Considering the kinds of men who tend to seek out much younger women, it's less "funny" and more "very concerning".
this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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I'm 40, I couldn't fathom the effort required to date anyone under the age of 25
I'm in my mid 40s and my hard limit is 30. I'm thinking of raising that to 35 after a few bad relationships.
As a 33 year old, I went on a date with a 22 year old and yeah I just couldn't. I felt like I was babysitting. I can date a guy 20 years older but no one younger than me
I know these are just general limits nothing concrete but I just imagined ya rejecting a guy cuz he was born one picosecond after you.
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Soo you need more energy to party and keep up with them BUT the key is finding a young one that doesn't know what a healthy relationship looks like. That way you save on having to put effort into the relationship and support them and all that other stuff you need to do with a mature partner
Soo you need more energy to party
Wait, I was supposed to do that?
The energy required is more a reflection of their extrovertedness, not young age
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I dated my wife when she was 19 and so was I. As I was a dick then, this all tracks.
(I'm also a dick now, but I was a dick then too #mitchHedberg)
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asked my wife about this, she told me to fuck off and that it she still can't talk to her mother about that.
Which is weird because I was the person she dated when she was 19
Same
Can confirm, I was awkward and embarrassing as a 19-yr old. I'm sorry to all my ex-girlfriends back then.
Granted, most of them dated me because I had a "bad boy" look and they were disappointed when they found out I was actually a quiet, introverted nerd. I was almost always the dumpee in my relationships.
I'm sorry those girls couldn't appreciate your kind, quiet personality beyond your looks. Hope you find someone who feels lucky to have a "bad boy" with a sensitive soul.
I eventually found my soulmate later in life, who is also an introverted nerd. She also pursued me for my looks initially, but stayed because we were intellectual twins.
If there's any advice I can give for relationships, it's to look for someone you can be best friends with. If you're in a relationship just for looks, understand that looks fade.
I'm in my 40s now and gaining weight due to disabilities that prevent me from exercising. Plus I'm starting to bald and growing thick hair literally everywhere else. I'm no longer the "ruggedly handsome young man" I used to be as a teenager. My wife still loves me and cherishes time with me, because we're best friends, not shallow lovers.
A lot of younger people seem to idealize their partners. At 19 I was set on a pedestal by my then-boyfriend, like I was supposed to be some manic pixie dream girl free of any and all flaws. So when I started showing signs of being an actual human instead of the perfect doll he was imagining, he turned from love to resentment quick enough to make my head spin.
This is why I think it's important for people to grow up seeing real girls/women. Could be moms, sisters, girls their age in the community. By real I mean people living real life, no makeup,no running somewhere else to fart, or not talking back for themselves.
Less and less the boys grow up seeing that, more and more they start to idolize women, and then have high expectations. Because all they have seen is from movies, TVs, internet.
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I'm embarrassed about who my wife dated when she was 19. She tells these stories and all I can think is why didn't you dump me?
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My advice to a friend was “If he’s so mature, why aren’t all the mature women lining up to date him?”
At 19, I don’t think the advice stuck
Yeah, this argument fails to address how men get to experience relationships. One man could be your perfect partner but he simply doesn't put himself in positions to meet/date new people.
I know its easy to assume men get propositioned the same way women do but that's simply not true.
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As a woman person I can confirm my worst choices were when I was still young and developing. I wasn’t 19, but 20.
My choices didn't get much better, but thats why I eventually stopped dating entirely. I’m a shit judge of mates, and choose the worst for me (yay trauma!!) so I just don't anymore, it’s so much easier. I’m tired of trying to grow and being brought back down by shitty men. Much rather bring myself down.
However of all the bad, that age brought me the worst. He turned out to be a convicted felon rapist (not of me. happened after he stalked me for 2 years which was itself after he moved 1300 miles to be close to me when I left him and moved home), which I discovered through court access years later. I dodged that bullet, for sure. I mean it grazed me, but didn’t hit. Sorry to the lady behind me. :(
Now I feel better about the guy she left me for just as she was turning 19.
It was her biggest mistake not mine!
/j
I feel attacked, the mother of my children was 19 when we met.
Dated a 34 year old dude when I was 19 because I was rebounding hard and he could buy me booze. He was about as mature as I was at the time.
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I think for most men it is also the lowest of our dating standards. Everyone was just so dumb.
I think you've missed that's she's referring to men in their 30s dating 19 year olds
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Depending on where you're at this can be more or less common - college being a key exception. My wife and I met first day of college, started dating at 18. Neither of us expected the relationship to last particularly long but we fell in love and it stayed that way for the duration of school. Neither of us wanted to end a relationship that clearly worked well despite having never experienced any other relationship before. The interesting part to me is that there were several other couples on the same floor of our dorm with the exact same situation, and more than a decade on they like us are still together.
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When I was 18 and 19 I only dated middle aged women.
I can see why it's creepy the other way around.
how does that work. practically. like how were you in a situation where middle aged women wanted to date you as an 18 year old?
when i was 18 the only middle aged people i knew were parents, or teachers/professors.
the only middle aged people who approached me, were gay men.
Mostly I had a type so I was being flirty with coworkers at a couple of jobs I had. One was a bartender at a dive bar I went to that didn't care to card.
I was legal and not looking for a lot. They knew what they wanted and we just kind of clicked. Plus it was mostly going over to their place for food and sex it's not like this was some big love affair.
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Obviously, the people who dated someone at 19 who they subsequently broke up with is more likely to regret that date. And then there are the people who are still with the person they dated at 19.
Although I guess it is true for me that my worst dating decision was somewhere around 19: I didn't make any effort to date anybody, and now that I have no dating experience at age 33, that ship has now sailed without me.
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Mine was late 20's with folks +/-2 years; I got a lot of folks wanting a father figure, or wanting a provider. The level of possessive crazy was also just off the chart.
Different strokes for different folks.
As someone who teaches 18/19 year olds (and overhears snatches of their lives), trust me, they're dumber than you remember being. It's not worth it; their priorities and yours DO NOT align.
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That's basically the point.
The men are saying "She's out of my league".
The women, 10+ years later, realize that they could have done a lot better -- she was out of his league.
naa. mine was at 32. my wife of 7 years, she was 41, had just died. i was alone in a house. came into money. paid off house. heard father in law tell me dont be a hermit, we love you. so i dated later that year. it was a mistake. obviously. but i wasnt alone. problem was when i “woke” i realized this person was truly using me and my vulnerability. moved on from that asap of course!
i just met someone who lost a spouse and boy... they were in a bad spot. but really really had convinced themselves they were not and that they were legit into me and should be dating and in a new relationship.
despite all their behavior being obviously that they were not into me. They were just clearly distraught/lonely and trying to fill a void, and while they were nice it was just so boring/life sucking to be around a person who was clearly just constantly living only in their memories even though they were 36.
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I wasn't really dating much in my late teens and early 20s but I can say for sure that the girls/women I liked around those times were absolutely awesome. They turned out great. I turned out... not so great. So... good for them.
Hey thanks for making me feel even worse about getting cheated on and dumped by my ex when we were 19
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