It’s Not the Age Gap
Age-Gap Relationships Are Everywhere Right Now
I read a New York Times article this morning about younger men dating older women. The message was that people seem more open to age gaps than they used to be.
That tracks with what I’m seeing with clients.
People are dating across bigger differences in age. Some relationships look solid. Others look complicated. Most of us are watching with curiosity, trying to understand what makes the difference once the novelty wears off.
Because once you’ve lived some life, age stops being just a number. It starts to represent where you are: what you’ve already done, what you’re still building, what you’re responsible for, and what kind of future you’re imagining or hoping for.
That’s the part that doesn’t show up in NYT headlines, but becomes obvious pretty quickly in real life.
Watching Age of Attraction With the Sisterhood
I’m not typically a big fan of this kind of reality TV. Give me the vulnerability of Love on the Spectrum any day.
Still, I watched Age of Attraction metaphorically with friends. Not together on the couch, but in that way we women often do. Texting reactions, comparing notes, sharing opinions, and laughing. A lot of laughing. And relating more than any of us expected to.
What struck me while watching Age of Attraction was this:
Sure, I got a little annoyed with how insecure some of the older women seemed. The more I watched, however, the more it became clear that insecurity didn’t come out of nowhere. Society had a hand in building it. We’ve all absorbed those messages about aging and desirability whether we like it or not.
Mostly, though, I kept noticing something else.
There may now be a name for it, age gap, but each relationship felt completely different. And the ones that looked unlikely to last weren’t struggling because of the gap itself. They ran into the same challenges any couple runs into: unmet expectations, logistics, sometimes something as simple as where one person’s life was rooted and whether the other could realistically move.
In other words, real life.
When I Tried Dating Older Men
I’ve dated men who were older than I am. Not true age gaps. ten or twelve years, yet it was enough to feel it.
They were retired. I was still working, still raising a child, still juggling a full single mom life. They had time; I had obligations.
I remember an afternoon when I invited one over in the middle of the day for a quickie. I made it clear up front that I had a call shortly afterward. Given my life and how busy things were, it felt like a sexy, fun way to make time for each other.
And it was until it wasnt.
I needed to get back to it, and even though I’d been clear up front, the seasons of life came into play. He was disappointed, wanting lingering. I was already back at my desk.
Most of the tension in all of these relationships came from something very simple: they had more time to focus on me than I had to give.
The Pirate Was Right I Just Didn’t Know It Yet
Years ago, I went on a first coffee date with a man who earned the nickname The Pirate because he showed up wearing rings on every finger.
He had one child who was a high school junior. Mine was still in middle school. After we talked for a while, he said directly, plainly,
“I just don’t think this is a match. We’re in different places in life.”
At the time, I didn’t get it at all. I thought he was being oddly and overly cautious.
My daughter was in middle school. She wasn’t in kindergarten. How different could our lives really be?
Flash forward about nine years, and I understand exactly what he was getting at.
He wasn’t really talking about the age of our children. He was referring to vastly different seasons of life.
Where This Has Left Me And Why I’m Still Curious
Perhaps the simplest way to say it is this: my life keeps handing me material, and this topic keeps showing up whether I invite it or not.
My ex-husband is 59 and recently married a 25-year-old. As a result, none of this is truly theoretical anymore. Although, if I’m honest, the whole IRL thing is less compelling than Age of Attraction to watch unfold.
People ask me consistently what I think about the dynamic, usually with a tone that suggests I must be very opinionated.
The reality is, I’m that meme of Michael Jackson sitting in the audience eating popcorn, watching a screen.
Maybe it will work out. Maybe it won’t. That’s true of any relationship, regardless of age.
What this whole experience has reinforced for me, as a human and as a coach, is simple: the real issue with age gaps isn’t the number, it’s that we can’t generalize.
I could get on the apps today or amble about Austin and meet a smart, grounded, bad-ass 36-year-old, and everything I think I know about this could shift.
And if that happens, you’ll be the first to know.
Love this. In the end, we are humans and age is just one of so, so many variables.