Age differences

People get too caught up in age.  Most people I know can easily date someone 10 or even 12 years younger or older (gender doesn't matter - usually)  with no problem.  Frankly, I have more in common with someone 20 years younger/older than me that lives in Manhattan and dances tango, than a Chinese solder my own age.   Yet if I were to marry a female Chinese ex- soldier my age, people would talk less than if I married a tango dancing New Yorker 20 years older than me.  

But I am not suggesting expanding your age limit to 20 years.  From my personal experience, men that only date women half their age have some serious issues.   People within a decade of your own age have more in common and you get life stage problems as well (I want to retire but you want a new baby).   It is hard to make anything more than a 12 year difference work.   On the other hand, there is no reason to restrict your dating to only five years (either way).  It severely restricts your dating pool, does not improve the quality, and does not guarantee that you both want the same thing.

There are in general two exceptions:

1. Guys should never consider dating a girl under 18 unless they are within 3 years of their age.  If you are older than 21, I suggest you check id's before you get serious with any women that looks 25 or younger.  I have never heard a woman be offended that you asked for ID.   Women generally don't need to concern themselves with this (unless she is a teacher or similar education official).  The cops will believe a woman if she says "I thought the guy I met in a bar was 22, but they won't believe a guy.
2. If a guy wants to be a biological father, I would suggest limiting your dates to women 35 or younger (regardless of your own age).   Remember that even if you meet her when she is 36, chances are you won't marry for at least a year and she might not get pregnant for a couple of years.  It is an unfortunate fact of life that birth defects rise substantially after the woman turns 35.

Finally, as women age some object to men dating women much younger than them.  My advice is to date younger men.   Women start the 'I want to date older men" thing and many men have no option but to obey the desires of women.  The old claim of "maturity" has some truth, but it is just as often "car", "status" and "money".

Most men that insist on dating women 1/2 their age have some serious emotional issues that were caused by women.   If you had a healthy dating life when you are younger, you don't end up only dating women 20 years younger than you.   Yes they have issues, but women caused those issues.


So, what should those 30+ women do?   It's too late for them to accept the dates back in high school or college.  Instead they should go find some guy 10 years younger than them and hit on him.    That makes everyone happy.   Best of all, if the women are smart enough to date 20 year old pre-med students as opposed to 20 year old pool cleaners, then the next generation of men will mature with a bit less emotional baggage.

One of the reason young women like older men is that the benefit of the experience and maturity.   Older women can do the same for younger men.   My advice is to date people that are within 12 years of your age - either younger or older, regardless of your gender.  (But avoid jailbait.)