Comment by Aqueous
5 years ago
You dated a girl. She was in her twenties. You were in your twenties. You are both legally adults. Adults make their own decisions.
5 years ago
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.
> However, 7 years is not a significant age gap (even when the younger partner is only 18)
I'm going to strongly disagree with that, and not sure how you decided that was objectively true. An 18 year old who's finishing off their senior year of high school and going to college the next year dating a 25 year old adult 3 years out of college is a red flag. As a 25 year old myself, I would probably not even date someone that's still an undergrad.
I would very much question any friend my age dating someone under the age of 21. On paper, that would only be 5 years, but I would have far less concerns over 23+33 both working full time despite the age gap being double. Again, context and life stage matters.
> that varies as much by socio-economic status as it does by the age range in question
You're 100% right, people of different socioeconomic statuses can mature at different rates and get to different life stages at different ages. That doesn't magically up the total life experience from a time perspective, though it does make a great point again for nuance, not hard and fast rules on specific ages.
> 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?
I don't think this gap gets to a point of being a problem often, if ever, but there's no harm in reflecting. I don't see why we wouldn't all want to reflect on the health of our relationships of all sorts. You speak of abuse in a binary, but it's a spectrum where some of that wouldn't even classify as abuse but as maybe mildly taking advantage of someone. There's no harm in trying to ensure fairness in your own relationships, as it is actually one of the few places in the world that is fully in your control when it comes to fairness.
> 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.
There's no gender bias here, the same goes with all genders. You see this type of power issue in same sex relationships too, to say nothing of non-binary people. This is not a burden of proof though, there are no accusations floating around. The only claim here that this asks on society is that if you potentially are in a power imbalanced relationship, just take care and examine the details. I don't see the danger here you speak of.
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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.