So in one of my novels, a romantic thread has suddenly decided to rear its… interesting head.

It’s interesting because the guy is in his early twenties and the girl is seventeenish. A fairly wide age gap, especially when you’re talking teenagers.

Anyway, this may or may not go anywhere, but in the meantime, I’ve got no idea how to approach this from his point of view. Hers, it’s no problem, but… agh. I definitely need a research pool when it comes to him.

I’ve known a few people with relationship age gaps like 16 and 21, stuff like that—but I’ve never really known much about said relationships, or how long they lasted. (Some may have been faked, too…) It was generally just a bragging point: ‘Oh, well, my boyfriend’s twenty-one’. You know the sort of thing. So yeah, I’m looking for some help on this one.

This could get personal, so feel free to not answer if you don’t want to. :)

I wanted to know, if you suddenly found yourself attracted to a girl this much younger than you (or thereabouts), especially if she was a teenager, what would be your feelings? Would you be slightly squicked and disturbed at yourself? If you knew she felt the same way, would you go for it, or would you just be like, ‘meh, wait a few years and if she’s still around…’. Have you ever been in this position? Do you know anyone in this position, and how did they feel about it? Is there a bunch of awkwardness about it? How do the families and friends of the involved react to it?

Any other comments?

Uh… I’m definitely not a guy in his early twenties, but when I was 20, I was dating a 24 year old. We’ll call him Creeper. Uh. Yeah. So I can tell you some of the stuff that was in his head, if you like.

1) Every now and then Creeper’d remember the age difference and go AHHHH I’M A CRADLE ROBBER (my current bf, Ninja, does that too, sometimes. He’s 23, I’m 21. It’s kinda funny, he goes all squeaky)

2) Sometimes it would come up that Creeper would make references to stuff that was just a couple years off from what I’d grown up with, and it would be weird for both of us.

3) Occasionally Creeper would get a little “am-I-defiling-an-innocent?” on me. It was weird.

Uh… that’s probably not helpful, Steph, but if you have any specific questions, I can give you some details about the dynamics with Creeper.

@ sansafro:

Thanks for your opinion. Since you wouldn’t consider it, can I place you in a hypothetical situation fairly unrelated to my book?

Imagine you’re not a teacher, and you keep bumping into this girl who’s fairly attractive, and totally your type. You have quite a few friends in common, and you find yourself really liking her. Things go on for a year or so, and then for the past two months, you’ve begun to really like her, and you think she feels the same way. You know she’s a bit younger than you, but you’re cool with that since you think it’s only a couple of years’ difference. Then today you find out she’s seventeen.

What do you do?

Thanks for the comment, Willow.

Woah, I see how you feel. Nicely described. Total shutdown is a good point to include.

Just to bug you, though, I’m going to point out that at least with time, the relationship would no longer be illegal (though I guess there’s still a question of like mild child-grooming or something similar), whereas time wouldn’t change the situation you describe. Would waiting and not thinking too hard about it in the meantime work as an option? Or would you feel too suss?

I’d leave her the hell alone. If a guy gets a pedo-rep, his life is over – whether he did something or not.

See, the thing is, technically if she’s over sixteen, it’s not paedophilia. Or is it just that the harsh age difference between them would create a sort of false paedophile illusion thing? Never mind, just answered my own question.

What if she was an eighteen year old? What’s the lowest age you’d consider? (Anyone can answer this, not just Klutor.)

Will throw it out there that there is somebody here who has whispered to me and was involved in a relationship like this, so don’t be too damning, please.

I guess I’m also interested in the maturity side of the relationship. Would the different ages and thus maturity levels lead to conflict, and how? Willow, since you’re the closest thing I’ve got, can you comment on this?

Maturity is of course not just affected by age, but also by socio-economic status, number of kids in the family, the way you were brought up, etc. A lot of people tend to forget that.

Ekh. I was hoping nobody’d bring this up and so avoid the actual question completely.

Thanks for your replies so far, Klutor :) It’s been a massive help.

But you weren’t innocent a minor back then, Willow. I don’t get it.

Well, he was three/four years older, and out of college, and divorced. I was three/four years younger, in college, and rather innocent/naive in general. So yeah.

I guess I’m also interested in the maturity side of the relationship. Would the different ages and thus maturity levels lead to conflict, and how? Willow, since you’re the closest thing I’ve got, can you comment on this?

Okay, let me see. Yes, there was plenty of maturity conflict. It wasn’t all age based, though. He was employed, then in law school, and in both cases living on his own. He had previously been responsible for his wife/step-daughter for two or three years. So when it came to subsisting on his own, he could manage far better than I could. However, he also had a lot of insecurity and self-loathing usually reserved for younger guys, and it caused problems. He also had a little drinking problem, but that’s beside the point.

Yeah, sort of. Our only fight we ever had (we were more the keep-problems-to-ourselves-and-get-depressed sort of couple) was over his step-daughter. He helped raise her for 2 years, and suddenly, mid-summer, decided he should fly down to Texas to see her. From Indiana. To see her for a week.

I could understand the attachment, but I pointed out his lack of legal claim to her, and the fact that he isn’t planning on settling in Texas. I said he shouldn’t dangle her around and make it even worse. He said he couldn’t abandon the girl who called him daddy for 2 years. It was a messy situation.

Yeah, just a bit. Did I mention the four year old stepdaughter he’d been helping raise for 2 years? Or the fact that he was from Texas? Or that we met online? Or that he didn’t tell me the divorce wasn’t final yet until I asked, two months in?

Facepalm

That was only a year ago. I was so, so, so very stupid. Well, not stupid, but naive, and far too forgiving.

If all that stuff happened before I figured it out, I’d just say, welp, it’s all in the game and try to put some distance between me and her. If she still wanted to be bros, that would be fine.

okay, then.

That said, I’d be shocked if I spent a year getting to know somebody enough to like them without figuring that out, especially with friends in common.

Oh, shush, you :) Stop picking holes in my hypothetical scenario.

Yeah, the power gap. That’s a good name for it; I wasn’t sure what to call it.

Basically, I feel like those relationships contain a somewhat predatory element by nature, and I don’t want to feel like a predator… unless my partner was also a predator, because that would be badass.

I knew there was a good reason we kept you around. That was both hilarious and epic, and it enriched my life :D

So I think the direction I’m going to take is he’s going to realise how old she is and go into shutdown mode. And just because I feel like exploring this and pushing the poor guy to the breaking limit, there’s going to be weird forces of attraction still between him and her that are totally out of his control (because of supernatural forces. Maybe beasties just looking to make mischief, maybe something bigger). But they’re not going to end up together, unless he somehow gets over it first and she gets older by at least three years, and then he falls in love with her again (and she with him, of course). But all this is in a nebulous future I haven’t written yet (and may never happen in any case), so I’ll shut up. I guess I just wanted to say, thanks for everyone’s help, I gained a lot of valuable insights, and even though my question’s been answered, I’m still interested in this topic so I’ll keep it going until I either run out of directions to take it in, or somebody tells me to shut up.

if I was 24, I wouldnt date anyone under 21.

I’m just past 26 now(goddamn i feel old saying that) and I don’t think I’d feel too weird dating, say, a 21 year old, because they can do all the the same things I can do(except rent a car). I could say, hey, your alcoholic beverage of choice sucks compared to Jameson, and not be creeped out.

I’m 23, turning 24 next year… and I’d put my furthest limit at 20.

Do you think it changes at all once she’s no longer a teenager? Once she’s twenty or twenty one? Say if you were 28 or 29, would you feel okay in dating a twenty-one year old? (It just passes the half your age plus seven rule. Just.)

I can’t speak from experience, but I know my mom met her ex-husband when she was in her early twenties, and he was almost thirty at the time. They were together for a long time—I think they had my sister a few years in, and then broke up when she was four or five. From what I can tell of their relationship, the age was never a problem—my mom can just be very difficult, and said ex-husband is a pushover, though endearingly so.

My sister also had a relationship with an almost-thirty guy in her early twenties, and they were very happy for a couple of years—and then he was like, “Let’s move to Ghana!” and she was like, “Uh, no.” The guy is still friends with the family, so it wasn’t even a bad break up.
Age isn’t always the be-all and end-all of relationships. Approach and personality are much larger issues. But this is coming from someone who mostly knows of relationships where the people involved aren’t identical ages, or even close for that matter.

O.o

I think you’re only our second married person on here, that I know of. Excellent insights, by the way.

I know Wulf_Ritter is one, who’s the third?

Third = a guy who whispered me in this thread and hasn’t actually said so in ‘public’ to my knowledge, so I don’t want to throw out any personal info there.

I think 17’s a particularly weird/ uncomfortable age because she’s still in high school.

I graduated at seventeen. About half the people I know did. Aussie school system. So, yeah, not necessarily in high school.

don’t know, it’s something about being graduated, it’s harder to look back into high school for someone to be attracted to

I’m not suggesting you actually go looking for high schoolers! That’s… a little creepy. :D Thanks for the input.

Good point.

My bestie (she’s 19) is dating a guy who’s 24. I think she was pretty uneasy about age when they first started gravitating towards each other, which is why she waited until she’d turned 19 before she told him she liked him. Apparently it’s not a problem any more. Anyway, they met on a six-month missions trip to the Golden Triangle, so I guess the circumstances weren’t exactly normal either.

For that rather unhelpful anecdote, you’re welcome. :D

With that being said, I don’t find age gaps all too strange, it’s rather more a matter of the mindset of the individuals. Sure, I wouldn’t desire a relationship with someone if there was even half the age gap of those mentioned above, but apparently my mother’s always been into older men. On the other hand, problems will inevitably arise when the mental maturity doesn’t match. It is generally said that females are a bit quicker to mature mentally than men, which would easily support a gap of a few years. When the mental maturity doesn’t match, it starts to feel a bit like exploitation to me.

Yeah, once a female is a grown-ass woman, she’s a grown-ass woman. I’m not nearly as weirded out by a 25 year old dating a 35 year old, since the younger person should theoretically have enough emotional and financial independence that it at least mitigates any power gap, if not outright erases it.

Tangentially related to this topic: While bullshitting with my Magic buddies last week, I misheard someone, and now I think there ought to be an animal mascot that does PSAs on the dangers of underage girls named “Statutory Ape.”