it makes us laugh
Like most women, most of my dating life, I've dated older boys and men. It's almost what you're supposed to do, right? Men mature more slowly, they're less ready to settle down, they're less self-confident when they're younger. Older man are supposed to be more settled, more confident, more mature, more relationship-ready. Well, I'm 30 and I'm calling bullshit on all those theories. At this point, some of the most fucked-up men, the ones who treated me the worst, were older than me — often a lot older. And maybe I'm getting less mature by the day, but I could give a shit right now if some dude is living in a group house or making no money or thinks fart jokes are hilarious if he's also smart, funny and treats me with the respect and, I'll admit it,
deference I'm sort of into right now. And I'm just not getting that from the older guys.
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age of innocence
Over on
Salon, Carol Lloyd
is pondering the pairing of women with older men, specifically, a recent study in Sweden which found that when women are 4 to 6 years younger than their male partners, they give birth to more kids. Martin Fieder, an anthropologist at the University of Vienna, speculates that men evolved a preference for younger women because those women have a longer fertility span. Meanwhile, women might give birth to more children when they choose older partners because those guys are more likely to have greater financial resources. But, says Lloyd: "I've always cast a jaundiced eye on our cultural assumptions that men should be older (not to mention taller) than their wives. It seemed just another manifestation of the gender imbalances that coursed through our workplaces, government and educational system. Of course, when in love, all bets are off." (Lloyd married a man 11 years older.)
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Jezebel
