The Vine: January 18, 2001
Sars,
The whole “younger men suck” thing is overrated. Yeah, some of them do, but not all, by any means.
My husband and I started dating when he was 21 and I was 26. We’ve been together for five years, and married for nearly two. Most people think he’s older than me, so we get very little flak about our age difference.
Of course, it’s possible that Michelle’s friends are saying he’s unstable because of what they know about him, but if it’s just about the age, they’re being bigots.
Joy
Dear Joy,
Don’t you think the word “bigots” is a bit strong here? I’m glad things worked out for you, but surely you’re aware that you’re the exception, not the rule. Sure, it’s important to keep an open mind about things, but…well, there’s a reason that people tend to assume a relationship with a pronounced age difference won’t work. Nine times out of ten it doesn’t, is why. Let me give you a couple of examples from my own life.
Example the first: Sarah, age nineteen, dates a forty-year-old. It didn’t work. Why? Because, as I found out later, the forty-year-old dated women younger than twenty-five and women younger than twenty-five only. I wouldn’t call myself a preternaturally mature nineteen-year-old by any means, but even the average nineteen-year-old gets tired of the Pygmalion routine, and I couldn’t stand to hear the phrase “you’ll find when you get a bit older” anymore. Plus, the guy couldn’t accept the fact that he’d turned forty. I mean…ew. Grow up, dude. The band isn’t getting back together.
Example the second: Sarah, age twenty, dates a twenty-seven-year-old. It didn’t work. Why? Because I had college to finish, and he had med school to get through. Because I had no idea how life worked On The Outside, and he lived On The Outside. Because I had a certain all-or-nothing, black-and-white philosophy peculiar to my age, and he couldn’t relate.
I don’t think Michelle should blow her boy off on the say-so of her friends by any means, or take my experiences as cautionary tales, necessarily — but she does need to proceed carefully. The average twenty-year-old has a far different worldview from the average twenty-eight-year-old, and from the average thirty-five-year-old, regardless of gender. Sure, some couples can overcome that and every case is different and blah blah blah, but Michelle has to go into it with her eyes open.
Bottom line: if Michelle is any younger than thirty years old, a relationship with a guy seven years younger looks like a pair of Bad Idea Jeans. Yeah, her friends should keep their mouths shut until she asks for their opinions, but I don’t disagree with them.
Tags: boys (and girls)
