My God you dorks will believe anything
Some people also were unhappy when I came together with a girl back in the day. I was 19, she was 17. such a pedofile!
The part they forgot to mention: they’ve been dating for 4 years.
27 / 2 = 13.5 + 7 = 20.5
Apparently its ok. Idk how many people heard of the “half your age + 7” rule of thumb.
Jerry Seinfeld dated a 17 year old when he was like 38 which is way worse and he just kinda… got away with it?
I’m amazed how well the 1/2+7 rule of thumb works, it seems like it shouldn’t match up so well with the limits of what I see as acceptable
To everyone saying this is creepy. At what age would you allow a woman to choose her own partner?
Many women actually choose this lifestyle.
My GF used to be together with a guy close to 20 years oder than her. She wanted a mature man but ended up finding out the hard way that age does not necessarily corellate with maturity. He was a really immature, self-centered dickhead, from what she told me.
She’s barely a year older than me.
You can end up with someone who sees the younger person as easier to manipulate versus someone who’s had time to catch onto the bullshit. Not every time, but it happens.
Same as the age for a man to start meeting the social consequences for his behaviors.
what age is that?
pretty sure men and women are both legal adults at 18.
May you be held to the terms of every EULA you’ve ever agreed to.
A woman… CHOOSING???
Age gaps are fine.
The only people that don’t like them and pego jacket others are gross sub humans that nobody wants.
Plenty of idiots in Reddit approved relationships that cheat, abuse each other, are toxic, etc.
If a 38 year old dude and his 20 year old Filipina can make it work, then it works.
Go away ugly person with opinions seasoned with jealousy.
“Age gap” by itself isn’t an automatic red flag, and sometimes it’s fine. And if everyone is consenting adults it absolutely isn’t “pedophilia”. But I will want to know more context and have zero problems judging someone in that situation.
Let’s not pretend there’s not a lot of “age gap” relationships where the older party isn’t at minimum incredibly immature. And I’m talking about people 40+ dating people barely out of their teens.
I am 33 dating a Filipina who is 24. She is the love of my life!
Went to my wife’s friend’s (Filipina) bd party last year; she was turning 30. Yay! Got to talking to an old guy who turned out to be super cool. Yay! That was her husband and he was about to turn 70. (Lots of turning in this story - what an odd turn.)
So true
Plenty of idiots in Reddit approved relationships that cheat, abuse each other, are toxic, etc
And so true.
Some redditors for whatever reason also go on reddit just to try and get strangers to break up (r/relationshipadvice r/AITA)
“He went out with his friends on a Friday night like you both agreed he would? Massive red flag, get a lawyer.”
deleted by creator
I never understood why age gaps are a big deal past 18
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?
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
actuallyact immaturely and see themselves as immature“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??”
Your brain is still developing until your mid to late 20s so there will always be a bit 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.
what people love to do is judge other people and their relationships. it’s drama.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It would be very easy to manipulate them, even on accident.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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
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!
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
what if the 18 year old is a multi millionaire and the 40 year old makes like 60K a year?
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.
I don’t find the latter case too objectionable as both parties know it’s really a transaction.
They conditioned people to extrapolate age gaps to come to an accusation instead of looking at actual cases.
wasn’t this just nonsense shit made up and reported to the fbi by randoms?
No.
looks like it to me
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-sex-parties-fbi-tip/
Where does it say that it’s “just nonsense shit made up”?
In any case it’s just a form filled out by who knows who. That doesn’t carry much, if any, credibility.
Taken in isolation, sure. But when you have so many reports from so many people that are consistent with each other, disbelief becomes harder to suspend.
i duno man sounds like american shit to me you figure it out
Then why did you bother commenting if you don’t know?
i do know, im not here to explain to americans who can’t read
That’s borderline, depends on how long they’ve been dating.
Yeah, complaining about this in a 10 year long established relationship is totally unreasonable, but I’d be worried if they’d only just started dating
Are you fucking joking? If it was a 10 year long established relationship it would have started when the older one was 17 and the younger one was 10. Your saying that would be JUST DANDY?! I’m glad it’s a newer relationship! Got no problem with it. If someone said it was a 10 year long relationship I’d be extremely concerned.
Whoosh. Idk how much more of an obvious joke someone could make. Reminds me of one.
I took my girlfriend out for our anniversary one time, but we kept getting funny looks at the restaurant cuz Im 30 but she’s only 23. So we left. Cuz I’ll be dammed if I let people ruin our 10 year anniversary.
I would barely be able to discern the difference in your ages, let alone think that a 7-year age gap is worthy of note. I honestly think they were staring for some other reason and/or your perceptions were off. Unless you look like you’re 45? :)
EDIT: My god. Noe I’m the one missing the joke. I’m leaving it for all to see how dumb I am.
It was clearly a joke IMO
In the nicest way to Anon, it may not be paedophilic, but 27 dating 20 is still sus as fuck.
Sure, the older you are the less the age gap matters - like nobody would look at an 80 year old weirdly for dating a 70 year old.
… but at 20 years old, a 7 year age gap is 1/3 of their lifespan apart. That’s a fucking lot!
In the 90s no one would have so much as blinked at that difference. Times sure have changed for the pruder.
Its still not pedophilia though and while i agree with you on principle, YOU DO NOT BLAST ANYONE FOR BEEING A PEDOPHILE WHEN THEY ARE DATING AN ADULT PERSON.
Biological age != emotional age.
I have seen 36yo acting like 16yo. They have access to alcohol and are seen as an adult.
I have also seen 16yo acting like 36yo. Usually caused by trauma. They get pushed out of childhood or adolescence forcefully. It will cause major issues in their lifes, but they are emotionally very mature.
There is a reason why in many places the age of consent is 16yo. However, this does not mean that their brain is fully developed until they reach 25yo. That means, a smart, older person can certainly abuse a 16yo into thinking she gave consent. And this is the type of relationship that is toxic.
At the end of the day, it all comes down to the older person and if they used any psychological tricks or not. If not, let them enjoy the experience. They both know what is best for them.
However, this does not mean that their brain is fully developed until they reach 25yo.
There is no age when the brain is “fully developed”. This myth comes from a study that showed the brain continued developing into adulthood, and the oldest participants were 25. The brain continues developing for basically your whole life.
Based
Objectively not paedophilic, and only *possibly sus. It all depends on mental and emotional maturity. Only after a certain age of course, an undeveloped brain isn’t going to be able to understand how mature they are, so any notion of maturity would be from an outside influence and it would be inherently unethical to attribute that to the childs actual maturity and try to start a relationship. However, after a certain age you’re likely going to be mature enough to make your own decisions, and for most people this ends up being around 18. That is to say, I’ve met people much older who I don’t think should be allowed to make their own decisions, for the sake of themselves and others. However, I have also met younger people(still referring to over 18 though) much more mature and mentally stable than most others I’ve encountered. All this to say, if they’re both competent adults then stfu and mind your own business.
I accidentally dated a 19yo when I was 29… She told me she was 25, everything pointed towards that being true (she had lived away from her parents for several years, had a full time job, looked the part, on a surface level acted the part etc.)
Yes, I ended the relationship (while she tried to twist it around to her being the one who is ending it, which is childish) when I found out.
I’m now very keen on getting factual age with proof and generally go for same age or older than me. Never again, I felt so fucking disgusting.
At that age and a little latter, I dated girls 8-10 years my junior. That was perfectly normal with Gen X. The age gap doesn’t concern me, the lie concerns me very much.
So she acted the part, looked the part, and you liked her… But somehow you don’t want to be with her just because of age?
Wtf…
Sorry, but that’s a pretty big lie in my book. If she was upfront about it, that’s one thing. And if she was willing to lie about that, what other lies are there? OP was right to break it off.
That was just dumb of you. Putting so much weight into just a number. Throwing away a potentially good relationship just cos of a number. Guess she dodged a bullet.
I’m a bit torn. He might have lost a great thing, but she came out the gate lying. It wasn’t a “big” lie, as-in a lie that would turn out to hurt him, but still…
Yeah, someone who lies about something fundamental is definitely a good partner.
Half your age plus 7.
27 -> 20.5. Yup. Too big of a gap.
Ha! Your life experiences fall apart when confronted with my arbitrary schema I saw on a meme.
It also comes from the most milquetoast sit com in existence.
May I introduce my 80 year old grandfather and his 47 year old wife. Yes, she changes his diapers. Why do you ask?
At least when someone gets outed as a pedophile on 4chan they usually are instead of just having a slight age gap
When someone gets outed as a pedophile on 4chan it’s usually OP who is the pedophile.
