I’m 19 years old and I dated someone 14 years older than me

Every boy has pined for an older woman before, and every girl has pined for an older man before. It’s your classic teenage fantasy; whether it’s a celebrity crush, or maybe one of your teachers.  So why, in the twenty-first century, is there still discrimination against couples with an age difference?

I remember when I was in the school play a couple of years ago.  I was backstage with a couple of girls talking about actors we admired. We were talking about Aaron Johnson’s performance in ‘Nowhere Boy’, shortly after which he married his director, Sam Taylor, a woman twice his age, and how I thought it was a great story to tell the grandkids. The girls were shocked at my reaction to the media “scandal”, telling me “don’t become like him, Claud. He’s married to an older woman”.  Danger, danger.

In all fairness we both look 25

People often stereotype cougars as this dangerous species, luring innocent teenage boys back to their flat in the midst of a mid-life crisis.  The two girls made it sound like it was so repulsive to think of dating a ‘cougar’, to think of falling in love with somebody.

In some ways they might just be thinking practically: a 10 year age difference in a marriage, according to Emory University, Atlanta, has a 39 per cent chance of ending in a divorce.  This figure goes up to 95 per cent with a 20 year age gap. I dislike statistics. They persuade you to listen to purely theoretical advice, the worst teacher of all, and mislead you into disregarding experience. If you haven’t already guessed, I suppose you could say I’m pretty biased seeing as I’ve dated an older woman. We’ll call her Sally.

I met Sally on September 19th 2015.  I was involved in a charity fête in Chengdu, China, with an international school at a grand, Western hotel – the type that looks like Trump Tower.  Whilst standing around, a small and shy Chinese woman pointed at my shoulder and asked, speaking in perfect English: “Excuse me, I’m looking for somebody to practice English on. Do you think you can help me?” I took my chances.

I guessed that she was roughly 25-years-old, but later found out she was 32.  She guessed that I was roughly 25-years-old, but later found out I was 18.  She was an English teacher in Chengdu who had married once, survived breast cancer, and had a passion for language.  Now, technically, she wasn’t a ‘Mrs Robinson’ because she had no children or a current spouse. But the age gap was still there. “You are too young” she sighed as I held her hand for a few seconds. After continuing our conversation, however, she later agreed to take me sight-seeing later that week.

Overlooking the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff

We spent just under one year together, with most of that time spent away from each other due to distance. At Christmas, I returned home to the UK and spoke to Sally everyday on FaceTime.  In some ways, that pulled us closer together, making me more appreciative of every moment I was able to spend with her, through technology or real contact. We arranged to spend one month together in the UK for the summer.  It was the happiest summer I can remember, and the fastest too.

Do I regret being in a relationship like this? No. I ignored the age gap, and doing so was the best decision of my life. Our affair was full of understanding, trust, love, passion, emotion, warmth. I learnt so much at the same time, about myself and about love, about the meaning of life, about the meaning of loss.

‘Finishing it’ was the hardest decision I ever took. After driving back to our accommodation in London, and lying on the bed we slept in the night before, realising Sally was not there, I could not hold back the emotions and wept like a baby. Ultimately I have no regrets with our time spent together, although sometimes I will listen to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2 (the soundtrack of David Lean’s ‘Brief Encounter’) and reminisce about our memories. I’m still young, and my quest for finding the meaning of life goes on.

At The Beatles Story in Liverpool, trying to make Sally laugh

So why, in the twenty-first century, is there still discrimination against couples with an age difference?  My answer is that society cannot accept the abnormal.  We see this as a ‘medieval’ relationship, full of danger and uncertainty for our futures, reminiscent of the time when age expectancies were minimal and your partner could drop dead at any moment – significant age gap would just multiply these chances. Despite the hundreds of years which have since passed, we still prefer to live by the status quo of finding somebody your own age, settling down with that person and starting a family in the traditional way.

I’m not telling you to get Tinder and start swiping on those older and more financially stable than us, nor am I going to try and criticise those who are critical of these types of relationships.  But what I am saying is that the joys of a relationship with an age gap, as long as it still technically classes as ‘legal’, can only be understood by others if they have been in this type of relationship before themselves.

We should, together, embrace the age difference. What’s the worst that could happen?  If you see somebody you find attractive, or somebody you’d like to chat to, go for it!  If somebody judges you on who you date, then so be it. The best judge here is you, and nobody else.  I can tell you, from personal experience, it’s not all that bad.