Dating older guys??? 10 years older than me. Is this normal, is it ok?

[brunette4u]

I am a 20 year old female college student, i turn 21 in several months. I have always been told that I am pretty mature for my age. I have always looked older than I really am, and I tend to hang out with an older crowd. I have always dated guys several years older than me...not saying that it makes them mature, by all means, but ....

I was in a relationship for 2 years and just recently broke up...he was 1 year older than me and acted like 5 years younger than me. I am sick of immature guys. Here is my question...I met a wonderful guy. He is very handsome, tall, seems very nice and polite. He is also 30 years old. 10 years older than me. Is this normal, is it ok? He does not look "old"(not that 30 is old, by all means!!!) and he seems very fun to be around. Guys who are around 30+, would you date a woman who was 10 years younger than you? what would be some things that would hold you back? Would you feel intimidated or turned off, or does it strictly make no difference her age? Should I pursue him? Thanks!

[Arcane]

It's normal. I was recently in a relationship with essentially the same age difference. It worked out great for a while. In fact, I've never actually dated anyone older than 21. As long as his age doesn't bother you, what difference does it make anyway? Hell, I'm almost 30 but most of the time I still feel like I'm 20, which I suppose is a good thing

[Stone]

I am 22 and my boyfriend is 34! He asked me out for a year before I said yes ( I was nervous about age to) But I am really glad I went We've been togeather 8 months and this is the best relationship I have ever been in. I am mature for my age and he's a little immature for his, but he doesn't play games, he has his sh** togeather, and treats me like a queen.

 

I guess it depends on what your looking for sometimes it's nice dating older men because they have more experience in relationships and in their thirties are more likley to want to settle down than men in their early twenties.

[Curt]

I definitely would date a younger woman than myself, BUT, she and I would really need to "click".

 

Things I would be considering (no particular order):

 

Do we have...

1. Similar family backgrounds?

(At least to a certain extent, anyways. Seldom do two people of VASTLY different family experiences growing up have the common base needed to form a solid "union.")

 

2. Similar career goals?

(I wouldn't want a younger woman who had any interest in being a trophy. I would want a woman to be driven to succeed in a field of endeavor she loves.)

 

3. Similar abilities to communicate?

(A KEEN ABILITY TO TALK THINGS OUT IS IMPORTANT FOR PARTNERS OF ANY AGE, BUT EVEN MORESO WITH PARTNERS OF WIDER AGE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THEM.)

 

4. Similar personalities?

(This idea ties in rather well with #3, but both partners would have to be willing to grow as people, and learn from each other, etc.)

 

5. Similar desires for family?

(I want kids, and I don't know if I could ever be with someone who didn't. Of course, the timeframe would definitely be something both would need to work out)

 

6. Similar views on child rearing.

(I can't see anything but chaos arising out of completely disparate viewpoints on raising kids, no matter what the partners ages might be).

 

Some problems that could occur:

 

1. Different aged peer groups (can lead to problems with finding common ground socially).

 

2. Different aged partners might have same problem as above in #1.

 

3. Comments of the public/friends: The old "cradle robber" idea for him, and the "sugar daddy" idea for you.

 

4. Energy/vitality levels for the older person could be an issue if he can't "keep up" with you now, or especially in future. Being with even a little more weary older partner could become a drag in later years especially.

 

5. Different life experiences leading to problems raising family?

(Younger adults today appear to have a wide variation in ideas on family, and taken along with the fact that how a family is being defined is changing daily, this could be an issue.)

 

6. Cohort cultural effects

(Will you both like to listen to some music from both "age groups'" experiences, involve yourselves in activities you both like, and the like)

 

7. Life experience may lead to the old "I know this from experience" comment being made by him. -or- the "You don't understand the way it is today, things are a lot different than when you were a teenager." comment from you. Those types of perspectives will wear you both down a bit, after a while.

 

I know I've missed things, and some things are positive and negative at the same time. Nonetheless, when it comes to people, everyone is different, and maturity is very much on a sliding scale. If and when you find that person with whom you share that special bond/rapport, age (up to a reasonable and appropriate limit) often becomes a secondary thing.

 

Older men falling for younger women and vice versa, is not all about sex, as some would have you believe. I should know. I fell for a much younger woman whom I just felt that special feeling for, a woman that I could discuss and talk about anything with. We could laugh together, chat together, etc., and I never ever saw her merely as a piece of "young meat" I could eventually get with. Yes, I admit that I was attracted to her physically as well. HOWEVER, it went SO MUCH deeper than me just being attracted to her body...I was attracted to her spirit.

 

I don't mourn the lack of a sexual relationship with her quarter as much as I mourn the lack of that intellectual and emotional closeness that we had.

 

Perhaps I'm just strange.

 

All I would suggest is that you both take PLENTY of time getting to know each other, and finding out what you are both all about, and want from life. Don't rush, but don't be afraid of getting into a relationship that, if it is for the right reasons, could turn out to be the most wonderful part of your lives.

 

Let us know how things progress. I know I'm interested in the outcome.

 

Curt

[CaterpillarGirl]

When I was 19, I started dating a man who was ten years my senior. We dated for two years, and it was wonderful. He was intelligent and funny and caring. But he was feeling the tick-tock of time, ready to settle down. I said I wanted to finish college and possibly grad school before getting married. He said he wasn't willing to wait. He really wanted to get married and start raising a family. Long story short, we broke up. I was really devastated. But, later, I came to appreciate his honesty and wisdom in seeing that we were on two different tracks in life. He just recently got married to someone who has similar life objectives. Soo....if you think you'd like to have a relationship with this older guy, just realize that the same might be true for the two of you. Like Curt said, evaluate your goals, dreams, and values up front. It'll save you some heartache down the road!

 

Cheers!

[earl]

Do it. I'm 30, my girl is 23. best relationship we both have ever had. DO IT!

[Tony T]

HA! They've had time to date and break up several times by now.

[Arabess]

I'm with Curt. Age is irrelevant......there are so many other more important factors to consider.

 

Personally, a man of ANY legal age can buy me beer.....therefore a candidate for a mutually fulfilling date.

 

So...I'm shallow.....

[Dug]

I doubt that Arabess is all that shallow.......

 

but I am seeing a woman 12 yrs younger than me. She tells me she wanted someone who was steady and didn't turn her life upside down every other day like the younger "party boys" often do. Young women often need a "project" guy to save from himself and his lifestyle.......you obviously may have outgrown that need, although you may still have some "nesting" tendencies one day.

 

Trust is earned....but give the guy a fair chance. Follow your heart and not what's trendy (or not) with society and friends.

[Karlise]

I dated a guy 21 years older than me for about two years.

 

Yeah, I know. That's a big spread.

 

But we just loved each other so much. We had so much fun together. And when you really decide to committ to being together, you forget the age difference. We used to joke about it. It was meaningless. We even talked about marriage, briefly.

 

The things that broke us up had nothing to do with him being older. In fact, I thought he acted WAY YOUNGER than his actual age.

 

He was a wonderful person who had a problem with alcohol...which he wouldn't address. After two years, I knew I had to move on or risk being dragged into a very unhealthy place.

 

If he didn't have the alcohol issue, we might still be together

 

You love who you love. Doesn't matter what package they come in

[cuty]

I'm 23, he is 31, we've been together for 3 years.

And i like mature man like him, so do what you want to do.

You guys will figure things out if something happen.

[jane00]

I always tend to date older men. In fact, I don't think that I've seriously dated anyone who wasn't at least fifteen years older. I have not noticed a problem with the age gap. I find that older men are more intuned to the needs of a women, more appreciative, financially secure, and have had many years of experience to learn the art of sex. I say go for it. There's an old saying that, "It's better to be an old man's princess, than a yound man's slave." I find this to be very true.

[cestlavi]

My boyfriend.( well, we've been dating for 3 months now....and we pretty much act that way) anyway, he's 33 yrs old and I'm 21.

Not only is he 12 yrs older, he has two kids who live with their mother. We look at it as a good thing because Im still in college and soo not ready to have children....and he isnt in a hurry for more either.

 

He's mature in that he's ready to settle down, is financially stable, he wants the same things i do in life, etc.

But hes not "old" hehe! we listen to the same music, I hang out with him and his friends...we re together almost everyday, oh! and he can "keep up" with me.

 

Everything's wonderful except that when he hangs out with he's kids once a week ( two boys) I'm automatically out of the picture, or when he's mother comes over I have to stay away. Now, I look at this from two viewpoints:

 

1) he doesnt think i'd want to hang out with his kids, in which case i suppose we'd have to talk about that eventually.

2)he doesnt want to get he's mom involved in our relationship just yet...which doesnt make sense because I met his parents before I met him and they were actually the ones who "hooked" us up for a sort of blind date.

 

ORRRRRR!

 

1)He doesnt want his kids to know about me...perhaps hes even ashamed to be with me.( because of the age thingy)

2) same as no.1; maybe he thinks i'm too young to be part of that aspect of his life- his family.

 

But hes a nice guy...and he is crazy about me....so if the latter is the truth then i'm pretty sure we can work things out between the two of us. COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY!

 

I say disregard the age difference...and focus on everything else.

[reggio]

The age gap can have it's consequences.

 

Some of which can be: differences of opinions, experiences, goals and maturity.

 

This can be tricky at times, I'm not saying it's not possible for it to work but there are less chances that it can.

 

I'm' 35 now and I would of a difficult time thinking the same ways as I did when I was 19.

[wideawake]

I'm 35, my fiancee is 26.

 

Best relationship of my life. Looking forward to spending the rest of my life with her and raising a family.

 

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it's tough. We've spent the last three years getting to know each other, how we interact, where are weaknesses are, where we compliment each other. All of the small subtle important things that make any relationship work.

 

Now...my fiancee was 23 when I met her, and I was 32, so it's a little different as she was already done with grad school and had determined her career path and future goals, something I would think you still need to figure out.

 

But, if you like this guy, and it feels right...give it a shot, just understand that no relationship is easy, and that you may run into some challenges with the age difference that you will have to deal with. It's how you deal with these issues that determine the strength or weakness of the relationship.

 

Best of luck!

[AtomicOrphan]

People obsess too much over what is "normal" and don't think enough about what is "healthy." Is it better to have a mutually happy relationship with a guy fifteen years older than you, or a stormy relationship with a guy your own age?

 

When my sister was 19 she started a relationship with a 40 year old man. Everybody was saying "tsk tsk," "ooh la la," and "that'll never last." They were right about the last part. She moved in with him. They lived together for two years. She felt she needed to move on, so she broke up with him.

 

What's the big deal? Only one relationship, if ever, will be the one 'til death do you part. So what does age matter? If my sister had moved in with a 24 year old and broken up with him, no one would be scandalized.

 

I see a big problem with relationships these days on which age has no bearing. Each partner demands waaay too much out of the other and is far too unforgiving of the other's faults. That's what people ought to work on. I'm always hearing this bellyaching of "Oh, he's not meeting my NEEDS." FEH.

[tina lama]

i am 16 years old and i am i love with someone who is 27 yrs old yha i no what your thinking what an age gap

 

but i have never felt so happy befor in my life and the best part about are relationship is that it lose but hes

 

willing to be their for me until am 18 and ready to start a real life i have Know this erson all of my life and they

 

have always been great to me thiers no way that him beign alot older then me could ever change the way i feel

 

about him we both no what we want in life and are willing to wait for eachother

[loveregardless]

Tina. I know what you are feeling right now, but please listen very closely to what I am going to tell you, because I have been in your EXACT postition. I was 16 with a 27 year old and I thought I was in love with him. I thought he was really in love with me, too. I promise you, you have no idea what real love is at 16. You will change so much in the next 2, 3, 4 years...your ideas and thoughts will change, your direction will change, your goals will change, and your defintion of love will change. I ws EXACTLY like you and I wouldn't listen to what anyone said in disagreement to me, but I'm telling you, thats way too old. And your way too young! What I never realized is that a 27 year old with a 16 year old obviously has issues that can't be ignored. Besides the fact that it's ilegal, why is it that he is having to date young girls as apposed to women his age? Where is he going with his life? etc. etc. I guarantee if you do make such a decision at the point in your life, you will end up regretting it most definetely. Either that or you'll just break up with him in a year anyway...but the problem with older men is they don't react the same as a 16 or 17 year old when they are broken up with, especially when they think they have someones love, and I don't care how mature you think you are, you will be terrified by that reality when it hits you.

[Lucia]

I don't know, I prefer younger men. I've been with older ones, it's boring. They are not better in any sense.

[Dadubwa]

LOVE shows no age, that's the truth! When you fall in love you fall in love, weather they be

black, white, a girl, a guy, half retarded, limbs missing, 30 extra limbs, no teeth, extra teeth, hairless, hairy, serious, funny, sexy, ugly, skinny, fat, tall, short... ANYTHING!!!

 

Love is love and if she wants to love someone like him or not is all up to her! it's her effing life what she wants to do is her biz!! People need to mind their own lives and stop being so judgmental! Society sucks and asks to much of us!

 

I say let her love who she wants to love!!!!!!!!!!

[sassy123]

I am 29 and the guy I am seeing is 43. I find that older men know how to treat a woman right. Go for it.

[mathew]

My father, a immigrant from Jamaica, married in his homeland at the age of 15, to a 21 year old, but got divoriced after moving to America. Like that 21 year old was not my mother, and I don't really think of it as all that bad in my father's case, mostly because the costoms of Jamaica are different than in America.

 

But then this girl started working at where I work. Like in the beggining, she would mention how she had this boyfriend, and how much she hated him. They dated for two years, and according to her at least, he dated on her the whole time, not to mention treated her like crap.

 

Then all of a sudden, this past weekend she starts talking about how the guy, her former boyfriend which she had been dating for the two years of her life was currently like 28. She said that when she meet him, she was 15, he was 24, but they didn't "officially" begin going out until she was 16 and she was 25. She is not 19, as am I

 

At first this shocked me, as it would most people hearing of any relationship with an age gap of nine years, let alone the girl being just 16. But then I began to wonder like why it happens and stuff like that, obviously her parents had to be going alon with it the whole time. Like this isn't any like girl, she is like a really good student and all at the University of Michigan.

 

She is like hardcore Jewish, so I had to think that the parents were more likely to go along with it if the guy was jewish concidering how like tradition and stuff could be a factor.

 

I guess that she looks very mature for her age physically, she could most easily go for a 26 year old or something like that. And she is very good looking as well, vuluptious and all that, like an older lady, mature looking face.

 

I would also have to say that she acts mature for her age of 19, but I am not sure if she is just acting that way, cause, she is still 19. She is quick to correct my grammer, and doesn't like it when I describe things as "retarted," as many 19 year old males do.

 

I suppose that the thing is, like I do like her, and I would date her, in fact I want to date her, but she just doesn't seem into me as much as she seems into older men at work, men around the age usually of 24. I am not an ugly guy either, in fact most girls of my age are attracted to me.

 

But now, I think that she is only diggin the older guys, like the first night she worked, she gave her number to a 24 year old guy asking to hang out, on the first night! now she is haning out or getting breakfast or something like that with this other guy the of about the same age.

 

Like I am 19, and I guess that I am not as like mature, or atleast don't act as mature as most men 24 and above, I don't believe that I can be blamed for that. I tell bad jokes, make fun everyday life and do risky thnings like spray paint the Huron River in Ann Arbor last march when it was frozen over, cause I'm a punk kid, that's how I act.

 

Older men are also more dependent and have more money. I have a job, have had one for the past year and a half, making 13 bucks an hour, I pay my own tuition, my own rent, car and car insurance, all that. Like I guess that I still act immature at times.

 

She might also want someone with more relationship expirence. My longest relationship was with this german foreign exchange student, which lasted for a semester, until she went back to Germany, which really isnt all that much, not to mention my sexual expience is limited.

 

But i don't know, well see, I keep trying my "mac" ing skills on the broad.

[Topper]

Normal? OK? That is something only you can answer for yourself. If you are happy , satisfied and feel good about the relationship then who cares what others think? I firmly believe that too many people are thinking what will others think rather then thinking for themselves. It is your relationship and your happiness. What would it really matter if he was 1 year older 5 years 10 or 20 years older. You are both consenting adults. Enjoy what you have. Worrying what others think will only ruin it in the end. Some may tell you he is way to old others will tell you you are way to young.

I'm glad to see that so many here are giving you positive feed back.

[RecordProducer]

We've been togeather 8 months.

You were pregnant when you started dating him? I thought he was the father of your baby. I am confused now.

And how old is your first child if I may ask? I thought you were 25 actually.

 

To the OP: I am 30 and my BF is 48. We're very happy together. I've always been into older guys, it's merely my preference and a matter of taste. My ex-husband was also 12 years older than myself.

[whichwayisup]

Normal? OK? That is something only you can answer for yourself. If you are happy , satisfied and feel good about the relationship then who cares what others think? I firmly believe that too many people are thinking what will others think rather then thinking for themselves. It is your relationship and your happiness. What would it really matter if he was 1 year older 5 years 10 or 20 years older. You are both consenting adults. Enjoy what you have. Worrying what others think will only ruin it in the end. Some may tell you he is way to old others will tell you you are way to young.

I'm glad to see that so many here are giving you positive feed back.

 

31st August 2003 11:01 PM

 

2 years buddy! Check dates before replying to very very old threads!