’t unusual one way or the other. Girl that snuck over and took my virginity was 14.
People today are not hitting those milestones until their early 20s.
I do not think it’s a sign of a society being healthy. It’s probably the most unhealthy thing for any society. I think it basically arises from the distinct lack of pathways into ‘adulthood’ - university is now marketed as a way to extend being a kid, home ownership and access to work is completely off the table for loads of people. Young Zoomers either live with their parents through university/after high school, or will have to live with them after graduating, or will have to “slum it” with their friends while desperately trying to get into work.
To some people, knowing and experiencing all this means they act out by being immature and irresponsible members of society. For others it just affects their self image, and they are racked with insecurity or anxiety. Both are bad, and i see both when i look around st my peers. And the ones who are doing okay are absolute rats about it, like “i climbed out of the bucket, so why couldn’t you??”
“they are racked with insecurity or anxiety”
That would explain much of what I see on social media. Are you saying they don’t know their place in society and that’s stressful?
Yes - in fact they actually have no place in society, which is stressful, and grew up with teachers and parents always turning to them and going “oh by the way, the society you inherit from us isn’t going to work. Not sorry.” So they had the dread of knowing that, being informed they had to work harder and be smarter than generations before them.
There is a LOT of antipathy from Zoomers and Millennials towards Boomers, and some of it is even directed to Gen X, and some Zoomers hate Millennials.
When you get a job as gen z it’s always like “we’re doing you a favour, kid, we don’t really need you.” Other generations act like they’re babysitters for us. Many Gen Z rise to this position and act very immaturely because being obnoxious is in-vogue (e.g Looksmaxxing, Andrew Tate, tiktok bullying - it trickles down)
I never really understood that too. Then when i was like 35, i met this girl on tinder who was 26. I always thought she was just too young. But it was nice talking to her. Just before we met, she confessed that she was actually 22. I thought it was rude to just blow her off and we met anyway. And oh boy was it weird. It was likt hanging out with an actual child. We talk different, and she was really immature, but in a different way that i was, her stories were only interesting when you just finished school. The list goes on and on. The only upside was that i look really young and she looked older. I really started questioning people being into much younger people.
I think it’s more about life stage than age. Like say she hadn’t gone to college and had gotten into the work force at 18, and was now 4 years in to your same industry. You both had the same job, common references, etc. You’d still have some cultural differences but you’d likely be in a much more similar place in your life. It would make more sense then imo. I think a big part of what makes it weird is just how different your lives are. Which is why the same age gap at like 32 and 45 probably wouldn’t be a big deal.
Yup. When I was younger, it made me mad, I thought older people wrote me off as dumb. Now that I’m older, I understand it’s really just having different needs, goals, and experiences. You can be really smart and wise, have deep comprehension of things around you, but still be out of “sync” with people in different age brackets. It’s not just dating either - friendships, working relationships, time with family members, etc.
It’s not monolithic, just what I’ve noticed.
Made a vow to myself in my teens to never forget what it was like so I wouldn’t be an asshole adult. Apparently it worked because I get along famously with young folks. Made a comment (see ITT) about how they’re growing up more slowly now, so that’s a little odd to me.
I feel like this isn’t so much of an age thing actually and more about where you are in life. I started studying relatively late and ended up hanging around with people 5-10 years younger than me, but because we were all students we had something in common and got along well. However, I have very little in common with people my age, they’re all getting married and have children and talk about buying houses and so on and I can’t relate to any of that.
People like to criticize a power imbalance based on where someone is in life based off of age/maturity, because with age comes experience, and the argument is you can’t have a fair and balanced relationship if the people aren’t equal.
So i get that. But every aspect of society encourages it so it’s kind of bullshit. In truth vurtually no relationship is 100% balanced in every way.
Someone a little older than the other? Power imbalance through life experience and maturity.
Someone a little wealthier than the other? Power imbalance through financial portfolio and personal solvency.
Someone a different race than the other? Power imbalance because of racial profiling in society, and how laws/grants/conditions may apply differently at home or abroad.
Someone healthier than the other? Power imbalance through healthcare needs medical liabilities.
Someone simply smarter than the other? Power imbalance because the smarter partner will naturally have an upper hand in the relationship.
Just because a relationship has imbalance doesn’t means both people can’t be into each other and take care of a joint life together.
Even the younger one can be the one who has the power over the older one (i.e., gerontophilia). It’s not at all unidirectional and monolithic.
I’m way smarter than my wife, but she has a stunning EQ where mine is embarrassingly low. It balances out nicely.
Yeah, all those are really good points.
I def have a knee-jerk reaction when I see early 20’s friends (let’s be real: female friends) dating middle aged folks (again, being real, middle aged males) to be wary about the relationship. But intellectually, the conclusion I come to is that its fine.
I do specifically agree that the other people focusing on an age based power imbalance feels like they’d also be calling for you to only date in your income bracket, and then also to only date someone who’s as physically fit as you, which then leads to well you should only date someone of your race and/or ethnicity.
Something, something, slippery slope argument. But it is logically comparable.
The only reason why I don’t like that “I like mature men” is that, hell, is hard to find a partner of my same age! Lol
Bu is just that, it’s up to them the decision, and hopely they’ll be happy with it.
I seriously considered dating a pretty 26-yo when I was 52. She really seemed to like me, but the 3 very young children just put me off. At my age most women, if they could and wanted to, had had kids, but 3 tiny ones? Gah! Couldn’t do it, met my 52-yo wife shortly after.
what people love to do is judge other people and their relationships. it’s drama.
Deleted, wrong reply, sry
But yea I agree.
If you are over 30 you should understand. I work with a lot of young people and their vulnerability is 100% obvious to anyone with a moral compass.
Sute they can be smart, witty and intelligent even tough but there is absolutely a power imbalance. I talk a lot with them and it is insane how much differnce there is between us and how much they trust us older people and believe us. It would be very easy to manipulate them, even on accident.
I am sure there are some relationships with a bigger gap that aren’t predatory but in general it absolutely is a red flag.
And this, folks, is why teachers have “teacher voice” and don’t go off-topic during class, tutoring, counselling, etc
You can become a bad influence on accident.
I hung out with the neighbor kid and his friends starting when they were 17 or so and I was 49. Very shortly after they turned out to be wiser than I suspected, able to argue fine points about religion and politics, things I had assumed they’d be clueless about, or more likely parrot their parents.
They weren’t vulnerable with me! Maybe because I taught them not to be? But they didn’t automatically believe anything out my mouth and would be quick to push back if something I said struck them wrong. Often I was the wrong one! (I understand this is a very different dynamic than in a workplace.) Even if I tried to manipulate them, I bet they would have smiled and later talked among themselves, “See that shit Shalafi was trying to pull about $X?!”
Perhaps they were unusual? I suspect so, but of them and their “peripheral” friends I saw now and again, about half their cohort seemed just like them. Anyway, two are 23 now and counted among my handful of friends.
Other commenter s keep going on about a power gap and how easy it is to manipulate younger folks.
Yo, I don’t know what early 20’s people y’all interact with, but upwards of 50+% of the people I work with are 21-26 and gonna say this is patently false. Labeling them all as easily manipulatable or saying they lack the means to make ends meet feels like some kind of paternalistic ageism.
These young whipper snappers might be annoying with their mog maxxing and 6-7s and shit, but they’re also whole ass adults.
Tbf at 25 I thought I was an adult and was actually retarded, but I wouldn’t magically say I was so dumb that I needed to be full on treated like a child. If we treated people like children until 25 then they would just be dumbasses from 25-30. Then we would be arguing that dating a 29 year old is “sus”.
Nevermind how many 60 year olds I know that have the maturity of a toddler… Age, maturity, power and independence are completely different issues… You can be with someone your own age that is fully dependent on you. Age isn’t the driving factor…
But people just get all icky at the thought of the age gap…
because it’s a number that’s easy to measure and understand.
The age past 18 only serves as a gross oversimplification of a person. It’s a naive measurement at best.
the problem is people projecting their current self onto their past self. and being like ‘well i was stupid at 22’
yeah and when you are 60 you will think you were stupid at 40. that’s how life should work.
but you don’t get to generalize that for others. there are people who at 22 are vastly more matured and full of life experience than people in their 60s, because it’s mostly a matter of what you have been exposed to and things you have dealt with. Some folks like sheltered lives, others not so much.
I am in my 40s and I’m shocked how many 35+ year old adults are more sheltered and naive about life and relationships than I was at like 20.
Similarly, I was def a dumb ass as a ~23 year old. And I am consistently impressed with my co-worker s at that age. Despite thinking their lingo is dumb, I do they they’ve got their heads on straight in a really good way.
Hell, I get annoyed when people call teens, particularly latter teens, “children”. They’re not. We even have a word for that weird in-between stage, “adolescent”. “Child” is insulting. My kids are 11 and 13 and the gap in their behavior is spreading wider by the minute. Daughter’s very much a child around her brother, but around my wife and I, she’s suddenly a changed person.
LOL, even though I know exactly what’s happening, it’s still weird talking to her about sex and social dynamics. Fortunately I’m almost certain she’s a lesbian so won’t have to put up with asshole boys and men. Whew!
I go by
(age/2)+7.For 27 that would be 20.5
I’m 32 and if a 23 year old asked me out I’d say “Aren’t you adorable?”, pat her head and send her on her way.
That’s a college student. Who came up with this math? 😆 It does not compute.
EDIT: This is not a comment on younger people’s intelligence, of course. I love how much more progressive and bright the generation after mine is (at least in my country). But yea, I’m much more likely to take someone in their 20s under my wing than out to dinner!
At 23 she could be 5 years in the workforce. People vary quite a lot.
The rule is well-known and easy to calculate from the mind. But it does have flaws in that awkwardness regard.
Still weirds me out that according to the rule, a 75 year old could date a 45 year old. Maybe the graph should be called “Legally OK, socially questionable” - ie. the grey zone.
A version that would exclude this socially grey zone could be;
(age * 0.75) + 3.25The .25 is added to make more numbers less strange. Round to nearest full number. If the outcome is higher than the person’s own age, that indicates you’re too young to date. In this case the ‘minimum’ would be 14 for all involved, similar to the original formula.
For 20, it’d be 18.
For 25, it’d be 22.
For 45, it’d be 37.
For 75, it’d be 60.
For 90, it’d be 71.
Inversely, it’d mean that the maximum ages would be calculated as:
(age / 0.75) - 3.2520 and 23.
25 and 30.
45 and 57.
75 and 97.
90 and 117.
You think a 75 yo is taking advantage of a 45 yo? That 45 yo are not mature enough?
100 could date a 57 year old. 12 yo a 13 yo but not a 12 yo.
Works perfectly.
What the rule is saying there is that a 12 year old shouldn’t date, because that region of the graph is actually outside of the lower and upper bounds, which intercept (cross) at “14 years old” on the x axis
Or you could interpret the UB and LB as having swapped, in which case 12’s LB is (-7, ×2) =10 years old.
I’m just musing it’s kind of stupid to make it a math problem “one size fits all”. Who the hell should have the right to tell 50 year grownups they can’t date lol.
The big issue that remains after 18 is power disparity. A 40 year old with a stable career, savings, a house, etc has way more power in the relationship than someone who is still in college and has no real resources of their own as an example.
It’s really easy for a bad actor to isolate and abuse a younger partner to the point where it’s near impossible for them to leave because they have nothing to fall back on. Doesn’t mean it happens every time, but that’s inherently why people get pretty leery of age gaps like that even after 18. Because they can be used to trap people in abusive relationships and leave them with little choice but to rely on their abuser.
By that logic, isn’t it just as problematic when both parties are 40 but there’s a significant salary imbalance between them? Even more so when the lower-earning partner has something else to keep them stuck, like their own dependent children.
Yes it can be predatory people that age don’t go for other 40 year olds, they go for the younglings.
When the person with money is old,fragile and mentally declining a young person could also be a predator.
Mentally challenged people could be in a vulnerable position all of their life.
Many relationships can be predatory/manipulative/toxic problematic age gap relationships are just very common and obvious. Also if you are 40 dating as young as legally possible you would probably go younger and thats creepy as fuck.
Basically the definition of a gold-digger - young attractive person marries someone wealthy but frail in the hopes that they die and they get the inheritance.
I don’t find the latter case too objectionable as both parties know it’s really a transaction.
what if the 18 year old is a multi millionaire and the 40 year old makes like 60K a year?
There’s a good chance it’s not going to work. The wider the age gap, typically the less the couple will be able to relate to each other. My opinion is they should know about and accept the potential for problems going in or they’re going to learn the hard way.
That being said, if they’re both adults it’s nobody’s business but theirs.
“You’re 18 now, that means you’re old enough to vote and go to war, but your brain is licherally too underdeveloped to decide you want to fuck someone 20 years older than you, stupid child.”
Because it’s still really gross if a 50yo man is dating a 18yo girl. 18yo are really quite childish still, behaviour, decision making. 18 just happens to be the legal threshold in most places, but imo it only gets not weird at 25 or older dating whatever old age, than it’s really just two adults
This is the rule. I honestly can’t really fault it, it just feels right for so many different ages
EDIT: also go to any comment where someone lists an age gap experience that felt wrong, you’ll see that they weren’t following the 1/2 age + 7 rule. Not that that’s a crime, just that it’s a guide to a safe and happy love life
Oh no my friend, 18 is the age of majority, with almost all the rights of an adult. You’re talking about the age of consent. In the US, only 10 states peg that at 18, the rest are 16 & 17. And for anyone that finds that particular fact icky, do not for the love of god look at an EU map!