Comment by GauntletWizard
5 years ago
I dated a girl seven years younger than me. We were both in our twenties at the time, and I assumed she was a few years older and she thought I was a few years younger and when it actually came up I struggled with it but went forward. She's got an interesting background, and has been horrifically abused, and once told me I was the first person she ever trusted after having sex. Not that the confession was after sex, though it was, but that I still seemed trustworthy after having sex with her.
I read Cat Person... Right around the breakup, though I think it was before then and I saw myself in it. Scared the heck out of me. I don't think I was ever as creepy as the Robert of the story was. I spent a lot of time reexamining my actions and hers and trying to figure out how much I was looking in a mirror.
I'm terrified that she'll write a "cat person", fictionalized or not. She was scared for good reasons of a ton of behaviors that I did not exhibit but her "friends" tried to accuse me of, the way a cheater always accuses first.
On the other hand, I know that I'm accusing her of a whole host of behaviors that aren't true or maybe only have a grain of truth to them. They say hindsight is 20/20, but I think nothing could be further from the truth. They say you look on the bast with rose colored glasses, and that's not quite it either. You see patterns, and you try to make patterns, and sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong. Getting it wrong can be dangerous. Getting it right can be dangerous, too, particularly when the pattern is one you've been manipulated to see.
I don't think I have any special insight or conclusions to draw here. I'm trying, like the author of both stories - the fictional account and the real one - to contextualize and understand and in many ways to "get past" whatever that was. All I can say is that there's dozens of "Cat Person" stories, and an awful lot of them actually do have a clear villain, one side or the other, but probably more have a set of shared mistakes and bitterness - That for ever Robert texting "Whore", there's a Margot in hysterics, and a set of bitter people who regret everything, but didn't do anything worth regretting.
You dated a girl. She was in her twenties. You were in your twenties. You are both legally adults. Adults make their own decisions.
Morality just doesn't work off legality, nor is the "adulthood" ever truly clear in reality.
In this very specific case, passing no judgement on the OP here, there's a somewhat notable difference often between 20+27 and 22+29 even because of life stages. Do both people have full time jobs, their own place? Is one still in school? Can one not drink at bars in the US? These cultural markers often have far more important ties to power and relationship dynamics, as well as healthy relationships even beyond romantic and sexual connections.
I'm not claiming to have a clear view of these lines, but I think OP was right to examine their actions, even if it was all "okay" in the end. It strikes me as a genuine and reflective post from someone who cares, and I would hate to see others use "you are both legally adults" to avoid doing similar reflection. Nuance is important and can be very important at the individual level. Zooming out, is that not the lesson of this whole greater situation?
> It strikes me as a genuine and reflective post from someone who cares, and I would hate to see others use "you are both legally adults" to avoid doing similar reflection.
However, 7 years is not a significant age gap (even when the younger partner is only 18), that this should even be considered as a concern, even preliminarily. If one speaks of life stages and resources such as jobs and independent housing, that varies as much by socio-economic status as it does by the age range in question. Do we hoist the responsibility for self-reflecting on potential past relationship abuse, a serious charge, on anyone who is of moderately higher wealth and life experience than their partner, even when they are the same age?
It is a dangerous trend in our society of taking tenuous theories about power disparities and using those to put the burden of proof on men that they are not taking advantage of younger women. And, pardon the hyperbole, it won't end with 7 years, and likely not even 5.
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Morality is subjective, don't try to force your own morals onto other humans.
It's one to thing to introspect because you feel like you need to, it's another thing to introspect out of fear of having another Cat Person written about you.
> a set of bitter people who regret everything, but didn't do anything worth regretting.
Now this should be a story.