Two weeks ago it seemed the women in my life started having a major rethink about our past relationships and it was all Taylor Swift’s fault. Swift re-recorded a song about an older ex boyfriend to accompany a 10-minute short film with the line ‘I’ll get older but your lovers stay my age’ particularly striking a chord. It made many of us re-examine our own age-gap relationships in the cold light of middle age.
Turns out it’s fairly common for women in their early twenties to go out with a man nearly or in their 30s. I dated several boys (men?) who were six to 11 years older than me around the ages of 19-25. No one around me seemed concerned. It’s quite normal for older men to date younger women. Women are more mature, we’re told. We grow up faster than men so an age gap evens things out. On their part men don’t face any funny looks socially. They are congratulated. A younger girlfriend is an achievement.
I've noticed a marked decrease in the amount of unwanted attention. The sort of interactions that used to make my hair stand up at the back of my neck and make me grab my purse ready to run
But I then turned the same age as my exes were when I was dating them (30) and now it’s painfully obvious they weren’t dating me for my emotional maturity. I would rather get a pap smear from Dustin the Turkey then spend an hour at the pub with my 23-year-old self, listening to me sh*te on about Marxist theory. I was as unlikeable as a Sally Rooney character – minus the self awareness and the nice hair. I don’t buy that it was my youthful looks that pulled them in either. I have a much better body and face now thanks to discovering the wonders of eating a vegetable at least once a week.
I wasn’t more attractive back then but I was easier to control. I’m not saying all age gap relationships are unhealthy. But there is a stark difference in life experience and learned knowledge between a 19-year-old and a 28-year-old, than that between say a 35- and 44-year-old. There’s an information asymmetry between someone in their early 20s/late teens and someone about to hit their 30s who has been in the workforce, travelled and has dated more people. We have to acknowledge how that could create a power imbalance between the two parties.
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For example when I was in my early 20s I was still labouring under the illusion people meant all the things they said and would do all the things they would say they would do. If my older partner told me I should stop going out with my uni friends, I believed it was because he wanted me to “grow up”. When actually it was his need for control and jealousy over me meeting someone more age appropriate in a club.
I think that's what drew him to me, not so much the youth but the vulnerability
As I get older the amount of male attention I receive hasn’t changed but the type has. I’ve noticed a marked decrease in the amount of unwanted attention. The sort of interactions that used to make my hair stand up at the back of my neck and make me grab my purse ready to run. Things like being repeatedly asked for my number when I’ve already said no. Having my drink spiked. Being verbally harassed from a moving vehicle as I go about my business. In fact, come to think of it, almost all the times a grown man yelled “nice arse” at me from a car I was wearing my school uniform. Because I was walking home from high school. Because I was a child.
When I was in my early 20s a man grabbed my chest as I was getting off a train. At the time I didn’t know why he chose me, I didn’t have much to grab. In fact with short hair and in an oversized leather jacket I was often mistaken for a gender fluid boy.
‘Hey!’ I yelled. He looked me dead in the eye and said “What are you going to do about it?” I know why he chose me. He was right. Back then I didn’t know what to do about it other than run off. Now I would know what to do. I would have made a scene, I would have fought back, I would have got the CCTV from the station and told the police. But I was young and vulnerable. I think that’s what drew him to me, not so much the youth but the vulnerability.
In certain dark parts of the comment section you’ll see the same rationalisation of why older men should seek out younger women. Women, you see, are at their most fertile in their late teens to their mid-20s. Men peak in their 30s. It’s their biological destiny to get together. That’s the way it used to be. But we also used to sh*t in fields and we do not do that any more. Which I see as quite an improvement in our station as humans despite our “biological” needs. No one looks back and wishes we were still wiping our holes with leaves. I’m yet to hear one person say that is how we were designed and that it is human nature.
Age gap relationships can be loving and satisfying. Older women also pursue younger men. But we have to ask ourselves if certain men continually pursue relationships with younger women, why do they do it and why is it so acceptable?