To find a 49 yo man dating a 19 yo girl creepy?

[NatVoll]

I am aware of the fact that "this is none of my business and yada yada", but come on!

Family friend, aged 49, just announced he has a new girlfriend. She is 19. I am horrified, but my sister thinks there is nothing weird about it.

AIBU to think that a 49 yo man dating a 19 yo girl is absolutely creepy?

ChiaraRimini but you seem to think that just because they probably have different life experiences - they can't possibly have anything in common. All kinds of people have different life experiences but can still find common ground.

Also you can become a carer at any age. Fate is fickle.

And if that's her decision, frankly, who are you to decide it's "grim".

Don't try and pretend you're being reasonable when actually you're just being judgey, narrowminded and unpleasant.

By "pissing away" I meant wasting the opportunity to travel, party and develop her own life and friends instead of tagging along with some past-it old bloke

I wasn't in the slightest bit interested in travel or partying at 19. I was in uni and working in the industry I wanted to progress in. Neither was a guy at 48 "past-it".

With such an age difference it is surely just shagging?

We never had sex

And is she going to be OK being a carer for an infirm, elderly man, when she is only in her late 30's?

20 years down the line when she’s 39 he’ll be 69. Not ideal I grant you, But most 69 year old men are not doddery and infirm and in need of care. The ageism on Mumsnet is hilarious.

sunny It just means while it might be weird,at least that the person will be a grown up and you're not moving in to "ewwww" territory.

I think he was a creepy perv.

I agree, there is a huge emotional maturity gap between an 18/19 year old and a young to mid twenties year old. The idea that a late teenager can really engage and hold their own against someone three decades older is daft. Sure, there will be a few savvy enough to know it is just a fun fling, for many others they will lap up the cynical attention the older bloke is providing thinking it is 'love'.

100%!! I'm 24 and I don't even recognise myself from when I was 21/22 so I've done a huge amount of growing up since I was 19. If I was shagging a much older bloke when I was 18/19 I'd look back and feel a bit uneasy that I was taken advantage of/ the power balance was all out.

Its odd and would be equally odd if it were an older woman dating a 19 year old man

A very good friend was 15 and her partner was 40. She told him she was 17 and he told her he was 28. After a few month they both confessed, stayed together and had a baby when she was 16. They were together years. Knowing her well she was a very mature head strong girl, always went out to get older men. She was an equal in the relationship (as odd as that sounds) but I think that is probably very rare. They split up many many years later but have a good friendly relationship still.*

Sorry but that is just fucked up. She may have lied about her age but he was still a 40 year old thinking it is okay to have sex with a school girl. Even when he found out he was committing statutory rape he went on to have a baby with her. I'm sure that had zero impact on her academic qualifications and later job prospects. TO claim that relationship was on equal terms is absurd!

Agggh

Bold fail

Of course it's creepy. A middle aged man and a woman who was legally a child 2 years ago.

^ This. And if they met in a bar, I'd think I'd have his character sussed.

19?
He likes them young and vulnerable so he can sound like an expert
It isn’t uncommon

He wasn't a normal settled down 42 yo.

Quite. In exactly the same manner that I'm not a 'normal, settled down' 51 year old

Pan - she was 16 when he found out her age I believe she purposely waited to tell him and fell pregnant whilst at college but still 16. It IS fucked up but at the time seemed ok bearing in mind we were 16 also. I have already said I don't think it is now.

She did really well at college etc and got a good job, she has done well for herself but I suspect mainly because her mum was also around for support. Sometimes its just not as shit as we'd all like to make out, not all 16 yos are immature little girls but the blame does and will always lie with the older male, it is just not right. If it was my child I would be devastated as it is so far from ideal.

Wow. You guys really are breathtakingly unpleasant, aren't you. How are 90% of these comments acceptable?

My parents put up with a lot of shit from people - but that was the seventies, when people were shit. Many of you lot are still stuck there, it seems.

Wow. You guys really are breathtakingly unpleasant, aren't you. How are 90% of these comments acceptable?

Took the words right out of my mouth. A lot of highly unpleasant comments here [sad}

she was 16 when he found out her age I believe she purposely waited to tell him and fell pregnant whilst at college but still 16. It IS fucked up but at the time seemed ok bearing in mind we were 16 also. I have already said I don't think it is now.

The point still stands though, (ignoring the fact that he was unwittingly committing statutory rape) even if they did say meet when she was 17, what the hell is a 40 year old doing sniffing around someone that age to begin with? It's all sorts of grim.

Fucking people who are still teenagers is much more unpleasant in my mind.

She's an adult. We've not been given any indication that's she's intellectually compromised in any way. She can make her own decisions about who she wants to fuck. Unless you think that women can only be fucked as opposed to fucking whomever they like of their own volition.

In which case you can add misogyny into your list of negative character traits.

Wow. You guys really are breathtakingly unpleasant, aren't you. How are 90% of these comments acceptable?

Well it would seem you are in the minority. 40 plus year old men seeking out sex or companionship with teenagers is generally not seen as something to aspire to.

She's an adult.

Yes she is legal whoop whoop.

but she is a teenager her brain has literally not yet met maturity. Some men will find women specifically because they can fuck them them, mentally and physically. Vulnerable for whatever reason, they pick those women out. It is not about the girl choosing to have sex and a relationship with someone on her level, she's prey.

If you think the right of men to fuck women is feminism, you doing it wrong my friend.

^Understanding the Teen Brain
It doesn’t matter how smart teens are or how well they scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn’t something they can excel in, at least not yet^

The rational part of a teen’s brain isn’t fully developed and won’t be until age 25 or so

In fact, recent research has found that adult and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s rational part. This is the part of the brain that responds to situations with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process information with the amygdala. This is the emotional part

In teen’s brains, the connections between the emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still developing—and not necessarily at the same rate. That’s why when teens experience overwhelming emotional input, they can’t explain later what they were thinking. They weren’t thinking as much as they were feeling.

Yep its beyond "yuk"

Wow. You guys really are breathtakingly unpleasant, aren't you. How are 90% of these comments acceptable?

It is understandable how the prejudices may have formed, as there will be plenty of age-gap relationships where the things being attributed to this specific pair, are actually true.

But some of them do not fit the stereotypes. Omly time will tell for this one.

Well it would seem you are in the minority. 40 plus year old men seeking out sex or companionship with teenagers is generally not seen as something to aspire to.

As am I and, quite frankly, I'm happy to be there.

But some of them do not fit the stereotypes. Omly time will tell for this one

Exactly

toomuchpenis

"If you think the right of men to fuck women is feminism, you doing it wrong my friend."

On the contrary, I think one of the points of feminism is for women to be able to fuck whomever they like, however they like, as often as they like without being judged for it.

And you are judging her as much as you're judging him - that she must be weak, vulnerable, and unable to make her own decisions for her own reasons.

And yet you know only three things: she's female, she's 19 and she's choosing to have a relationship with someone older than she is.

Maybe she finds 19 year old men not to her liking? (I never did.) Maybe she's having more fun, better sex and more intelligent conversation with someone with more life experience?

Why are any of these things impossible for you to imagine?

Because you think young women can't think for themselves, and you don't like being made to think about things which make you, personally, uncomfortable. So you dismiss it as grim, creepy and weird.

You're the ones who sound like teenagers.