To think a sixth former shouldn't date a university student?

[snel]

My ds is 17, soon to be 18. He's met on tinder a 19 year old second year at a university city about 40 miles away from our house. An hour on the train. I know he shouldn't be on tinder but I left him to it as long as he told me who he was meeting and where. Does anyone else think this is a bit weird?

I agree with you, OP. A close friend's DS is 19, coming to the end of his first year away at uni and is dating a 17 year old girl.

She is living at home and is at college, the equivalent of upper sixth. There is 18 months between them but that isn't really the issue. They started dating when he had just started at uni. It has really changed his experience of uni and of living away from home for the first time. It should be a time for him to concentrate on his degree, join uni societies and build friendships with his flatmates, his course mates and other students at the same life stage as him - all these things hopefully for life and for his future. Instead most weekends and sometimes in the week he's getting on the train to travel to see her in her home town or occasionally she travels to stay at his uni halls. The uni halls are very expensive and it seems such a waste when he's often not there. She can't go to pubs and clubs yet or uni events and he seems to spend most of the time either on his own with her, or with her young friends, dealing with immature dramas or in at her family home. She doesn't understand how much time he should be putting into what is a demanding degree. His studies and over all uni experience have really suffered. It's such a shame. Even worse, she's decided to follow him and is starting at the same uni in September - they've only been dating for a few months! I think that's a shame for her forthcoming uni experience too.

Perhaps he will look back on it in years to come and realise what it's cost him, especially with the huge student loans he will need to repay, but by then it will be too late as he will have already lost all the opportunities available to him as a uni student.

An 18 months or 2 years age gap isn't a problem but the different life stages are.

Not weird at all. What exactly is the issue?

I think there are lots of cases where a year 12 and year 13 are dating and then the following year one is at university and one is still at school. It doesn’t seem odd or inappropriate; their birthdays could be 1 day apart. Slightly bigger age gap in your situation but it’s still relatively small.