Relationship age gaps

[Flutterbybudget]

Not sure if it’s really an AIBU but do they matter? And what age gap is/ isn’t acceptable to you? Does it matter which partner is older?
So, for example, a 17 year old (F) dating a 27 year old (M)?. Or a 20 year old (F) dating a 29 (M)? Or a 30 (M) and a 47 (F)?
And does it matter how they know each other? Big age gap, but family friend? Was in a position of authority at “some” point - such as teacher/ boss/ instructor of some sort? Or not an age gap, but still in a position of authority? Such as boss or doctor?

16-20 year olds are often peak attractiveness

If you’re an ephebophile.

People are often deemed less attractive as they age.

Its a bit silly to claim a 30 year old will be more physically attractive than an 18 year old on the most part

SIXTEEN ???!!! 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

How old you are you?!!!?

Many are sexually actively at 16, why is that gross?

I think a lot on here get caught up with the word relationship, when most in their mid teens - mid 20s are more open to casual relationships, which makes age less of a factor in terms of maturity, as you’re often not sitting up discussing politics

Yeah most teens who are sexually active are so with other teens not grown men.

If you would consider a 16 year old more attractive than an attractive 30 year old, that’s on you. You’re an ephebophile (quite literally)

Aaaand thanks for proving my point @ApplePieFry!

Many are sexually actively at 16, why is that gross?

Yes, they are ideally having sex with other teenagers. If an adult is having sex with a teenager, said adult is a predator and - oddly enough - people have an issue with that.

Do you not think you looked better at 16 than 30?

There are always exceptions, but until people are in their mid 20s, think age gaps can be a real problem. Have met many women with older partners they met while they were in their late teens and am appalled at how the relationships work and how abusive and/or unequal they are.

But it goes both ways

I’d have not touched a 16 year old when I was 16, I enjoy sex and most boys under 18 are a bit shit from personal experience. So would actively pursue older men so I’d not end up unsatisfied.

Attractiveness is not all physical. We're not just pieces of meat.

I'm 31 and I'm horrified at the idea of having sex with an 18 year old boy. Because that's what they are. Boys. I'm into men, not children.

Is your friends name Maggie May?

I met my husband when I was 25 and he was 38. We were both the same age mentally 😂 11 years on and we’re still happily married. It’s a personal thing, doesn’t work for everyone. My parents were the same age as each other, got married young, had years in an unhappy marriage culminating in a divorce.

I looked like a spotty bespectacled child at 16. As did most people. I was hot af at 30.

Nobody other than gross old men (and the occasional woman) romanticises a period where lots of people still have braces.

That’s probably what is distorting your view on this

It’s no surprise that on these types of threads it’s always those who weren’t attractive as a teen who have the strongest opinions on the matter.

And who still has braces at 16!

Did you go to secondary school in the 80’s or something?

I know of someone whose daughter has just turned 18 and has been going out with a 27 year old for a while. The daughter has a lot of health issues and looks a lot younger than she is, is much smaller in height than my 11 year old and still has a very child-like body. I do find that a bit weird, although oddly the mum is completely fine/encouraging of it.

By that logic, the people who are unattractive adults are the one who romanticise age gap relationships and are strongly pro teenagers dating older men. So, are you currently washed up and hideous? Does nobody want you now that the predators have moved on? That’s really unfortunate.

I had the predators approach when I was a teenager. Every teenage girl did. It’s not some honour bequeathed upon a chosen few. The fact that you think it is is genuinely sad. Doesn’t change the fact that 16 isn’t an attractive age in the grand old trajectory of life. When I was 16, I saw them as unattractive peers. I see 16 year olds now and I see children.

I’m not the one with the distorted view. You need therapy.

Yeah. I went out with a 28 yr old man and his fiancé when I was 16. I went to to their wedding - I was still at school. Even worse, we met on the internet and I went for my first visit without telling anybody.

It was bad enough then, but worse after they split and he and I carried on when I was 18. Then I got semi-famous and he threatened to sell naked pictures of me to the press. That was fun.

I totally thought I was mature but wasn’t at all. It took me a long time to accept that I was groomed, that the relationship was abusive, and that the whole thing was a mess.

My partner now is 7 years older, and we’ve been together since I was 23. We have kids together, a house, and it’s all good. I don’t think it’s about the age gap so much as the age the youngest person is when it starts.

I also left home at 17, and was financially independent from 19, but the difference between 16 and 23 for me was huge. I definitely remember looking back at 16 yr olds when I was 28 and being utterly repulsed by the whole idea.

Not everyone is degenerate, most people don’t sleep about with every Tom Dick and Harry they just end up in a relationship and sleep with that one person. It sounds like a lot of older men used you for sex and you’re trying to justify it.

What a fucking gross and old fashioned view of sex. Jesus.

That isn’t the age gap we are talking about on this thread 🤦‍♀️ no body cares what a 25 year old does

I’m “gross” because I don’t sleep around? Yeah ok. Pretty sure it’s the other way around. You catch literal diseases from sleeping around.

I met my DH at 20 and he was 28. Thirty years later and we're still together. It doesn't work for everyone but it's worked for us. However an 8 year age gap when one party is a teenager is just wrong.

The 50’s called 🤣🤣