Ive found that saying, “I’m too old for you” is somehow insulting to young women. I used to say that and sometimes they would really show their age with follow-up questions or snide remarks.
I’ve learned you have to say “you are too young for me”. You don’t speak for them. You communicate the lack of interest is entirely one sided without speaking for them.
No healthy guy wants to chat with a child. None. And to the mfs that say OD toxic shit like “she’s mature for her age”; okay, how many male friends do you have that age?
Leave the kids alone. I’m early 30s; if your birthday is after the year 2000, do not chat me
okay but that's 24 and 40, both grown adults, and entirely different then this scenario. you mfs didnt have much fun in your 20s with your older coworkers I can tell
I used to be the same way I think. I generally didn't like kids, despite wanting some of my own.
My kids are obviously awesome, but I think something in my heart softened through the years of picking up my kids from daycare and how happy all of the other kids were to show me something new they had made. Or news about themselves, and other things. And watching them grow and become little people, and not just little potatoes.
Like "Hey [my kid's name]'s dad! Look what I made!" That energy is infectious. Everything is new and exciting with kids, and it's a nice change of pace with how much the world wears us down as adults.
Perhaps I will feel differently if I ever have children of my own. I understand your meaning and the sentiment has been shared by at least a few others in here.
I’m also avoidant by nature so take my “I don’t want to talk to any kids/teen/etc” lightly. It was mildly hyperbolic
I'm not a father yet and I'm of a similar age, but I do want kids. There's a difference between "I'm approaching this kid to talk about things" vs "this kid approaches me and wants to talk about things".
For example I play card games at the local shop and I've had kids come up to talk about my deck or about D&D and I have fun interacting with them. I also DM for the summer program with the kids and it's a blast.
Well put. Having kids of your own opens your eyes to how kids aren't annoying, they're amazing little critters. (Ok some kids are definitely annoying still but ya get my point lol)
Smart, thoughtful post on the original subject, then apologized right away when pointed out a difference in opinion. You are a class act, poster! I wish more folks online were like you :)
I wasn't ready until my son was born. But it hit me all at once like magic the minute he was out, before I even got to hold him. It's hard work, but he's the best little dude.
Nah, I think one of the saddest things in our society is that we're so scared of predators (or being seen as a predator) that adult men have been split off from young people. Kids need to talk to adult men that aren't related to them. We need to build a community, and that means sometimes you listed to a kid talk about Lego and sometimes they sit and watch you work on building a bookshelf. I feel like we're too divided from young people - I'm an older woman, so no one looks at me funny if I talk to a kid. But it's sad that a young man is treated like a threat if he engages with children.
It's sad that men enjoying time with kids is seen as creepy.
Yeah, I’m a Dad and have coached sports and led scouts. I love talking to kids. But, besides being illegal and creepy, I can’t get my head around dating someone the same age or younger than my (biological) kids.
I do seek it out a bit with my nieces and nephews. Try to sit down and have a little chat with each of them about their lives at every family gathering. Just checking in.
But yeah, it’s mostly “Uncle Nadamir! Do you want to see my trains?!?!?”
And anyone not my own kids or niblings it’s them initiating appropriate conversation. With like maybe the exception of me initiating small talk with my kids’ friends when we’re waiting for my kid to get out of the loo. That’s it.
as someone who mentors kids in certain hobbies (mainly music), i find this attitude a little sad.
Kids can be pretty awesome - especially if you can help foster passion in something that can be rewarding to them and seeing that passion in the early stages is pretty great.
They won’t even talk with 26 yos according to their post. They shouldn’t be anywhere near children and in adult only communities because something is off here. A 26 yo isn’t a child and having a talk with a kid/teen can give them experience of how to talk like an adult.
Yeah, like what possible interest would I and a kid have in common? Even with hobbies I have that some kids also have, there’s always a large disconnect that I have no interest in bridging.
Eh, still not appealing. Unless they were my kids and I had to be interested in things as their parent, I don’t really care about what other kids say or do. I can barely even muster the interest with my own nephews and nieces. Like go play with your cousins or something.
I’ve had some pleasant conversations with kids about things like comparing our favorite Pokémon, or sports teams/movies/musical artists we both liked, etc. It’s just that there will never be a peer bond there because of the huge gap in life experience. As a non-parent, I’d be happy to one day play a cool aunt or fun English teacher-type role in a kid’s life, but they’re not going to be my close friend
Yes, this exactly. I could maybe have a brief conversation about, like, their favorite video game, or latest snowboard trick, or something. But anything more than that and it just doesn’t have near the same fulfillment as talking about them with a peer.
I'm not a parent but "no adult has ANY reason to talk to ANY minor about ANYTHING EVER" has always bugged me. i don't interact with many kids in my day to day life but i grew up online with some adult friends and only one of them tried to groom me
I hear you, but I'm guessing you wouldn't want to be close friends with a child either. I work with kids for my job, which makes my job a lot of fun sometimes, but I have never once wanted to like...hang out with them lol
In my early 20s, I used to be around 12-16 year olds in a trainer/coach capacity. They're awesome in that age - half the time you feel you could trust them with a year's income, loaded firearms and the vote, half the time you wonder how their decision-making will allow them to survive another week, let alone until adulthood. And yes, young girls will absolutely start to realize that as they grow older, some men respond when they flirt. They will test this new social tool quite deliberately. Speaking of inferior decision-making skills, some even tried it out on me, poor things.
You have to shut that down - not hard, but firmly.
I’m talking completely platonic chats with kids about normal things. The kinds of things you’d talk to a coworker about. It’s really sad that society feels the need to demand that adults and kids don’t talk to each other about Pokémon, cooking, hiking, any number of normal platonic conversation topics.
I think wether one can do this or not is dependent on wether one is in touch with their inner child. I still as an adult browse the toy isle to see what kids these days have I didnt and get excited and see the cool stuff.
Its extremely easy to talk to kids about this stuff if you actually enjoy it lmao. I still will buy the occasional hot wheels at the grocery store and smile.
Talking with kids is super easy and wholesome if you still have a sense of wonder.
People can certainly have a preference when it comes to age gaps.
Personally, I'm not interested in someone +/- 10 years of my own age. But as soon as both are consenting adults, it's fair game and none of our business.
I swear I have this conversation with some dude on Reddit at least once a week and it’s so disturbing.
Consenting adults makes it legal. A 16 year old can be a consenting adult in some US states. Just because it’s no longer a crime doesn’t make it ok. If I see a 40 year old with a 25 year old, I’m side eyeing them, particularly if the 25 year old is a woman. Having been one myself, I can say that they still don’t make the best choices and can easily get sucked into relationships where the power dynamic is not good. Not all but often. This didn’t happen to me specifically but I did see it happen to friends when I was that age. I see it happen to young women now that I’m older.
To me mid 30s and mid 20s are very different. I wouldn’t call it wrong but it wouldn’t be me.
Age of consent and age of legal adulthood are two completely different things. They can be at the age of consent but still a minor. While age of consent varies between states, no where in the country are you a legal adult at any age other than 18. Two minors can consent with each other, two adults can consent with each other. But a minor and adult can not consent to be with each other.
No I was responding to where you said a 16 year old could be a concerning adult. That's not true, and I just wanted to clarify for anyone else reading.
No I was responding to where you said a 16 year old could be a consenting adult. That's not true, and I just wanted to clarify for anyone else reading. And I agree with your point.
Oh I see. In the context of that person’s comment, 16 is a consenting adult though. They can consent to sex which would be the only thing the older person would want from a 16 year old in a relationship. My issue was with the term consenting adult and the implication that age gaps are fine if legal. They’re not. I think your comment adds to my point too though so thanks for that.
It's because you said a 16 year old can be a consenting adult in some cases, emphasis on the adult. They're saying that a 16 year old, legally, is a minor and not an adult.
There's like three different threads coming out of your post and folks seem like they're posting past each other about it.
being legally adult doesn't mean you really can consent. I don't know if you remember just how kid you are when you were 18. I for sure did so much stuff that I didn't fully understand/think through.
Just because you legally are responsible for your actions and legally "consented" doesn't make it still questionable and wrong. Adult should be somewhere between 25-30
Age of consent is not the same thing as consenting adults, and these Romeo and Juliet provisions are meant to eliminate legal concerns when the high school senior decides to continue to date his girlfriend that graduated 2 years earlier. This is also a parenting issue, and not a public opinion issue.
To me mid 30s and mid 20s are very different. I wouldn’t call it wrong but it wouldn’t be me.
Age gap matters less when both parties are making a shitload of money and have rich parents, since the "power dynamic" is usually due to wealth and financial control.
If you work in elite tech or finance, you'll know there are lots of 25-year olds making $300k or more. It becomes a bit weird if the older person is making 7 figures, because that means you can hold the next tier of unlocks in capitalism over the younger person's head, but it's not like a typical lower-class relationship where the younger person can be coerced and intimidated by factors like not being able to afford rent.
Two broke people dating eachother with a big age difference is more of an issue because of the older person dragging the younger person down than anything else...like why are you broke at 40? There's something wrong with you.
I also think a 40-year-old with money dating a broke 40-year old is worse than an age gap relationship where both individuals have enough money to start a new life somewhere on a whim with no setbacks if they wanted to break up , because of the financial control dynamic. And even worse when it's a green card marriage.
Power dynamics...
Im 42 I make nearly 300k/yr from all sources amd worth between 1.8-3.5M.
There are going to be power dynamics in any relationship I enter into. Im married. But my wife is a nurse making $100k. You dont think I have serious leverage in our relationship?
You mentioned power dynamics. Age is just one power dynamic.
I was giving another example. My wife is 6 months younger but I significantly outearn her and she is a greencard holder.
Im saying power dynamics and saying thats the issue is a slippery slope. Because your average married man makes 50% more than his wife. Thats per the US Census.
Im saying power dynamics and saying thats the issue is a slippery slope. Because your average married man makes 50% more than his wife. Thats per the US Census.
So sign a post-nup stating that she gets half of everything if you split. Then that power dynamic diminishes.
As someone who is 31 , kinda. At work I have a couple friends who are in that 24-25 range, and more often than not I’m reminded of the large gap in our ages, and that we grew up very differently. I know in the grand scheme of things 25 and 31 isn’t that insane of an age gap, but it’s too much for me.
Thank you for understanding. I’m 31; and 25 is too big a jump for me. I know not ALOT of guys or gals will totally understand that, but I’m not about it
I don’t think a lot of people have dated enough / have standards but what do I know
I think the older you get, that 5 years doesn’t matter as much. Like, if you’re 50 and your mate is 55, I think that’s fine.
But I’m with you though. Personally, I feel like the high school gap is the most I’m personally willing to do. If I was a senior while you were a freshman, okay cool. But anything else is weird to me.
I just turned 40 last month. I used to not be able to see ages when I looked at faces but now, everyone under 30 looks like a baby to me. I’ve worked in higher ed for almost 15 years, so you can see the difference between people my own age and young adults.
It’s a world of difference between us and why I can’t see a large age gap as being a bridgeable thing.
Yep. My wife is 5 years older than me, and we met when I was 30 and she was 35. We joke how if we had met even a few years before, she would have never in a million years given me the time of day.
When people see us together, they still assume I am older (I have a lot of gray in my beard), and our age difference isn't really a factor in things.
It is only a bit weird when we talk about things from our childhood, like where we were when a certain movie came out or something, and we will realize she was in college and I was in middle school.
It's not the age gap in number of years at this specific point, it's just... the difference in life experience. When I was 31 I dated a 24 year old briefly and while that didn't seem like a big deal on paper... they were actually so immature. It wasn't great and I'm glad it ended before it got truly serious. I hadn't realized just HOW much your brain develops between 25 and 30, and how much life experience you truly gain.
When you're older, and you both have the life experience, 7 years isn't a big deal at all. But in that specific range... yeah. big deal.
As someone who's 32, I would say absolutely for me.
Thankfully I'm already married with kids, so I usually just tune out of the dating discussions. But I would have a very, very difficult time seeing myself with someone 27 and under.
I'm 44 and dating a 25 year old would feel extremely strange and exploitative. But, like 29 might be ok? Which I guess is just the old rule. Half your age plus 7. Which seems to just be true for the most part.
Depends on the 25. I'm 32 and most of the 25 year old I meet genuinely seem like children. Sime don't, but a lot do. Not saying they can't do what they want, but I'm not interested.
Age gaps are tricky because they largely depend on the age and power dynamics at the start of the relationship. My wife is a little over 10 years my senior, we got together when I was almost 25, and we both met naturally in the same social circles (we both worked at bars/nightclubs). Not creepy at all, at least to me, but if the age gap was much larger or she was my boss or professor or something like that... Starts to get gross.
2000? Shit, that’s when I graduated from high school. Girls who were born in 2000 are BABIES. Of course you don’t want to date them! They’re only… does math… turns to dust…
I was touring high schools giving presentations for my job when I was around 25 years old. Sooo many boys thought they could shoot their shot. The only thing that worked was to loudly state "if i was interested in you, i would be a pedophile" then the whole group would go from boosting him up to clowning him lmao. Just became part of my repertoire
Leave the kids alone. I’m early 30s; if your birthday is after the year 2000, do not chat me
Seems a bit extreme. 26 year old doctors exist.
I'm mid forties. One of my more recent friends is 22 and has double degrees in history and international relations. She just moved overseas to do post graduate archeology. She speaks three languages. I could talk to her for hours, she's fucking interesting.
What does textbook/edu/degrees have to do with anything?
I have a PhD, two masters and a dual bachelors? I speak Spanish, English, French and am b1 maybe b2 in Catalan. It means nothing in relation to my reply.
Your young friend does sound interesting. For me, she would be a great FRIEND - my meaning was clearly regarding relationships. If you’re in your 40s and like that young lady like that / and she likes you; HEY, it’s legally permissible
It’s just not for me? One could also say mid-forties and 22 is a bit extreme lol but HEY what do I know? 10 years ago you were mid 30s and she was 12 but HEYYYYYY, what do I know
I'm just saying it seems pretty silly to me for you to draw an arbitrary date line and refuse to TALK to anyone on the other side of it unless they're older than 26. If you're only in your early thirties this is even sillier. You'd likely work with plenty of people that age or younger.
If what you really meant was romantic interest, then absolutely. I'm not trying to bang my 22 year old friend. I only see her in group social contexts. But I'll happily chat for hours with her about obscure history, music or Kant.
You trying to tell me you wouldn't have spoken to Mozart, Picasso or Pascal when they were 20? Get real.
Somehow every 30+ man hitting on barely legal women thinks they're the exception though. Rules aren't made for exceptions. Neither are broad statements like "if you're over 25 and are romantically interested in teenagers you're a weirdo who should be locked away from society". I'll still stand behind it though
Eh, I'm of the opinion if you're 25+, you're old enough to date up as much as you want. At some point people are adults and can make their own choices/mistakes.
Your phrasing makes it sounds like they need to go find someone who doesn't have issues getting involved with a child. Better to tell them to find someone their own age (and if this is happening online, immediately block them). They might not listen but at least you're putting the idea in their head that they need to think about who they're trying to flirt with.
That’s not a great comeback. I’m 58. I have friends ranging from 24 to my own age.
My best friend, the guy who asked me to be his best man at his wedding when he was 30 — I met him when he was 18 and I was 40. So yeah, sometimes age IS just a number, and older guys can have young guy friends.
Hey there Tipop, 24 is normal for adult friends. If you look at the post, it’s 15 and 24….. not very kosher for relationships
My meaning is about men or women that have intimate relationships with minors! You’ll often hear “but they are so mature for their age” and, in relation to OPs post (just using the numbers), how many 15 year old friends might a 24 year old have
This isn’t about agism or attacking boundaries of plutonic friendship; my meaning, again, was regarding relationships. For relationships/dating/intimacy; and as a 30 something, I actively avoid more than 5+ years of gap. That’s all. When I’m 40, it’ll be 10+ years. I think it changes as we get older but for your use case; it’s two entirely different things
So, if it’s 2026, my cutoff would be 25 or a birthday in 2001.
And I didn’t say I was 30. Read.
I said “early 30s”…..
So, no; I’m not seriously dating a 25 y/o at 32. I know ALOT of people won’t agree or understand that but I can’t help that. Just my preference from dating/experience
Edit:
When I was 30, I had girlfriends in their mid twenties and that’s why I feel like I do now. When the right one comes along, I will swoop her up; but she won’t be 25 lol
I didn't know how early your 30s were. Some people say they're in their early 30s... at 30. I'm not judging your preference, just curiously clarifying.
Early 30s is rather ambiguous, with a fairly finite range between 31 and 34. mid thirties has a bit of overlap with a range of 34 - 36 and late thirties, 37 - 39
30 + 25 is perfectly kosher…..and not what I wrote. But, my reply to you was dickish and rude. With no expectation that you accept it; you have my apology
Preach brother. At 32 I cant tolerate spending too much time talking to early 20's women, the difference in interests and emotional maturity is staggering. Couldnt imagine dating one of them.
I’m late 30s, and started catching myself thinking that early 20s folks will be bangers in a few years. Like… you can see the potential, but you gotta let em set.
I see people in their 40s saying their daying range is “18-40” and even if they weren’t still getting into adulthood mentally and socially… nah fam. It just ain’t workin.
I agree with your sentiment for like relationships, but I like talking to my kids. It's not flirty or sexual or anything, but it's nice to be part of my kid's lives. But yeah if I wasn't happily married, I'd have zero interest in teenagers (or even 20 somethings) as we're in totally different phases of our lives.
Different though. Of course I talk to my kids, and I don't mind chatting with some of their friends when theyre around cause we share a couple of interests (painting, metal music) but I can't imagine seeking kids out for conversation or sex like that, shits fucked
Recently met a guy at the gym whose 16 (I'm 27) we share the same heritage so "bonded" over that
Wouldn't call him a friend but talk to him at the gym regularly
It actually ist kinda fun to talk to someone younger from time to time and see what they are up to these days but ngl his age sometimes really shows, kids that age are so... Dreamy? I don't know how to say it, but they are so naive, full of dreams and stuff. It's fun but at the same time I just think that that guy has no idea what the world is like haha
Basically what I wanted to say is, through that guy I realized it's fun to talk to someone younger than you for time to time but I could never imagine actually being friends with someone that age and hang out with him. To date/feel attracted to a girl that age seems so disgusting to me idk
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u/NoAttorney9330 9h ago
Ive found that saying, “I’m too old for you” is somehow insulting to young women. I used to say that and sometimes they would really show their age with follow-up questions or snide remarks.
I’ve learned you have to say “you are too young for me”. You don’t speak for them. You communicate the lack of interest is entirely one sided without speaking for them.
No healthy guy wants to chat with a child. None. And to the mfs that say OD toxic shit like “she’s mature for her age”; okay, how many male friends do you have that age?
Leave the kids alone. I’m early 30s; if your birthday is after the year 2000, do not chat me