It matters. If the woman is more than 5 years older something odd is going on even in France.
Him 30,her 15===> Yikes!
Him 45,her 30===> Maybe not
Him 65,her 50===> Possibly OK
The older the individuals are the less a given difference in age matters...IMO.
Guy a lot younger than gal:
Sorry....that means Oedipus to me.
"No, she can never be young enough." (per Bill Clinton & Jeffrey Epstein)
Big Age gap matters to me....Always has...Always will. For others that’s there business as I see it.
“Tear the roof off the sucka’”
“I get older, they stay the same age.”
This is encouraging for a single geezer like me!
Some thoughts:
Once it was considered socially acceptable for a senior gent if she was half his age plus seven years.
Men being strongly visual, are attracted to younger woman. It is one thing to age along with someone, and something entirely different to enter in to a relationship later in life. Of course much later and it becomes more of an issue of companionship than physical attraction.
When she is 50-something and he is 60-something it isn’t so bad. A much greater gap and you grew up in different eras and find communication difficult. Different music, cultural norms, etc.
I recently checked out online dating. There are exactly zero younger women interested in what I have to offer, and I am not too bad for 62. It is amazing how many older women are seeking younger men. At my age, a cougar is not an aspiration. Looks like I may walk alone for a while yet. Maybe I need to go to a Trump rally.
Quote from Douglas Fairbanks when observed by reporters getting off a plane with an early teen girl “I may be too old for her, it I assure you she’s not too young for me.” Disgusting gun grabbing liberal Democrat.
Am I the only one who knows of the “Half plus seven” rule?
It works.
A 40yo man cannot date a woman younger than 40/2 + 7 = 27.
A 50yo man cannot date a woman younger than 50/2 + 7 = 32.
A 60yo man cannot date a woman younger than 60/2 + 7 = 37.
I was told by my same aged boyfriends that I was "old fashioned" and a "stick in the mud". My values were from a different era.
When I met my husband to be we meshed. We liked the same books and music. We held very compatible world views. He was the only older guy I dated and the one I married. Make of that what you will.
An age gap relationship featuring an older male and a younger female makes perfect sense from an evolutionary perspective. Males seek young healthy females most likely to be able to produce healthy offspring. Females seek status and resources in a partner so as to be able to provide for those offspring and for her while she is caring for them. Each gets what they most want. The idea that the couple should be of roughly the same age is a culturally Western view and s fairly recent one at that.
I’m three and a half years older than my husband. My mother was six months older than my father.
The total amount of marriages of between 10 and 20 plus years difference in the US is only 7.4% of all marriages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships
Everything else is closer no matter which one is older. I somehow don’t think this is a really big issue especially since one divorce will cause such a shift in numbers for that category with the limited size of the phylum.
rwood
This. Hubby is 11 years older than I am. He likes to say "You're only as old as the woman you feel."
Does age difference in romantic relationships matter?.
Depends on who has the money.
my friend married her husband when she was 25, he 50. Third wife for him, 9 kids.
He’s 88 now, in poor health and refuses to do what he has to do for his health to improve.
She works her tailbone off ( menial jobs, she’s never had a career) to pay for their medications.
He sits at home playing video games, and complains how tired he is when she drags home from work.
So, in retrospect, maybe not the best idea she has ever had.
My wife is is nearly 7 years older than I am. Just celebrated our 55th anniversary. We’ve had a great run.
Some of the people saying “But you would have so little in common!” when disapproving of age-gap in couples (who are from the same culture) turn around and see no issues in somebody marrying someone from an entirely different culture.