What is the youngest, and oldest you would date? Is there a range you’re most comfortable with? I’m 23M, and I wouldn’t date any younger than 18/19, and no older than 28. What do you guys think?
What are you thoughts on relationship age gaps?
r/AskMen
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40,21 low, 50 high.
If both parties are consenting adults, who cares. If it works it works.
If everyone is legal and one is NOT in a position over that person (teacher/boss) then have all the freaky fun you want.
Honestly, I think only reddit cares about this, and whoo boy, you will HEAR reddit care about this.
If everyone is legal, and it’s all consensual, then have at it.
I didn’t meet them at a bar.
I try not to do a gap, too much of an experience issue and you’ll have to relive a lot of the same things.
I’m 39 and my wife is 12 years younger than me. But even when I was in my mid 30s I was dating 19 – 25 year olds regularly.
Never even really thought about it, honestly. Those are the girls that seemed most interested in me and so those are the girls I dated / hooked up with.
Why would you date a chick barely out of high school? She’s an idiot and may still be upset she wasn’t picked as a varsity cheerleader.
Honestly depends on each case. If it’s an 18yo and a 60yo i’m sorry but im gonna judge. But if it’s like a 30yo with a 60yo it’s different.
It’s your relationship, so enjoy it. As long as it’s not illegal, we won’t judge. Ultimately, the decision is yours, and it depends on where you are in your life. Some people may disagree with a one-year age gap, but make this choice for yourself.
I dream of finding a sugar mama , the kind of lady who drives a rolls Royce to get a stamp to mail a letter .
I don’t really buy into the whole “if both people are consenting adults then it’s fine” argument.
I think people are not sufficiently developed and life-experienced uptil late twenties. So any significant age gaps until one party is about 30 are worth really scrutinising because there are definite power dynamics at play there.
Im in my mid 40s. A majority of the women I go out with range between mid 20s and early to mid 30s. Im not opposed to dating women my age. But their goals tend to be different from mine. I have, in recent years, dated women who were in their early 20s. But their immaturity made dating them more work than it was worth.
I’m 34. Youngest I’d date is 27, oldest I’d date is 45
I’m in my early 50s and happily married. If I were single though, I can’t imagine dating a woman younger than 35 or so. Any younger than that and she’s practically a child to me or I don’t know what I’d have in common with her. I’d be suspicious of any woman that young even trying to get with me.
I am a 50F and in a great relationship so this is purely academic. I also have a 24 year old son. I could not see myself entertaining anyone under the age of 40 and even THAT is a stretch. Hopefully, it’s also moot, since I am very happy with my boyfriend that I have no intention of marrying.
>I wouldn’t date any younger than 18
Wouldn’t that be illegal anyway? 🙂
There is a formula for this.
Age floor = (P÷2)+7
Where P is the age of the older person in question. Dating anyone younger than whatever that number is considered sus.
Anything more than like 5 years I really don’t get. Approaching 10 years is baffling. The fuck do you guys have in common really?
We’re I to become single, I would prefer the low end be at least 10 years older than my oldest, top end is going to go by ear.
My oldest will be 28 this year.
I’m 44…I wouldn’t date younger than 30.
I like this formula: Half your age plus 7- realistic age gap
An unpopular option for Reddit maybe is that anything more than 5 years is weird. Maybe I’d extend that to 7 depending on the ages. Not wrong, but just not super common. Once it pushes maybe 7+ years it gets creepy for the older person.
And then when you have someone dating someone the age as one of their kids that’s really disgusting IMO. And the worst is dating someone when they’re close to 18, which is predatory and borderline pedophilic. With those types of relationships there’s innately a power struggle where the older person is more experienced with the world, has more money to offer, and is usually in a better position to manipulate, gaslight, etc
The traditional guidance is that she must be at least half your age plus seven.
if your 18 or over and love the person and he or she or they do to. I don’t see a problem.
“half your age plus seven” is to me a pretty solid approximation of what line I typically would draw. Within that range I don’t usually see it as an issue. Outside the range is where it starts to be questionable.
I think today people are far too sensitive about age gaps and assume that there’s always a power imbalance being exploited to abuse the younger partner. Sure that happens, but I don’t think that you can apply that every single time.
+/- 7 years. I feel that’s a good range, but honestly it doesn’t matter if you have good chemistry and obviously the age gap isn’t too sus
Once a person is over 25 date whoever. Under 25 your almost always better dating within a few years of your own age. No 18 year old should be dating someone in their 30s.
I largely don’t care about what other people do, who they do, or how they do. As long as everyone is a willing adult participant I couldn’t care less.
Half age plus seven
Before he went off the right wing deep end Adam Carolla had a great late night radio show – loveline.
His rule for dating ages on that show was half + 7.
So a 40 yr old could date as young as 27 but 26 was creepy. Some of the fringe ages get a little cringey ( 30 / 22; 25/19) but it kinda works at the older ages
“I wouldn’t date any younger than 18”
Christ, I would hope not!
You do you, but I think some age gaps are indicative of some other issues. I tried dating some younger women, 8-10 years younger, and I never felt older than those dates. Wasn’t for me.
Think whatever you will about age gaps between consenting adults. But the 1/2 age + 7 rule was not folk wisdom, it was a sexist rule to suggest men should marry younger women. It’s not based in any sort of science, it has no empirical evidence backing it that it results in greater happiness or anything else. It *might* be good at maximizing population growth, and making more likely a more subordinate wife, but that’s about it. It did not go in the other direction.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/307852/what-is-the-origin-of-the-half-your-age-plus-seven-phrase
If you and your partners are compatible, not coercive, and legal, then go for it. Plenty of people that are the same age mess up their relationships too. Plenty of people have had experiences where certain age ranges younger or older didn’t work out for them, and they let that guide their other relationships.
When people are especially young, it can be beneficial to have a partner that is at least a few years older to help them get their life going; again if the dynamic isn’t coercive. Two young people can and do create some pretty dumb dynamics together and mess things up for each other. Two older people can very easily experience a life-stage mismatch even if their ages are close together.
It is frequently the case that people who aren’t in compatible life stages (not identical, *compatible*, life stages) make for a poor relationship. So being closer in age can be a good thing, as can having a gap. It is also not uncommon for people to not be in the same nor compatible life stages with potential dating partners of their own age. It also not uncommon for folks to have most of the people attracted to them not be their same age.
Life stage and age are not the same thing. Selecting from a pool of folks interested in you does not always overlap with people super close to you in age.
So… be kind, be ethical, and do what you will.
The rule I’ve always heard is half your age + 7 is a good rule for maximum age gaps.
So your 18/19 lower limit is good, whereas the upper limit that would be reasonable for you would be 32.
If both parties are consenting adults, it’s no one’s business other than the people in it.
Half your age plus 7 is a good rule of thumb in my book.
Worried over way too much on reddit.
Adult is adult, end of the story.
For me, it wouldn’t be more than a couple of years. It’s because of the life I’ve been blessed with. I became a Marine at 20. By 22 I had spent a year in Japan and had run around the far east. The big islands of Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore then down to Australia. Closer to home I went to south America, central America and Canada. I did six years and got out at 26. How would I relate to an 18 year old who still lived at home with mom and dad?
I was 28 when I graduated from Arizona State. How would I relate to someone who just graduate from high school?
After uni, I went “on the job” with the fire department. With the things I saw, how would I relate to a sophomore in uni? A girl who works part time at McDonalds and lives at home?
As I said, that’s just me.
Personally as someone who just turned 24 I only go for 19 and up because that’s the age I started to see myself as a young adult. I don’t really have an age preference as long as they’re hot, fun and know how to communicate.
If I’m not comfortable with it I’m not dating it
No shit you won’t go below 18 at 23 you’ll be in jail for that shit
I don’t care what consenting adults do together.
As long as it’s legal, it’s all good.
As long as both parties are consenting adults it’s no one else’s business.
I’m 38 and married. If I weren’t though, I would look for women over 28 and below 42. I would date maybe as low as 24 if we really hit it off or something, but I wouldn’t actually look that young, and I would date as high as 55 if we hit it off well.
If she has the word teen in it. Automatically a DQ. I tend to think if I can have a child the same age as people. Also a hell no. As I’m 38 I’m not dating anyone in their 20’s cuz one, all they wanna do is party. I’ve already been thru my addictions and I have no desire to even step in that world anymore. So I use the 5 above and 5 below. I’ve accepted I’m getting older, so I don’t need someone half my age cuz I’m going thru a midlife crisis.
Starting from 22: half your age plus 7 rule works pretty well.
Well, when I was 20, I dated women from 18 to 43, but realistically I think 10 years apart would be the best, as long as both are of legal age.
No opinion
25-40 (I’m 30)
I bring experience, she brings tech support
I’m 3 years older than my wife. Almost exactly. When we started dating it was gross sounding. We had known each other for 2 years at that point. 19 and 16. Now we’re 34 and 31 and that sounds normal.
I think some age gaps are kinda gross. Like 50+ with a 20 year old. No thanks.
That being said, if no grooming was involved (looking at you Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and both parties consent then I don’t really care.
I’m truly baffled by the “half your age plus 7” responses. I’m 41, so that would mean my low end would be around 26. There’s no way in hell I would be interested in a 26 year old. I think my range is 36 – 46, but it really depends on the individual.
If everyone is a legal and consenting adult then have at it. Personally I think too much of a gap in age/experience would make a relationship frustrating but wouldn’t count someone out JUST because of age (again basically assuming 20+)
I think half your age+7 generally works.
If someone is deemed old enough to be sent to die in war, to vote, to decide to abort a child, to have sex, to sell sex, to legally change their gender, to take out a loan over tens of thousands of dollars for education or a house, to vote and so on – to me that means they are deemed fully capable of knowing the consequences and risks of life.
So personally I’d just say: Its legal now to pair up in any way as long as both are adults and consenting and if not: Be consistent about when changing the rules. If 18 is not old enough to decide whether to be with a 50 year old woman/man, then how is that person old enough to decide whether to vote for those 50, 60, 70 year olds in poltics? How is that person old enough to decide whether they want to participate in war because of what older people write and tell them about the world? How are they old enough to decide who to take as customers during sex work?
Just be consistent about it.
I feel uncomfortable when it’s more than 5-6 years younger than me. I don’t really have a good reason for, that’s just how I react when I see/hear the age. Or when they just look visibly young.
To answer the question in the topic: Adults can date adults.
As for
> What is the youngest, and oldest you would date?
21 to [my age-1].
Im mid-30s, and 24-25 is the lowest I’ll go. Anything lower, she’ll need to be a boss running shit, otherwise, I’ll be babysitting, and no one wants that.
At around 24/25, life has probably knocked her around a few times, and depending on how she handles the lows will demonstrate if I want to be in a relationship with this person.
I’ll date only a few years older, though. Again, she will have to be a boss at life.
I have a bunch of random thoughts: People who have a problem with them are almost always just self projecting some sort of insecurity onto them. Given two consenting adults I couldn’t care less about them. As long as society is agreeing that 18 is an adult, then that’s old enough to make decisions for yourself, even if they end up being mistakes.
I would date anywhere between 21-35.
For me it’s 3-4 years in either direction and im late 20s. I hate the “if it’s legal” argument, it’s practically an admission that you’d date younger if it was legal lol.
If everyone involved is an adult, it’s not my business to have thoughts about their relationship they have for their own reasons. I get that a lot of women have a lot of baggage about getting hit on real young by busted old men, but they’ve transfigured that into this grade school idea that more than a few years is some insurmountable gap that men cross purely for abuse reasons and that’s just obviously not true. Uneven power dynamics are constant in most relationships across a range of vectors, and yet age gaps is the one where the moral panic comes up. Meanwhile I’ve known classic “you’re dating yourself” demographic match gay relationships where one has desperately hurt the other. Equity of privilege will not save you, an uneven power dynamic often will not be used to hurt you, though obviously an abuser can make devastating use of it.
Not my problem.
As long as they’re legally of age, not my monkeys not my circus.
I will however, silently judge you if you’re over the age of 25 and date someone who is younger than 21.
Half plus 7 rounding up.
I mean half your age plus 7 is generally safe
The rule of thumb that I’ve heard, and seems to fit, is half your age plus 7.
So, for a 23 yo, that gives you a range of 18-32
I’ve always thought the “half your age plus 7” rule lines up pretty well with what age gaps don’t make me think “ew”.
My grandfather dated a woman 22 years younger than him. He was 97, she was 75. They were quite happy together and everyone at the nursing home said they were the cutest couple.
I used to care about age gaps till I met a girl 10 years older than me. She’s awesome. I’m glad we met.
Now I look the other way with age gaps. My friends don’t like my opinion on it, but none of them have experienced it.
Depends on them. I’m 42. My girlfriend is 30. We’ve been together for five years. It’s been perfectly fine. When I was 23 I dated an 18-year-old it was perfectly fine.
there is this empiric equation floating around that your limit should be ”your age divided by 2, plus 7”
Personally, I wouldn’t care (barring of course really extreme scenarios, like a 40yr with an 18 or an 70 man with a 30 something woman)
If you meet a person and there is a realy connection, then it should be noone’s business.
Now, if someone is consistently looking for younger partners, like Leonardo Di Caprio for example, then I will agree it does display signs of problematic behavior.
My range changes with my age. Back when I was 25, I had no issue dating a 19-y/. Now that I’m 30, the bare minimum is 25 for I’m not looking for girls no more, but for women.
Ofcourse there can be exceptions. But to me it seems that anything 5 years younger than myself is just too young.
As long as everyone is a consenting adult, I don’t care.
Dont care at all when the youngest adult is around 27. 18-27 it kinda depends on other factors.
In general the “half plus 7” rule is pretty much spot on where it starts/stops being weird
So for example a person is 30…
Half of 30 is 15, plus 7 is 22, that’s the point at which the age gap between them starts to matter. A 30yo and a 22yo
A 60yo and a 37yo, a 25yo and a 19yo