A good role of thumb for age gaps is: half your age plus 7. E.g, a 48 yo should limit himself to 31 and up. Would a woman under the age of 31 be still attractive? Sure, but there’s likely such an age gap that they’ll have nothing in common and it’d be boring for both parties
Discussion
"rules of thumb" are for people too lazy to think for themselves.
everyone should date who they want and ignore total bullshit that has no basis in anything.
My argument is that “dating who you want” and the ages of the people you date will naturally overlap quite strongly with this heuristic
People love using idiotic "rules" like that as an excuse to be judgemental assholes.
It would be much better if we taught people to think for themselves.
Most women most often date men a few years older than them. Mary Tyler Moore married a man 20 years younger. Rather than do math to see if she fits into some baseless "rule", we could just wish her a very happy life because there's not a shred of evidence that age-gaps are harmful in any way. We really need to STFU and mind our own business :-)
I couldn’t care less what two consenting adults do. You’re missing my point - I’m saying the likelihood is that one or both parties would probably end up being bored or unfulfilled if the age gap goes beyond a certain level. Pretty controversial no?
anyone can be an outlier
and I see no reason to speculate on what might be probable
Anyone - of course, but by definition not everyone (or even most). If you see no reason to speculate then I guess you’re not a curious person. I doubt this is true and you’re just clinging to your argument no matter what. That’s ok too
I have seen that sort of speculation used to support judgemental assholery thousands of times.
I have never seen that sort of speculation used for anything else.
So if you can give me some reason to speculate in that way, I'll consider it.
It’s hardly speculation to say that most people have increasingly less in common further their ages diverge. Especially as intimate partners. There’s a bit of delicious irony in your statement about being judgemental - you’re doing the same thing from the other side. Hoist from your own petard in a way. Human nature sorts all this age gap thing out once both parties are consenting
Our own respective ages / genders might also play a part in this discussion. I’m assuming you’re female under 30? Though who knows
That's ridiculous.
My original post has two parts. The second part expanding on why that received wisdom probably rings true. You then went on a bit of a rant judging judgemental people. It’s called a conversation but it seems you’re a little precious (which is why I thought you were younger - maybe I’m mistaken). Let’s leave it
*uncontroversial