love out loud: my age, it is a-changin’

Now that I am into my twenty third year of life, I’ve been lucky enough to have wisdom and knowledge imparted upon me that I did not have access to a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, this is a lie. My first day of being 22 was much the same as my last day of being 21 (or at least it would have been if I hadn’t been suffering through a headache that was completely unrelated to the previous evening’s activities).

But given that I feel no different to how I felt at 21, am I now precluded from dating men in their late teens? Does it perhaps mean that I won’t be subject to raised eyebrows if I choose to be with a Gen X-er?

Does age matter?

This is a question that is becoming less pervasive as I get older. Dating a 24 year old when I was 19 was never an issue in the way that being 17 and dating a 20 year old was (who actually turned out to be 21, a twisted truth which just goes to show how he felt about the whole thing). Generally people’s opinions on the matter are slanted toward their own preferences in relationships, but the main issue really has little to do with numbers.

Like it or not, birthdays are a convenient milestone and knowing someone’s age is a far more convenient way of gauging how much ‘life experience’ they are likely to have had or how mature they are likely to be than asking them to fill out an emotional awareness scale. It’s not age itself that makes the difference but rather that it tends to be a pretty good indicator of where someone is in their life, which can be problematic when it differs for two people in a relationship.

‘Bon Jovi’ was (and presumably still is) a year younger than me. I kid you not, a whole year. The manifestation of this age difference was mainly in jest, with my readily telling him he was an infant and his constantly telling me that the big 3-0 was just around the corner. But there were slivers of truth to the fact that we simply weren’t in the same place on this journey called life.

I’d delayed the completion of my university studies a multitude of times by taking time off to go travelling, while he preferred to knuckle down and graduate before jet setting around the globe. He’d had one girlfriend before, and I was struggling to think of enough appropriate pseudonyms for the participants of my dating history. We’d graduated from the same high school in the same year but from there, our paths had gone in separate directions and merged at a junction that neither of us were particularly well suited to.

Age isn’t everything, but it would be impossible to process so much information if we made zero assumptions about a person based on their year of birth. It shouldn’t dictate who you date (up to a point) but it’s an inevitable consideration when choosing an appropriate partner.

And if in doubt? Ask Mum. Dad probably won’t want you dating anyone.

(Image credits: 1.)