Maybe without realising, when seeking a partner we factor in what other people might think. We picture relatives’ waxen, horrified faces round the Christmas dinner table, glued to our new love’s eating habits. We imagine subjecting our new squeeze to our closest, most embarrassing pals, two social bubbles colliding, pricking one another out of existence.

Some relationships, however, are subjected to the gaze of strangers. Haven’t we all stared at couples that have some kind of disparity? The beauties clamped to their lumbering beasts; the polite and soignée bravely escorting rude, unkempt oafs; your parents, for God’s sake. And, of course, the age gap relationship – the May and December mélange so many people can’t get their heads around.

Most couples are of similar age. It happens naturally, our social circles taking shape in line with shared milestones: school ending, graduating from university, entering the job market. People our own age make up the bulk of people we meet until we’re adults. The generation below is still dribbling into sippy cups, while the generation up are friends’ parents or parents’ friends, tainted with the indelible pollen of being uncool and associated with authority. Teenage hero worship of hip uncles, free-spirited aunties and teachers who let you call them by their first name is not uncommon – but most crushes remain just that. Laws exist to protect young people from predatory and manipulative relationships with teachers and other guardians, but this vital safeguarding often has the unfortunate side effect of many consenting age gap relationships being looked upon as having an imbalance of power, with a hapless victim and a merciless manipulator. In the digital age, we’re more aware of abuses of power and rightly call it out. Keeping people we care about safe is a priority and we live on high alert, but whether it’s genuine empathy or prurient nosiness, we’re prone to highlighting perceived inequalities in relationships of people we don’t actually know.

“When I dated a man in his fifties, my friends’ first reaction was to make gagging noises and ask whether he was a ‘daddy’,” says 30-year-old Alex. The pair met through Jamie’s job in a museum – ripe for mates’ jokes about “dating fossils” – but Alex found his friends’ jibes went beyond predictable concern; many seemed disgusted. “They were openly saying it was gross, and they didn’t make him welcome on the rare occasions we socialised together,” says Alex. His partner, David, was a very sweet guy who shared a lot of the same interests; he’d been married to a woman for years so was only just “out” and Alex felt well matched emotionally, but all anyone else could see was birthday candles. “With slightly older guys nobody batted an eyelid, but this was 'too much’ and when friends aren’t on board it becomes difficult.” Alex’s parents assumed the two had met under murky circumstances, that Alex was being controlled or used, regardless of the fact he’d left home at 18 and had always been fiercely independent – what some might call an old head on young shoulders. The relationship didn’t survive. “We parted friends. My next boyfriend was in his early forties. I guess I like guys with life experience behind them; it doesn’t mean I’m being exploited.”

With age-gap relationships, a common mistake is to assume the age difference is the only power dynamic at play or that it’s the most important one and associated with either a desire to control or a need for security. Even if relationships are ostensibly equal, there’s always a power dynamic to consider. They may be almost imperceptible, but imbalances exist, whether it’s the ability to stay rational amid chaos, an aptitude for home admin or big ones such as class, wealth, life experiences (which doesn’t always correlate with age), education or emotional maturity. Relationships work best when mutually beneficial, when they teach us something – maybe it’s a hangover from our rightful outrage at student-teacher liaisons that makes us uncomfortable with this truth.

We can’t seem to make up our minds about age-gap relationships. Context is often ignored, nuance merely a low-scoring round on Scrabble. Straight women are celebrated as “cougars” if they date a younger man, but only if it remains a fling. Demi Moore’s marriage to Ashton Kutcher (15-year age gap) was derided as a passing fancy and sure enough they broke up after six years. To complicate matters, French president Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, is 25 years his senior and they met when he was a 15-year-old student and she a teacher – already sounding pretty icky and scandalous – yet age gaps of a quarter of a century raise barely an eyebrow when the man is older. US president Trump, for example, is 24 years older than Melania – but I guess we have bigger fish to fry with him.

Younger guys dating older women are gigolos, fetishists, playboys. Younger women dating older men are victims, bimbos with daddy issues, gold diggers. Older men dating younger women are marked exploitative and creepy or a dim geriatric being hoodwinked by a devious ingenue – as was often said about Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas, with their 26-year age gap and successful marriage of over two decades. It must be said, while Hollywood age gaps generate excitable front pages, it’s generally accepted the richer you are, the less shocking your age gap actually is – Anna Nicole Smith notwithstanding, of course.

LGBTQ+ relationships come under tougher scrutiny no matter the power dynamic – twas ever thus. Writing in the Guardian, gay journalist James Greig noted correctly that much criticism around age gaps comes from within the community. “It’s an emotive topic for so many people, I think” he says, “because it reminds them of painful experiences they had when they were younger” – although I should point out that younger LGBTQ+ people are equally skilful at casting ageist aspersions. There’s often unspoken homophobia, an alignment with paedophilia, grooming or other predatory behaviour. Our parents, friends and neighbours may paint their faces with neon rainbows, but there’s still a widely held belief that homosexuality or bisexuality are on permanent recruitment drive, that heterosexuality is the default and young people can’t possibly know their own mind. Much protesting under the guise of protecting the vulnerable comes from a desire to judge or express otherwise unacceptable prejudices. You see it play out daily in transphobia too.

When I was single, in my mid-thirties, I sometimes dated younger men. Coming out of a decade-long relationship, I felt time had stood still to an extent; I believed I’d have more in common with men five or ten years my junior. The results were mixed and any disappointment was down to my own expectations. Some were so switched-on that I felt like a small-town hick fresh off the Greyhound. Others were so green I felt monstrously avuncular; I found myself peering at them over nonexistent half-moon specs. Age is an unreliable metric; my only conclusion was that not fancying me was a hobby men of all ages could enjoy.

“Friends thought it wouldn’t last and, honestly, I did wonder myself,” says Peter, 49, whose husband is 13 years his junior. “I assumed he’d leave me for a beautiful man his own age, like the ones who used to gawk at us in disbelief.” After ten years, the pair have blended social circles seamlessly. “We like the same things, but we have our own scenes we dip into. My friends love him and I get on great with his.” But what of the future, when an ageing body and changing health might more easily betray the gap? “Being older, I know things can change in a heartbeat. I take everything one day at a time.”

Because Instagram tells us taut racks get the most likes, we assume more weathered bodies could never be desirable, feeding our notion that there “must be something else in it” for either partner. Young people are wide-eyed dolts; older people past-it ghouls. Witness the shock when you tell someone for the first time that American Horror Story star Sarah Paulson is in a long-term relationship with Holland Taylor, a woman 32 years older than her. “But they can’t be!” Human desire is complicated and doesn’t play by our personal rules – if it did, we’d all be fighting over the same three people on Tinder.

That said, as men especially, we must examine these power imbalances and our responsibilities to the people we fall in love with, thinking beyond our balls and the bedroom. In my book The Magnificent Sons, the main character, Jake, has just come out as bisexual at 30 when his younger brother’s 18-year-old best friend makes a pass at him. The confident, charming younger man has been out as gay longer than Jake and already seems comfortable in his own skin; emotionally they’re not a million miles from each other. But even without the complication of his younger brother, Jake acknowledges they’re not equal. He’s reminded of guys in their twenties who’d wait outside school in souped-up motors to pick up their sixth-form girlfriends – proving James Greig’s point to a degree – and concludes that as the older man, he has a responsibility to do the right thing. As much as we get lost in the moment, outside influences can’t be ignored. Few relationships can thrive amid outright disapproval.

No matter your age, ask yourself: what’s in it for you? And more importantly, what’s in it for them? Are you happy to give it to them? (Ha ha.) Are they vulnerable? Are they taking advantage? Is the story of how you met a cute anecdote or a dirty secret? Imagine, once the relationship is over, would they look back on you fondly or as a dating horror story? You don’t need to be the same age, but you do need to be on the same page – as with any relationship, it’s about managing expectations, being open and honest about where it’s going and being mindful of the constantly shifting sands of power. Whether you’re older or younger, place the onus on yourself to make that call. If in doubt, walk away – love is hardy and can easily blossom anew, but pride and dignity may take longer to recover.

But even if it is nothing more than an ego boost, as long as both parties are consenting and can exit at any time, does it matter? It doesn’t help that a common stereotype of an age-gap relationship is an older divorcé trading in an existing partner for a younger model. Maybe that’s at the root of our concern over inter-generational romances, a sense of rejection and entitlement, a worry that whatever our age, the lovers we believe should be ours will be snapped up by youngsters with bendier spines or benevolent daddies with healthier bank accounts.

Perhaps it’s time we acted our age instead of dating it.

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