To think 26 year old dating 19 year old is weird?

[ChicJoker]

I’ll leave sexes anonymous. I know both parties well, they have been dating for around 2 months. One is my sibling. I feel really really irked by it. It’s weird right?

In a middle class bubble perhaps. In reality under 50% go to uni

I had a six year relationship with a man 6 years my senior, from when I was 19. Not weird at all.

Unfortunately, emotional immaturity in males is a factor. At 18, as I have said, I found some of my male peers a lot more predatory because they lacked the emotional maturity for relationships but had a fully working dick. I had far more pressure to do things I didn't want to from them.

I don't have teenage daughters, but knowing what 18 year old lads can be, particularly today with media influences as they are, I don't think I would be more worried about a 25 year old tbh.

You make fair points, but I do think some of the reasoning behind the more common older man,/younger woman relationships of the past wasn't just about male power, but about what was acceptable behaviour for young males. It was often said that women mature more quickly. I don't think that's a biological truth, but I think it was certainly a societal truth in the sense that 'playing the field' was more accepted in men. What that resulted in was women idealising relationships whilst men idealised sex. So the thing about dating an older man was that they'd already done the 'wild oats' bit that men were expected and encouraged to do in their late teens.

For all the sexual revolution for women, certainly when I was 18, there was still the idea that 18 year old boys couldn't be expected to have control over their dicks. Lad culture '(Loaded and FM) was very much to the fore, and for women the answer was not to change that but to match it (Ladette culture).

I wasn't interested in getting pissed and shagging around at 18. I was surrounded by a culture where that was what you did at 18, that was the socially acceptable behaviour. I wouldn't say that's what drove me into the arms of an older man, because I wasn't purposefully looking for an older guy but it might be why we met in the first place and why we got on. He never would have been that sort of guy, and I expect I could have found somebody my age who wasn't, but it would have been harder.

1. Most of us thought we were seriously mature adults who “knew it all” at 19. But looking back—we weren’t.
2. The 19yo’s frontal lobe, which supports decision-making in the brain, will not be fully developed for another 6 years.
3. There is a power imbalance.
4. In my younger days, I knew people who were in the role of the older person. They deliberately chose younger partners because they were more pliable (see #3 above), and openly admitted it to friends.

Does the 19yo in this scenario believe that they are in an exclusive relationship, even though the 26yo is not exclusive? This is a huge red flag, regardless of the 7 year gap,

The "half your age plus seven" rule has been around for years and certainly pre-dates the internet.

Having said that I wouldn't call a 26 year old dating a 19 year old weird. If the 19 year old was my DC I would be slightly concerned and keeping an eye on the situation. But I think it is massive stretch to call it "weird".

my mum married when she was 20 and my dad was 29. She had me when she was 21. They married in 1966.

I don’t think that age gap is a problem, if two people love and respect each other I don’t see a problem , 🤗

Young adults need to navigate these things without parents at their shoulder policing their every move

I don’t think necessarily, depending on the maturity level of the couple. I met Dh when I was 28 and he was 21, which is the same age gap. We got married 3 years later and had our eldest shortly after that. Now in our 40s and still happily married. At 21, he was more mature and sensible than all the 30 somethings I’d dated in the past and more mature and sensible than me!

You sound pretty immature yourself OP. Hope you're not dating anyone of any age!

Neither do I, sorry I dont think ive made myself clear. However, society teaches us to value youth and beauty, and a man may have no conscious or subconcious abusive intent, but he may, for example, be immature compared to the women his age because he simply isnt interested in growth, and therefore is drawn to a younger woman. Thats got implications itself in terms of how he might behave in a relationship, about what he's emotionally ready for. There's a million different angles, not all abusive, but not all without problems and my issue is the assertion that this kind of age gap is inherently 'fine, nothing to see here' without any inspection into why it happens. Hope thats a bit clearer? Maybe not, its a complicated issue!

Great points, and exactly the point im trying to make really - the expectations on boys and men are out of whack with where they should be, so the idea people make these decisions independent of the patriarchy isnt strictly true. And get your point about culture - and brings up a good point, I wonder if the decrease in pub/drinking culture in younger people and the increase in online dating has had a bit of a side effect in terms of attitudes towards age gap relationships, simply because its easier to find someone who matches up with your interests more?

I don't see the issue. Although my 19 yo son would disagree. One of his friends is 20 and started dating an 18 yo and he finds that a bit odd!

Most of my early relationships had a 9 or 10 year age gap but by 19 I had been working full time for 4 years and was meeting people in the pub. At that time my circle of friends had a wide range of ages and it never seemed weird. We were all at work, all drank in the same pubs, liked the same music.

I met my now ex husband when I was 27 and he was 35. We were together for 20 years.

Are you also quite young? Taking the opinions you read on a Tik Tok so seriously, is quite juvenile.

I hadn't thought about the changes in how people meet now, but yes, that's a fair point.

It's interesting to look through a lens at changes in relationships in general. I had friends who were engaged at 15 (same age relationship). You wouldn't hear of that now. Some of them actually married as well, one couple is even still together!

Everything seems to start a lot later now, which isn't a bad thing. I think relationships are less of the be-all and end-all that they once seemed to be. It was important to have a boyfriend when I was at secondary school for some reason. I was at a school with an even mix of WC and MC and it wasn't just the WC kids who had intense relationships.

I've been ill recently, and in a search for mindless TV, I found episodes of Byker Grove on ITV X, which first aired in the late 80s - Ant and Dec are my age and God, they look so young - watching it now, it's amazing how many storylines involve intense relationships between 15 year olds and talk of marriage and engagement. But that is a pretty accurate reflection of how it was. Of course there'll be people who say that wasn't their experience, but it was certainly mine.

For all the dodgy internet influences, 5 year olds with skincare regimes, etc, I think in a lot of ways today's kids are younger than we were at that age. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

I had one child and one on the way to a 27 year old man when I was 19.

it took me a very long time to realise, he liked them young as easier to manipulate.
Hes now 50 with a 30 year old girlfriend.

I (F) briefly dated an 18 year-old (M) when I was 28.

Yes, it was weird, hence it didn’t last very long.

He had left school at 16 and was working as an actor, so more mature than most, but our lives were just so different.

This.

Tik tok..what is the age demograhic on that?
Dont use it myself
Age isnt a big deal - why care.

They are both adults I don't think there is an issue. I would class them as both as young adults and the same generation and I wouldn't expect their lives to be that different

I think its ok if its F19 M26. The other way round, no

Why? That's ludicrous.

I don’t think that’s an especially big gap. 26 year olds are still growing and developing, much the same as 19 year olds. If the older person was 30 plus then it would start to get into weird territory.

I met my now husband when I was 18 and he was 27. My mum had some concerns to start with but after 17 years and 3 kids she says he is her favourite child and would keep him in the divorce 🤣 age is just a number and as long as they are both at the same stage in life what does it matter. My mum was concerned that my DH would want to settle down really quickly but we dated 7yrs before we got married and then waited another couple of years before having kids

If my 18 year old son told me he was dating a 25 year old woman I'd think she was mad. He was wearing school uniform up until his last A level this week.

Age gaps get less gross and weird as you get older.

It's not illegal obvs but there's something a little off about it. 19 with a 21 year old - sure, maybe they're at uni together, maybe they met travelling or at a gig for a band they both love, or they work together in a bar or a bank or on a boat. But 26? Hmm.