My problem with age gap relationships (and why I'm a hypocrite)

A few weeks ago, I went back to YouTube and watched all the age gap couples on The Learning Channel in the age gap series. I fell into watching them when I was eighteen when I first started dating my boyfriend, and I’ve decided to watch them again to see if I relate. I only relate to two of the couples, and those are the only homosexual couples—a gay couple and a lesbian couple—but I noticed some distinct patterns in all the straight ones.

With the exception of one straight couple, all the age gap couples are an older man and younger woman. There was maybe one example of this couple not looking like the gross “older man divorces his wife for a hot younger woman” stereotype, but a number of them kind of were.

First of all, there was nuance to all of them. I don’t remember anyone’s names except for the gay age gaps. But I remember that one couple was a former child star who was wealthy, old, disabled, and odd-looking; and his girlfriend is a cam-girl in her twenties who flirts with older men online for money. The two of them appear to have a sweet and nurturing bond, but it’s heartbreaking to watch the way he tells her “you’re so beautiful,” and she hesitantly responds, “you’re adorable.”

Most of the couples included a woman who preferred going after older men. Women attracted to gray hair, dad bods, balding men, wrinkles, etc. Statistically, a woman without a father isn’t more likely to seek an older boyfriend. But the women in these videos all seemed to lack a present or strong father figure in their lives. The average age gap in all of these videos is about thirty-seven years.

A lot of the women fell into the category of looking for the epitome of a masculine man—which includes aged. And the men in turn wanted the epitome of a feminine woman—which includes being younger. One particular creepy “Disney adult” couple included the man remarking happily that his much younger wife was very affectionate and made him “feel like a man,” which I interpret to mean is very submissive and eager to please in the bedroom.

For the exaggerated gender roles, I didn’t relate to any of the straight age gap couples, even though I am a younger woman dating an older man myself. I think it’s because I (1) am primarily attracted to women and (2) am more of a tomboy, even as an adult.

Something gross I noticed about all these older men is that they seemed to be reliving their youth vicariously through the younger women they were dating. I don’t know if there’s a clear explanation for why I find that disgusting, but to me it seems that he’s getting a way better end of the bargain than she is. With the exception of the camgirl, none of the couples gave the impression of gold-digging from the younger partner. The younger partner always seemed more emotionally invested.

It also, in my experience, takes more effort to force yourself to grow up to be mature enough to be an equal partner to a more experienced person, than it does to age regress and act as young as your much younger partner. Furthermore, society—especially Western society—fetishizes youth, especially in women. The older man looks as if he scored while the younger woman is seen as a victim or a gold digger.

I know for a fact that my older boyfriend relives his youth vicariously through me. I don’t know how I feel about it, because it seems unavoidable. When we navigate the challenges of him visiting me while I still live with my parents and siblings (normal for an American in her twenties) while he has lived on his own since his mid-twenties. It was also a slightly different time back then, as our age gap is sixteen years. I listen to him talk about work and try to understand his computer job, while he listens to me yap about my college classes and minimum wage job taking care of kids. I’m glad that now I actually have a job to talk about, because when we first started dating, I was a full-time college student.

As I mentioned previously, I actually relate more to the gay couples, because there’s less of a gendered dynamic. In a straight age gap, the man takes on an almost paternal protector role, while the woman both becomes a miniature version of his mother and his daughter at the same time. In my relationship with my boyfriend, we don’t have gendered roles at all. Though we do not live together (yet??), he mentions he would love to be a stay-at-home dad while his wife works. He taught me how he cooks when I visited him, and he does the laundry on his own and would do it together with me when we move in with each other.   

Kayleb and Mark are the gay age gap couple. Kayleb was seventeen and Mark was in his late fifties when they met on Grindr. I don’t care what Kayleb says about his boyfriend, but Mark is a pedophile for that. Even if Kayleb were eighteen or nineteen it would still be pedophilic. There should not be much of a difference between 17 and 22 when Mark is at his age because all of those ages under maybe 30 should feel like a kid to him, and he should not be into kids.

I should clarify that I relate to the younger partners in these age gap couples. I don’t see my boyfriend in either Mark nor Eileen, whom we will talk about in a moment.

Julia and Eileen got married when Julia was 23 and Eileen was 61. Like Kayleb, Julia has a prominent social media career; and like the gay couple, this lesbian couple documented their relationship in detail on YouTube.

Mark and Eileen are genuinely horrible, which is why I don’t see my boyfriend in either of them. Not only is Mark a pedophile, but he cheated multiple times on his sweet younger handsome boyfriend. It’s also abundantly clear in all their videos that Kayleb is doing the heavy lifting both in defending Mark and in being emotionally invested in their relationship. He continuously forgives Mark for cheating on him and dotes on him even though Mark is the profile picture you would see leaving hearts under a clip of a three-year-old. Mark was also Kayleb’s first boyfriend, and even after they broke up, Kayleb kept going back to him. And Mark remains a fixture even to this day on Kayleb’s channel. I surmise that they are in an open sexual relationship, as Kayleb continues to refer to him as his sugar daddy. I believe without a shadow of a doubt that Mark groomed him, and Kayleb currently has this toxic attachment to Mark. Maybe Mark got better over time and treats Kayleb like the nearly thirty man he is now. They seem to have a healthier bond now that they’ve established boundaries, but Kayleb’s hold on this horrible person is still troubling.

Eileen, I believe, did not groom Julia. Julia was a survivor of grooming in her teens when she would date people—women, I think—in her thirties. Julia, until recently, identified as a lesbian until eventually dating and marrying a man almost immediately after her divorce with Eileen. Her new husband is only a few years younger, still in the boomer generation. Julia has stated multiple times that she is into older people, especially older women. Kayleb has not expressed such a thought and seems to seek male partners his own age now. Besides Mark, the exception, and the only stable thing in his life.

Eileen, however, is a self-admittedly manipulative and awful person herself. She even manipulates Julia while acknowledging what an awful person she herself is. Eileen financially abused Julia, maxed out credit cards, and gaslit Julia. When the two of them went to America (they live in England, though Eileen is American and Julia is Portuguese), Eileen was immediately arrested for multiple accounts of con artistry. Apparently, she stole multiple cards. Julia went into debt trying to contact lawyers and bailing Eileen out of prison. And Eileen refused to come out of retirement to help Julia paid for her debt. They divorced but chose to remain friends. And even though Julia is married to a new person, she and Eileen still talk every day—either in person or by text.

I believe the reason these young people are so attached to their abusers is because of their low self-worth. Kayleb is a flamboyant gay man who wears makeup and expresses his feminine side—and while that’s the stereotype for gay men, it’s not what most gay men seek out. Gay men who wear make up are mocked both within and outside the gay community.

A YouTuber I really like is a feminine gay man who goes by Kai Decadence, who is in his thirties and talks about his opinions on transgenderism and his experience as a feminine black gay Goth. He still hasn’t found a long-term boyfriend and recognizes that he is not the most conventionally desirable, although he’s an attractive person with an intelligent personality and fit and toned body. He also would rather express himself the way he wants to than change his personality and aesthetic to be more attractive to a gay man. This is likely the experience of a lot of feminine gay men, and for someone like Kayleb, who maybe faced a lot of rejection and faces a lot of dry spells in between going back to Mark. Additionally, Kayleb is very open about his struggles with self-worth on his YouTube channel, which is why he put up with Mark’s abuse, I believe.

Julia is also very feminine and has brightly colored hair, and especially since she identified as a lesbian most of her adult life, she is likely seen as straight by most lesbians. She also has a very quirky and unique personality, and most people may find it difficult to be in a long-term relationship with that. It may be why Julia ran so quickly to a middle-aged single dad and quickly married him and decided she was bisexual. There’s almost an unspoken sense that neither Kayleb nor Julia can find anyone better.

I relate so much to the way Julia describes her sexuality. I myself have currently settled on biromantic homosexual, though I’m not even romantically attracted to most men. I can recognize beauty or attractive qualities in a man, but the thought of cuddling, kissing, and definitely having sex with a man does not appeal to me at all. Whereas all those things with a woman sound and have felt good.

Julia says that her attraction to women is very noticeable. She can look at a woman and feel interest. With a man, it's rarer, and she needs to spend time cultivating a relationship before she can become attracted to them. She has barely any chemistry with her current husband, and her audience has remarked on how she doesn’t seem into them. I relate to Julia in not relating to bisexuals while being in a relationship with a man. I look like the bisexual stereotype of acting as if I’m attracted to all women and only one man, but it’s true, in a way.

I’m not sexually attracted to my boyfriend. I used to be physically repulsed, as harsh as that is to say. I think because I’m so in love with his personality and his voice, I chose to get used to it. He also looks way better in person than in photos that he takes of himself.

When I first started dating my boyfriend online, I thought I was maybe a 60-40 bisexual with a preference for MEN, because all of my crushes when I was little were boys until I met my ex-girlfriend when I was 17. Granted my crushes on boys were few and far between—one boy every three years. And it was usually a neurodivergent or disabled boy. The third boy literally had Down syndrome. I’ve always been disgusted by grown men’s bodies—how big their dick is, how hairy they are, how muscular they are, how deep their voices are. Even shaved men with long hair and makeup don’t beat the allegations of having a generally bigger and more muscular body. I couldn’t even imagine kissing a man without feeling uncomfortable.

When I met my boyfriend online, I fell in love with how soft and high his voice was. It didn’t sound like a woman’s at all, but it was very comforting. And then when I actually met him in person, I loved how he was shorter than the average man in his country (he’s not short, but he lives in a country with the tallest people in the world). I loved how mostly hairless his body was and how soft his skin and hair was. I loved how feminine his hands looked. And because I was so in love with him, I enjoyed kissing and cuddling with him. Without going into too much detail, the sex was fine because I’m comfortable with his body, but I was miles away from an orgasm. I found it fun to be close to him, but not sexy.

If someone were to describe my ideal relationship, it would probably be with a woman my own age, maybe slightly younger, because I like teaching people how to do things I’ve already experienced (not in a sexual way). The woman would totally be a pillow princess, and I would love making her feel good, because I like being in control and don’t like my personal areas touched. I am currently dating the opposite of that, someone I adore but isn’t my type on paper. So I don’t relate to the hetero age gaps.

In one video, Kayleb either confronts Mark for grooming him or talks about how what Mark did was wrong to the camera. He asks, “Why did you do that? I was so young.” And when I broke up with my boyfriend after the first attempt and got back in contact with him, I asked him the same question. He said, “I don’t know,” and then he came up with excuses about how the pandemic had affected him (we dated in 2023. Lockdown was 2020). His excuses felt stupid, but what kind of excuse could he come up with that both defended his actions and answered my question? I was eighteen, suicidal, and had self-esteem below the nether. And the truth is that he can’t answer that question. The answer is, “I didn’t care. I thought about it, but it was more worth getting close enough to you to make myself feel good and then abandoning you emotionally when things got hard.”

When I tried dating people after my boyfriend, it was hard to find anyone in person attracted to me. They usually said I look too young, but they also don’t seem to understand my humor or communication style and find me too much. Because it was so hard to find people after my boyfriend, I felt like Kayleb and Julia, that I couldn’t find anyone better. And the ones I did date who were my age had terrible communication skills and were emotionally unstable.

Both Kayleb and Julia claim that the reason they broke up with their older partners was not because of the age gap. It’s because Mark and Eileen were horrible, unstable people. But I don’t think those are mutually exclusive. I think the same maladjusted middle aged adult who dates someone less than half his age is the same kind of person to cheat without remorse on his beautiful, affectionate boyfriend or financially abuse her wife.

When my boyfriend and I broke up when I was 19 and he was 35, I insisted it wasn’t because of the age gap. I think it was a lack of communication. I think he didn’t see the relationship progressing offline, even though I told him I wanted to meet him in person at the end of 2023. I think I became more anxious, prompting him to become more avoidant, and it turned into a slow burn before I told him I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. But the same problem that manifested in him stonewalling me is the same problem that made him think dating a teenager in his mid-30s wouldn’t have terrible consequences for the near-child.

I’ve described the worst aspects of my relationship with my boyfriend, as mirrored in the toxic gay couples who have broken up but can’t let go of each other. Now let me talk about how my relationship with my boyfriend is much healthier now that I am twenty-one and not eighteen.

I think grooming is unforgivable, and while he and I are in disagreement about what he did, I have chosen to forgive him. And I find the outcome so much better on the other side. When I met him in person, after flirting online with him for almost two years straight, there was instant chemistry. I was afraid I’d be disgusted and scared because he’s older and male, but I often didn’t notice those things (is that emasculating?) when we spent time together in person. It felt like hanging out with a boy my own age. When we cuddled, it did not feel like I was “cuddling a thirty-six-year-old man.” It felt as if our bodies fit against each other so well, and I was comfortable enough to fall asleep instantly.

There was never a moment of awkwardness between us as we fell into almost a routine of waking up together in the morning, brushing our teeth, taking the train, buying or making lunch, cooking dinner together, watching Friends in the evening, and washing the dishes. We were silly around each other. We listened to an album I wrote that he burned onto a minidisc, and we walked around the London streets while listening to it. We sat on a tire swing while he listened attentively to a song I wrote about wanting to kill him (when we had broken up. You wouldn’t get it. He thought it was funny and the song was fire).

Neither of us are diagnosed, but I am convinced we’re both neurodivergent (I’m more autistic, he’s more ADHD—he disagrees about his imposed diagnosis though, but you’d get it if you knew him). We have a very direct and literal communication style. We’re both very expressive. I seem to take him more seriously than a lot of people in his life do. And he reads me better than anyone in my life does.

I’ve had my share of crushes I’ve pined over in the last couple of years, but if any one of them suddenly reciprocated and offered to date me now, I’d decline. I wish my boyfriend and I actually lived on the same continent, at least, but I wouldn’t trade my relationship with him for anyone else. Our time together literally felt like a romcom, like those romantic relationships everyone craves but no one seems to believe really exists. The way we made out in the airport parking lot like two hopelessly romantic teenagers. The way I couldn’t let go of his hand when he drove me to his house, even when he had to use the manual shift. The trials and controversies we faced are paid off so much when we’re actually together. And now that we know we work out in person, my boyfriend feels more hopeful about our future and invests more effort into our relationship.

I think the reason we work out so well is because I’ve matured since eighteen, as one does. And he learned from the mistakes in our first round. He told me that while he has tried to date other women a few years older than me, but still around ten years younger than him, he usually can’t connect with them because of how flakey and unstable they are—as most people in their twenties are. He and I work out—not because I’m better than other women, not because I’m more mature, not because I’m “not like other girls” (I’m not, but in an obsessive-compulsive, gender-nonconforming goblin way, not a pick me way). But because he and I have aligned goals. We likely wouldn’t have even had aligned goals when he was twenty-one. We both want a long-term relationship and to move in together. I’d like to be the one to financially provide for him while he takes care of the house and works from home. I’d love to raise kids with him, though I wish it was his body birthing them.

If he and I—God forbid—broke up and I dated another thirty-seven-year-old and he dated another twenty-one-year-old, the same issues from our first round of dating would probably come back. The reason he and I work together so well is because we’re familiar with each other’s patterns and personalities.

I know our relationship was built on an unstable foundation. And honestly, given my sexuality, if he hadn’t groomed me, I probably wouldn’t be in love with him now. I think multiple things were at play. A maladjusted older man unintentionally leading on a teenage girl, and then two misfits finding someone who complemented their personalities across the world and fell in love with another human being they connected to. The first part has gone away, leaving two grown adults communicating and navigating the complexities of our relationship together. I wouldn’t trade it for an “easier” relationship or a relationship with an attractive younger woman any day. The completeness and comfort I feel with him is so worth the hard work I have to put into maintaining a, currently, long distance age gap relationship. I’ve never felt this secure since I was thirteen. And that was when I was homeschooled and had all the time in the world to console myself in a rigid routine based upon undiagnosed autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder locking me into a feedback loop of rituals and dopamine hits.