Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeeee……Happy Birthday to me!
I don’t really feel any older than I did yesterday, or ten years ago for that matter. I bet my body would disagree, though.
And I am proud of every candle on my cake. Each one brings one more year of wisdom and one more year of blessings!
I will be partaking of chocolate cake today because when it’s your birthday, chocolate cake is the only way to go!
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Today’s post is about age. How appropriate. 🙂
Let’s pretend we’re reading a romance novel and we find out that our hero is ten years older than our heroine. As a reader, how does that sit with you?
My guess is that the majority of female readers would be a-okay with this age gap, crediting our hero and his ten years with maturity and wisdom earned by living. It might even make him more appealing to our heroine and our reader. Same thing goes for real life, I’d wager.
My husband is four years older than I. I like to remind him that I was in the 8th grade when he finished high school. Perhaps the age gap would have mattered in those years (my parents would never have let me date a boy 4 years older when I was in high school), but now, the age gap doesn’t matter at all.
But what about when the age gap goes the other way? What about when she is older than he?
Recently I was having a conversation with a friend about dating and she let me in on her little prejudice against younger men. She’s single, thirty, and feels like dating younger basically equates to dating someone less worthy.
Hmm…. But what if he’s the one? What if God has designed him just for you but because he’s two or three or four years younger, you won’t give him the time of day?
How young is too young when it comes to relationships when the woman is older?
Now, let’s set some parameters here. I’m not talking May-December romances, gold-diggers, or “cougars”, which clearly deserve a post all to themselves with serious psychiatric evaluation.
I’m strictly talking about women and the possibility of dating/marrying someone younger than themselves within a reasonable age gap.
The question is then– what is a reasonable age gap if the woman is older than the man?
I personally know a couple of gals who have married men who are three years younger than themselves. Acceptable? What about four years? Unacceptable?
Put it in this context– if you were reading a romance novel and the heroine was older than the hero, how many years is acceptable between them? How many years between them suddenly becomes “weird” or unacceptable and would cause you to toss the book aside?
Share with me: Would you date a younger man? How many years between a story heroine, if she’s older, and a hero is acceptable to you? Why do you think there’s more of a “stigma” for women who date/marry younger men than there is for a similar age gap if the man is older?
Enjoy my birthday, readers! Have a piece of cake (chocolate) in my honor. 🙂
Hale and Hearty Words 