I think age gap romantic relationships are beneficial to the vast majority of people1, but even more than that I think age gap friendships are far more beneficial than the romantic variety. It saddens me to see so many people say it’s “creepy” that, for example, someone 38 is friends is with someone 21. That seems to be the majority view, at least in the US. Other countries don’t insist on such strict and dogmatically-enforced age segregation — and in fact find it odd how bizarrely age-segregated the US is when they visit here.
This is completely platonic I’m talking about here, by the way. (Though I think Americans place too much importance on sex and its meaning too.)
Even more than we should normalize age gap romantic entanglements, I think we should make age gap friendships almost a requirement as there is so much benefit to be had from the perspective and experience of someone who has been around the bend a few more times than you have.
Also, I liked this comment:
Why in hell do so many people think that people of varying ages are completely different species? I just truly cannot fucking understand. I have never, ever found this to be the case. Hell, at my old job I had far more in common with the interns in their 20s (when I was early- to mid-40s) than any of the people in my age range.
Guess I will keep ranting about this forever because nothing about the modern discourse matches any of my experience.