To think that a 35 year old man setting his dating range to age 21+ is revolting?

@OneLoyalCyanGuide

Well, I think it's a legitimate question. My Dad was 37 and my mother 23 when they got together (in 1985.) I'm giving it as an example of an acceptable, appropriate relationship with a similar age gap - it's to show that not ALL such relationships are problematic, because in my family's experience, my parents' relationship certainly wasn't.

Would you honestly see my Dad being a creep? For that?

My parents met each other and fell in love, it's as simple as that. Both had been married previously. They married each other in 1987 and the marriage lasted until Dad passed away in 2016. I don't see how this was an inappropriate relationship in the slightest.

It’s about power imbalance!!!

People say that, but i dont necessarily agree, unless he was her lecturer or boss or something.

Also younger people often have the power balance in their favour anyway, as youth and attractiveness are a strong currency.

Exactly people are forgetting it works both ways
And the 21 has to choose to go on a date with the 35 year-old

It's just a filter setting, FFS. He's not forcing anyone to meet up with him and have sex.

A 21 year old is a consenting adult, if they want to shag someone who is 35 that's entirely their decision to make.

Let's stop with the "oh, but a 21 year old woman can't possibly be trusted to make a choice over what they consent to" misogyny, eh.

People always bring their family in to manipulate the responses. People don't want to say, "yes, your dad was a creep and your mother missed out on being young by being involved with a man who'd already had his fun"

Of course it's gross, and especially gross that he said to set it younger if it's just for sex..🤮🤮🤮

@Emonade

But I don't think there is an innate power imbalance in all such relationships with those kinds of age gaps.

There certainly will be in some, but the relationships should be looked at in terms of the individual cases, rather than blanket generalisations being made about all of them - in my opinion.

There might be no power imbalance in some particular relationships between a 21-year-old and a 35-year-old. There will be a power imbalance in others. The specifics of the relationship, the personalities of the people involved (maturity levels, etc) and how the relationship is conducted should, I think, be taken into account to determine whether there is, in fact, a power imbalance.

My Dad was 37 when he met my 23-year-old mother - they started dating, got married, etc, etc. So just a couple of years older, on both ends, from a 21-year-old female and a 35-year-old male.

Would you have considered my parents' relationship as inappropriate at that time?

It’s about power imbalance!!!

But the important question is, does he reach the magical 6 foot threshold?

Lots of posters have said the same. But it's not the same at all. If he wants children in the future a 46 yo woman is not going to be a sensible choice for him

Lecherous behaviour would be if they're actually hitting on and harassing younger women. Simply being attracted to attractive adults is not lecherous in my book. Or am I lecher because I had a second glance at a 20-something man running with his top off yesterday...

If what you're into doing is something only your immediate peer group are also into then I dare say you're quite boring. I can't think of a single hobby or passion that's age-limited like that. If you're into music, art, books, hiking, history, politics, architecture, travel... the list is endless but if you meet people through those things you will meet all age groups.

And I'm in my 40s and I still "go out all the time". Sometimes even with friends in their 20s!

The brain learns through doing. Everyone overprotectively cosseting their young people are going to ensure that they dont actually gain maturity abs experience.

If you look at the expectations on and abilities of many 16-25 year olds now vs a few decades ago, it's night and day for that reason.

At 21 you can: join the army, go to war, get married without your parents consent, have finished university, get a mortgage, work, have sex, but only on mumsnet aren't you an adult with autonomy to date who you want.

You’re saying “21 year olds are girls” 21 year olds are not girls, they are legally adult women. The same with “Young girls for a shag” young girls are classed as someone below 13. Language is important.

Too right! Only on mumsnet is 21 an adult that has to pay their way and get no support from parents AT ALL whilst simultaneously not being allowed to date who they want. Some people want it both ways and it's usually because they want to criticise men for something. I've always liked older men and that's not changed in 15 years since I was early 20s. If anyone thinks that's gross they can go do one, and I'd probably think their choice of partner was gross too.

Also is 35 really middle-aged now? I thought it was 40 at least before we started calling someone middle-aged. Just another way for posters to try and make a pretty innocuous age gap seem worse than it is. Calling a 21 year old a "girl" as well...

Wisdom isn't something that happens independently from brain changes. They might not be as fast, or the same kind, as what you see in younger people, but the brain does continue to change throughout life.

It's interesting to think about where people typically have peak performance at the top of certain fields. The greatest mathematicians, for example, have often done their peak work before 40. On the other hand, historians and others who depend on different kinds of thinking that rely typically reach their peak much later, when the capacity for that type of thought has developed, and the ability to perceive relationships between what initially seem like disparate things.

Some types of thinking have actually already peaked by 25.

On site such as POF the max you can set your age range is 14 years younger (35>21), so chances are he'd set it younger if possible.

Agree with this

It’s certainly not revolting

The post I was responding to was claiming that a 21 woman year old shouldn't date an older man, because the brain hasn't finished developing yet. It's a fairly common argument in certain threads where people are trying to say that people in their early twenties or even late teens can't be expected to make serious decisions or have real responsibilities.

The problem is it's fairly arbitrary. Why 25? Many women will be much better at spotting bad men at 35, or 45, or even into old age, compared to when they are younger.

Interestingly, my DM and my DGM married men who were 6 and 8 years younger than them respectively, which was unusual in the 1970s and 1950s.

My exH is 10 years older than me and we married at 28 and 38. He had the money and life experience to woo me and I was attracted to his success (mid-earner, but interesting and sexy creative career). My current beau is 5 years younger than me. I think I’ve been attracted up to 15 years older since I was in my late teens. I was always old for my age and men my own age weren’t interesting enough for me.

Ironically, men my age now (early to mid 40s) bore the arse off me because many of them have already given up on life and just want to stay home and watch TV in the evenings!

Which is why people arguing that under 25s should be protected from making bad decisions because they are not mature is completely ass backwards. Of course some 50 year olds are stupid and a given 30 year old might make a better decision, but that's not a scientific comparison. But individuals will, barring unusual things intervening like brain injury or disease, be able to draw on more experiences and more complex patterns in their thinking at 50 than 30 which will inform their decisions. And that is also true of 50 year olds as a group compared to 30 year olds as a group

You are talking about two completely different things here.

One is physical maturation of the brain concerning things such as myelination, dendritic trimming, prefrontal cortex etc. It’s well established that this maturation takes until mid-20’s. Basically, there are periods where the brain is ‘remodelled’ and there is a physical kick off for that at different points, mainly based on, but not limited to, hormonal changes at key points in childhood development and puberty. While many studies have pin-pointed mid-20’s as end point, some indicate potentially late 20’s, however I’d think it more likely that, like any bell curve, the majority would be mid 20’s and late 20’s would represent the tail of the curve.

The second is what we would typically refer to as ‘wisdom’. This is where our brains hold our experiences and learnings and the ability to put these together over time for better outcomes. The more experiences and learnings we have the more ‘wisdom’ we grow during our lives. Completely different to physical brain maturation though, which is the main cause of impulsivity/poor decision making/risk taking behaviours, especially in young men, leading to adverse outcomes. Essentially why the majority of people you come across with broken necks after jumping off cliffs into shallow water or car accidents from driving recklessly are young guys.

@BatchCookBabe

I think the point @Butchyrestingface was making still stands, though - if a 21-year-old woman is not interested in men her own age and is attracted to men in their thirties (or even older!) - what, in your ideal world, is supposed to happen?

Presumably you think that the older men should reject sex/a relationship (even though it's legal.) But that would mean the 21-year-old female would essentially have a sexless life until she got to an age that you considered acceptable.

I think the agency and autonomy of women does need to be respected; 21-year-olds are young women, yes, but they are not a monolith - there is variation among them. Some are quite mature for their age, whereas others may be immature, naive and somewhat vulnerable.

A 35-year-old man might be too old for some specific 21-year-olds, but 35-year-old men are not too old for other 21-year-olds. It's not an established fact that 35 is universally too old for all 21-year-olds.

I've found significantly older men attractive from a young age and could well have seen myself happily dating a 35-year-old man when I was that age.

And my Dad was 37 when he started dating my 23-year-old mother - same age gap, just a couple of years older on either end.