[athanatos]

It's a rule of thumb that people probably hold intuitively: "what, a 34 year old dating a 20 year old? What is wrong? Couldn't they find someone their own age? What is a 34 year old doing, hanging around with someone her age! Do her parents know?"

Because it is creepy.

[bread man]

In my experience, the people who say things like that are often the ones least qualified to.

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by Epaphras

To me, it just means something creepy about dating someone to whom you could (age-wise) be their parent.

When you say "creepy" are you raising the specter of pedophilia? Or is it just a personal hang-up? Otherwise I'm not sure what is creepy about a legitimate relationship between mutually consenting adults.

[Nate]

I think most rational people feel intuitively that a very large age difference in a romantic relationship is something to beware of.

Obviously, the definition of "very large" is ambiguous, subjective, and fraught with exceptions, but it is no less real on that account.

Like most things in life, there is a critical mass or a tipping point at which a seemingly irrelevant quantity (age) becomes important.

It's the age old paradox of the heap: If you were to take away single grains of sand from a huge heap, when would stop being a heap?

If you took one grain away, would it still be a heap? Ok, what if you took one grain away from that new heap? What about another?

Regardless of how seemingly infinitesimal the change, at some point it starts to add up, tips the scales, and makes a huge change.

Is it ok to date someone 1 month older / younger than you? How about 2 months? 3 months? Small changes, but eventually they matter.

It's demonstrably proveable that age difference eventually matters by the fact that an 80 year old dating a 20 year old would gross out all but the most socially liberal, even leaving aside the issues of the "specter of pedophilia" that Josh raises or the difference in maturity that others raise. Even if those things were proven by the couple in question to be non-issues, almost any sane person would still feel oogy over the existence of said relationship.

We do fine on either side of the tipping point, relegating social approval or disgust as necessary, but it's the middle ground that's tricky.

Trying to pin down exactly where the tipping point tends to occur has a lot of value, sociologically, although individual experience can vary.

Rules of thumb like this aren't intended to define relationships, but to describe them. This rule is "half plus 7" because it worked intuitively.

Obviously, some other social researcher (formal or not) would come up with a completely different formula, or maybe a non-mathematical model.

That there can be a multiplicity of explanations for the social phenomenon doesn't mean that the phenomenon is unquantifiable or unreal.

[Epaphras]

Originally Posted by slap_j

When you say "creepy" are you raising the specter of pedophilia? Or is it just a personal hang-up? Otherwise I'm not sure what is creepy about a legitimate relationship between mutually consenting adults.

This:

Originally Posted by athanatos

It's a rule of thumb that people probably hold intuitively: "what, a 34 year old dating a 20 year old? What is wrong? Couldn't they find someone their own age? What is a 34 year old doing, hanging around with someone her age! Do her parents know?"

Because it is creepy.

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by Nate

That there can be a multiplicity of explanations for the social phenomenon doesn't mean that the phenomenon is unquantifiable or unreal.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. The "oogy" feeling certainly tells us something about ourselves (what it is, I'm unsure) but does it necessarily tell us something about the relationship of the others? That is, besides the obvious things?

[Nate]

Originally Posted by slap_j

Thanks for the thoughtful response. The "oogy" feeling certainly tells us something about ourselves (what it is, I'm unsure) but does it necessarily tell us something about the relationship of the others? That is, besides the obvious things?

It tells us that, at the very least, it is weird and should probably not be the norm.

[slap_j]

Originally Posted by Nate

It tells us that, at the very least, it is weird and should probably not be the norm.

If by weird you mean it's a deviation from the norm...then of course. But when you start talking about oughts and ought nots I have to wonder how you arrive there. Have to!