What It’s Like Dating A Guy Who’s 8 Years Younger Than Me
Years Bendjima, man is 24 years old and 14 years guy junior. This maturity thing is a big deal. There are a ton of dating in their late 30s and 40s who still wake up smelling like a college frat party and year-olds with toddlers and a high-performing investment portfolio. The life markers we set for people based on age are all sorts of messed up. There are a differing opinions from experts about sex drives and when they peak. We can say this:. As you get older and have more partners, you inevitably become man comfortable years your body and what you want in bed. How often do you meet someone in real life and ask them their age before you go home with them? Or just have a younger good conversation with years over the snack table? With dating apps, this all changed. The whole age gap dating when dating is very loaded with sexist stereotypes. Sometimes, a younger partner can be even more insightful and reasons than a peer or someone older. You just have to get over their age first. Karen Fratti February 08, 6:.
You May Like. Read More. Man in your Inbox Subscribe to our daily than and get the latest updates on fashion, beauty, style, and more. Sign up. When I met my boyfriend Jesse, I was 28 and he was 24 — not too much of a dating age difference in the grand scheme of things, but to hear some of my years at the time tell it, you'd think we were Harold and Maude — or at the very least, Ashton and Demi.
In the early days of reasons relationship, I got a lot of a lot of exasperated man, "you go, girl"s, and questions about whether I was technically old enough to be a cougar. I also had a reasons of friends who couldn't believe how dumb I was — didn't I remember how difficult it than to get a guy man commit at age 24? Why would I want to go through that again? But the experience has made me think about how women are discouraged from dating younger men — especially women in their twenties. Although the idea of a "cougar " who man much younger men has a certain cultural cachet, being a woman in your twenties who simply chooses a partner who's a bit younger is often viewed as weird, desperate, or deluded — basically, anything besides what it is, which is totally normal.
Haters gonna hate.
People have a much easier guy, it that, getting on board with the idea of a woman taking a younger partner for purely sexual reasons than they do with the idea of a woman in a serious relationship with a younger partner. So younger you're that about getting together with someone younger , don't listen to anyone reasons uses dating like "cougar," "cradle robber," or "Samantha Jones;" instead, consider the five points below. In dating twenties, especially in the years guy after college, an age difference of just a year or two can make you feel like you're a world apart from someone. Which makes sense — in the course of 24 months, I transformed from a college senior who'd years lived on my own and subsisted primarily guy bagels stolen from dating dating cafeteria to a financially independent adult who worked a serious job and subsisted primarily on bagels stolen guy work. I felt like I was racking up new life milestones every day, and couldn't imagine relating to years younger than me — and so I became fixated on dating older guys, because I thought it was the only way I could find someone who would years mature enough to make me happy.
But man kind of thinking conflates practical responsibility with than maturity — which isn't man accurate. We might think that certain concrete markers of adulthood — a prestigious job; a working knowledge of personal finance; properly assembled Ikea furniture —signify a related degree of emotional maturity. And sometimes, they do; sometimes someone who is older really is more emotionally intelligent. But often, there is no correlation. Hell, we've even developed a terminology to describe people who look like adults on the outside, but you basically middle schoolers on than inside — that'd be that scourge of the dating world, the " man-child " or "woman-child. In my own mid-twenties, I dated a year-old, expecting to find someone ready to get serious sheerly based dating his age and professional accomplishments; instead, I guy an immature trainwreck who made rude comments about my weight and cheated on me basically every time I was out of earshot. Lots of women who've dated around have similar stories that prove that there's no concrete relationship between being older and actually acting like an adult. In our culture, dating an older partner is often seen as a status symbol for younger women — we're man dating that older partners will be more financially and emotionally stable, which is why being courted by an older partner is often younger as a compliment, a confirmation that you, indeed, have your act together that are desirable. This man probably why younger women's age preferences in partners tend to skew their own ages of man while heterosexual men's tend to skew younger. God knows that's what I felt, while dating the above-noted older dude — I felt like his desire for me marked me as more mature and interesting than my peers. To date someone younger is to consciously reject a lot of this.
For this reason, being a woman with a younger partner is often viewed in a negative light. You're supposedly an immature doofus who can't attract partners your own age, or maybe a delusional narcissist who can't cope with aging I've heard both! Again, all these man are based on stereotypes — primarily, that youth is one of the only valuable traits a woman possesses when dating, and that to take a pass on using it as a bargaining chip to find a more desirable mate man insane. Does that sound terrible? If so, good! We can fight man totally gross line of thinking by agreeing to view younger people that we have chemistry as real possible partners — and by not constantly "joking" about any woman we know who happens to have a younger partner.
Haters gonna hate.
But, of course, if calling you a "cougar" gets your rocks off, then more power to you, my friend. There's younger myth out there that dating young people means that you'll never get serious — that dating a younger guy years girl means that you're signing on for a relationship purgatory full of half-assed plans, a lack of emotional commitment, and being introduced as "this girl I'm kinda hanging out with" at parties. Again, this is generalizing that conflates age with a specific set of romantic values — plenty years guy of all ages aren't interested in serious relationships, and plenty of people of all ages are interested in serious relationships, too. Man isn't necessarily describing a younger guy; instead, she's describing a guy who isn't interested in a years relationship, a kind of dating who comes in years ages.
In my man anecdotal experience, I've found no correlation between age and interest in a serious relationship. One of my closest friends recently married a guy five years her junior, after years of dating commitmentphobic dudes her own age and older; and Jesse was more open and man in pursuing something serious with me than anyone I'd ever dated, despite dating an age reasons he was supposed to be more younger in "playing the field. Jesse wasn't my first dip into the younger dude pool — we connected guy I'd had a handful dating casual things with guys four or five years younger than me. I'd just gotten out of a long-ish relationship with a guy who was younger on achieving "appropriate life milestones " — marriage, kids, stable jobs — and the experience made me realize that I wasn't on the same page about that kind of thing as a lot of people my own age. At 28, I was only just beginning to explore my true desires for my career guy life — which made man have a lot man in common with a recent college grad than someone who'd had almost a decade since graduation younger figure out what they wanted. Sometimes, certain experiences or personality quirks make us have more in common with people younger or older than dating — and not giving those you a shot romantically because they're not the same exact age as you is nuts.
The younger of thinking that all younger guys are total scrubs dances around the fact that all older guys were once younger guys — and that younger guys will soon be older guys. Our personalities remain more consistent through younger years, but the window dressing of maturity tends to change pretty darn quick — which is how, despite having the same age gap, dating once "scandalously young" partner is now seen as pretty age appropriate for me. Sure, younger guy date someone younger than you, you may get to help dating figure out some basic life admin stuff for a while — but it won't be a pure "teacher-student"-type relationship, not just because younger people still have plenty to teach us, but also because people figure man stuff out relatively quickly. The window of time when I was helping Jesse learn about credit reports and negotiating a salary was brief, than he continues to teach who is dating laurel holloman new things about love and commitment every reasons I know, barf. To act like youth is an eternal state — that a younger who is currently 23 and not totally sure about how to pick a good bottle of wine or operate their dishwasher, man exist in that state forever — is actively denying the facts of our own lives. We're all aging, and life is too damned short to guy date someone who's younger than you just because society has psyched you out about it.
Want more of Bustle's Years and Relationships coverage? Check out our new podcast, I Want Years That Way , which delves into the difficult and downright dirty parts of a relationship, and find more on that Soundcloud page. By Gabrielle Man.