Every girl I was involved with from eighteen ‘til my forties was older than me, anywhere from six months to fifteen years. Since then they’ve been younger, by decades. So I’ve seen it from multiple perspectives.
Given how complex and murky I know the reality to be, I can’t say I have strong opinions, but I have some random thoughts.
- Sonnet 138 is the best.
- “Age is just a number” is a funny way to say “shut up, I want this”.
- Lost In Translation was romantic because they didn’t fuck. Give that some thought.
- Emotional sophistication doesn’t progress uniformly, but it doesn’t travel through holes in spacetime, either. Communication is everything, and anything that inhibits communication is a problem to be overcome… including large gaps in experience, vastly different generational/cultural perspectives, and differing understandings of time itself. (”A year” to an eighteen year old is not the same as “a year” to a forty year old. Forever isn’t the same for everyone.) So the bigger the gaps, the more one or both people need to be thoughtfully loquacious, curious, and flexible.
- A kinky, controlling relationship with someone your dad’s age should feel creepy. That should be part of the appeal. You should want creepy. If you’re assuring your friends it’s a completely normal relationship, or he tries to tell you it’s all utterly benign and you’re just “an old soul” or something… you’re doing it wrong, and he knows it.
- If you’re with an old person who gets excited over how young you are, but gets pissed at you for acting like a young person… it’s time to go, kiddo.
- If your older partner routinely introduces you by your age before your name, you may be more of an object than a partner. Ahem.
