Couldn’t agree more this connection as if it has anything with age it has something to do with being in the moment and there finding your connections. When you have a similar sense of humor it crosses the age barrier. Sorry Adam I just don’t agree with your views on having grown up with the same things. I think it’s more important you are one the same page with present things as living on connections made mainly from things that happen in the past seem very narrow and limited to me.

So, my answer to you is that age is really in your head. You can’t really go by the numbers. You have to go with the feeling you have when you’re with a person.

We’re debating, doesn’t mean we don’t agree. What is the issue is not whether or not there is a real connection but whether or not the real connection is going to survive the inevatible challenges that come with dating someone who is in a different range for emotional maturity.

There are certain things that come with age, including understanding respect, humility, and compassion. Sure, as kids we are introduced to these concepts and we could easily have opinions about them, but like wine and cheeses, our childhood only introduces these ideas to us and with age they become more refined and defined.

Relationships with age differences come with problems and if the bond connecting the partner is strong enough, sure people can overcome that, but most times it turns into a joke, a job, or jail time.

Whoever is younger is developing differntly than whoever is older. It doesn’t mean they can’t share the maturing process and it certainly doesn’t mean the older person can’t learn from the younger, but there are problems. And frequenlty these relationships are buil around things that aren’t condusive to a healthy relationship, like the golddiggers or the cougars in heat.

Here’s an example. I know this one couple and there is a ten year age gap. Most people would think this is okay and I think it is too and as a couple on the surface they look totally happy. Well, the girl here is 22, and the guy is 32 so you would think they would get along great. But the girl is from a Russian family, was born in Russia, and immigrated here when she was 4. So she was educated in a Western style but her family style was traditional Russian. If you know Russian families, you know that they are very protective of their children and most Russian kids (guys and girls) typically live at home until they are 25. The families also have to know that there kids are going to be all right before they let them leave the nest.

So when you have an independent minded young girl growing up in America and seeing all the freedoms her friends have in respect to their parents, they might make descions that go against a rational nature. This girl met this older guy and basically moved in with him to get away from her parents. She lives very close to me and we became friends (I’ll tell that story another time). She knew I didn’t have a car so we used to hang out all the time and we run errands together. It was a no pressure situation for me and I just went along and was myself. She built up trust with me and eventually spilled her secret about who she was living with.

She told me that the guy was great (he is, I met him) but because she moved in with him so fast because she felt she needed the indpendence from her parents led her right into this relationship that had to be built around the same thing. The guy is not a jerk, and doesn’t use her, but it happened fast and for the wrong reasons so the relationship is VERY rocky. She confided all of this to me. I listened to her and gave her my opinion. So one day after hearing about her struggles for months, I asked her why she is still with this guy if she knows she isn’t in love and she told me that she can’t move out from his house because her father would be very disappointed. She can’t move back in because the western world has her convinced that it would be an act of failure. And she can’t live on her own because she is still too attached to the opinions of her parents to let her be free and live her life the way she wants.

I told her the answer was simple. She needed to find someone great and to make the break from her live in boyfriend (they never got married) by either finding someone different or and this is what I heavily encouraged, or she needs to talk to her parents to tell them how she feels. I told her that she would be surprised how supportive parents can be if you tell them it is your descision now and that they should support it. It’s not like she wants to move to New York or anything and I even told her if her parents are worried she would be alone, then she should move in with her sister or another female roommate so they can look after each other.

You know what she did? She started falling “in love” with me. She started to linger awfully long on the hugs we would give each other after we were done our errands and she started telling me how great I was and how perfect I would be. She was starting to make the same mistake with me thinking that a live in relationship was what she should be looking for and since we had become great friends by this point, she was starting to think it would be me. She wasn’t looking at me like a friend but as a replacement to her situation and she would have been willing to take a chance with me because she knew how good of friends we were at the time.

I told her no. She got upset over it and slowly over the next few weeks she started doing her errands differnetly and eventually she stopped talking to me. We are still friends, this was one of the times I didn’t try and burn my bridges with her. But all of her problems seem to be stemming from her emotional security with herself and her indpendence. If she called me tomorrow and told me she was getting married to a man in his forties, I wouldn’t be surprised. But I would have to wonder if the guy had the sense to know her well enough that he might be just another one of these guys she tries to find and if my friend ever sees what she is doing for what it really is, he might be the next one to be replaced.

That is what I think I’m trying to say about age.

And yes it is all relative to the situation.

Mike

(ps, I’m waiting until she is single and is on her own. Then I might go back and see what is going on with her. Another one of David’s great posts dealt with this.)

It’s just common sense. Nice to another one with this attitude.

I was never attracted to older men in my younger days but they seemed to like me. I always referred to the real lack of attraction/compatibility on my part as the “cultural age gap.” I wanted a common cultural frame of reference in the male company that I kept and I couldn’t see it in men my father’s age. But now, oh, so many years later, here I am in middle age and finding that I am less and less attracted to men my own age: Not because they are middle-aged but because they haven’t aged very well. Many act helpless and seem to be looking for a woman who will take care of them – sorry, I’m not your mother or your nurse or the cook and/or the maid. And I am certainly not looking for a father figure or a Sugar-Daddy, or someone who expects me to check in constantly like a child with a curfew or to ask for spending money.

So, here I was last fall on vacation, standing behind a woman in a California department store who had forgotten her charge card – so they validate her account by asking her for some personal information like her year of birth…I was aghast when she gave MY birth year! She was quite matronly in appearance, very round with totally gray hair and rather rumpled-looking. I turned to my sister who is five years older and asked “Is it just me or is there a serious disconnect here?” She said that we simply had the luck of the genetic draw – we are very healthy and don’t look close to our real ages.

On the flip side, I was never into much younger guys…not because they weren’t great guys but because I had little in common with them. But I imagine that it’s all just a matter of the odds, right? I need to meet a lot more guys in order to find common interests with a few, regardless of their age. There’s how we see others and how we see ourselves…not to mention how others see us. As the volume of my monkey chatter rises, I hear myself thinking that whatever is happening to me (as an ‘old guy’ magnet) must clearly be my own doing, whether I realize it or not. My friends suggest that I don’t consider older people to be ‘dangerous’ so I must feel more free to be myself and they feel free to hit on me. Does anyone out there have a better idea?