First Time For Everything: A May-December Romance
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman
Filed in:
relationships
1:29PM, Wednesday September 23rd 2009
We met when I delivered his mail, a task performed by all the interns. But I liked to think I was different: I was an eager little NYU journalism student, desperate for attention, and I chatted with all the editors as I passed their cubicles. Many magazine editors on the top of the masthead are a bit standoffish and see interns, especially ones who want to talk while they’re busy, as an annoyance. But the Older Man was actually inquisitive and kind; we’d chitchat a little bit, a welcome reprieve from the other editors who could be cold and snappish.
I saw him as a little bit broken, a little bit messed-up, and I believe that I soothed and cared for him, and he had been enormously supportive of my career, my interests, and my sanity. Why wouldn’t we want to spend our lives together? I certainly felt strongly enough for him that this seemed plausible.
The Older Man and I kept in touch when I moved on to other internships, mostly, I think, because I wanted to use him as a reference. My life was pretty normal for a 21-year-old: I fell in love with a boy my own age, graduated from college, and moved back in with my parents in Connecticut when I took a reporter position at a newspaper. Over time, “how’s it going?” emails gave way to exchanging IM screen names and more regular chatting, usually in a mentorship capacity. He seemed to quite enjoy the tales of a cub reporter! And of course, it thrilled me that this big magazine editor thought I was cool enough to IM with. I was even more thrilled when Older Guy and his girlfriend wanted to have brunch with me and my boyfriend, and when they showed up together at my 22nd birthday party. He read and helped me craft many of the freelance articles I pitched and wrote during that time.
Then one summer, after years of disagreements about whether to marry and have kids, his long-term girlfriend broke up with him. He was despondent and heartbroken and seemingly needed a friend to lean on. I didn’t know what was happening at the time, but that’s when the real trouble started for me.
There are a couple ways I could tell this story and all of them could be true. One is “The Older Man Who Has 15 Years More Life Experience Should Have Known Better Than To Let The 22-Year-Old Fall In Love With Him” version. That’s the version of the story my friends believed; they liked the Older Man as a human being, but thought he was exploiting my feelings for him. However, I thought that version of the tale was patronizing and sexist, as it treated me like some dumb young girl. What, I need an older man to “protect” me from getting hurt? Still, there’s some truth in there.
Then there’s “The Young Career Woman As Whore” version, which paints me as an opportunistic young woman who used her sexuality to try to get ahead. Obviously, I’m a feminist and I’m well-schooled on how sleeping with a man who could help me professionally—if he wanted to—is wrong. But he was my mentor for a long time before we had a sexual relationship; besides, I truly did fall in love with the Older Man over time and I never once felt like I was (mis-)leading him on. Yet, as much as I’m humiliated to admit this, there’s probably some truth in this version of the story, too.
Personally, I think, the truest version of my story with the Older Man is that we were two sad people who met each other at a vulnerable time in our respective lives. Older Man had thought he’d marry his ex-girlfriend and have her children; he hadn’t expected to be 37 years old and single. (As he put it to me once, he thought most unmarried people at that age were the “leftovers.”) Me, I felt like a major loser in life. I had moved from college in Manhattan to my Republican parents’ house in suburban Connecticut, been cruelly dumped by a hotshot boyfriend, drove a piece of crap car, worked my ass off at my reporting job and only earned $21,000 a year. Several months before my jerky ex had dumped me, I’d stopped taking medication for depression. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking straight. Hanging out more and more frequently with a man 15 years my senior didn’t ring any serious alarm bells—he became the #1 joy in my life during that time.
Honestly, I can’t say our attraction to each other was a sexual thing. The Older Man is not particularly good-looking, and I’m a little cute, I guess, but really, our personalities just clicked. We were both mellow, low-key, down-to-earth, nice people who hated all the bitches and a**holes we came across in New York City. We were introspective, shy, un-flashy writers who loved reporting, but hated the self-promotional part of the field that spawns pseudo-journalist “personalities” like Julia Allison. We both liked to read Serious Books, have Deep Conversations and had a domestic streak. He graduated from mentor to friend, and then to best friend, seamlessly. And thank God we’d become so close, because my friends scattered all over the country after we graduated from NYU .
I knew I liked shooting the breeze about life with the Older Man. For a few months the Older Man and I hung out platonically more often. We saw movies and plays and a taping of “The Colbert Report.” I went on job interviews all the time (he, of course, was one of my references) and we usually met up at Starbucks for a bit, or for dinner, before I caught my Metro North train back to Connecticut. But then one night after we dined together after a job interview, it hit me that I had an enormous crush on him. I can still remember exactly where I was standing on a particular NYC avenue when I realized this.
Then, after we idled away one Saturday away together, it suddenly felt, to me, like we were dating.
Operative words here: “to me.” But what was I supposed to think? That day, the Older Man and I saw a Fringe Festival play together. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge for pizza and ice cream. We walked all the way back to his apartment in Manhattan and watched “Mean Girls” and “Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Too Afraid To Ask.” Sitting on his couch after the movies, we kissed. Kissing led to the bedroom and the bedroom led to sleeping together. If it was a “date,” it was a perfect date. I can still remember him telling me, with the utmost earnestness, “You are very, very beautiful, by any estimation.” I felt absolutely over the moon!
But two things happened in the next few weeks which derailed the most intense romance of my life. First, though I came to his apartment more frequently and we slept with each other more often, he didn’t introduce me to anyone as his girlfriend. Meanwhile, I absolutely considered him my lover, if not my boyfriend. Second, my mom, whom I was living with in Connecticut at the time, figured out where I spent my increasingly frequent overnight visits in NYC. It wasn’t rocket science for her to deduce it was the Older Man, whom I had spoken about often when he was just my mentor. Mom voiced her motherly criticism of her 22-year-old daughter hooking up with a 37-year-old and I, stupidly, told him that she disapproved. That freaked him out. Then, the magazine he worked for offered me a job at their website—and I took it.
He had nothing to do with my being offered the job—I promise you that. He told me he said nothing to convince them to hire me and I believed him. I had been an intern at the mag, remember, and I’d kept in touch with people there, so when there was an opening at this other wing, I hustled into an interview. To my great delight, I got offered the job, which finally meant I could leave my dinky $21K-a-year newspaper reporter job and move out of my parents’ place and back to New York City.
However, working in the same building (though not the same office) just underscored for the Older Man how a relationship with a much younger woman was not sustainable. I’d sleep over at his apartment and we’d fool around and then we’d both be at the office as if we were two strangers. He’d be in a meeting with the editor-in-chief and I’d be a copy machine monkey—it was very awkward. And the fact that he didn’t acknowledge me at work began to make me feel like crap. It took me longer than him to figure this out, but, little by little, I saw the ways in which our relationship was inappropriate—not just because of our age difference and the fact that we now worked together, but because he didn’t treat me like the lover/girlfriend that I considered myself to be. He didn’t introduce me to his friends; he didn’t introduce me to his parents. That is what made me feel like a “Young Career Woman As Whore” (no thanks to my mother, or my friends, who were getting hysterical over how deeply in love I professed to be with Older Man). In my mind, we should be openly dating as boyfriend and girlfriend, and we’d marry and have children together. I saw him as a little bit broken, a little bit messed-up, and I believe that I soothed and cared for him, and he had been enormously supportive of my career, my interests, and my sanity. Why wouldn’t we want to spend our lives together? I certainly felt strongly enough for him that this seemed plausible.
But you know where this story is headed. And it got worse before it got better, of course.
It ended, abruptly, when I told him on the phone that I was in love with him. Sure, I’d shown for months now that I was in love, but I had never verbalized it before. But he had the worst of all possible responses: He wasn’t in love with me, he said, and, in fact, he had gone on a few dates with a woman his own age and was falling in love with her. That news—a surprise to me—punched me in the gut with the worst rejection sadness my life. He did care about me as a friend, he said, and he cared about supporting my career, but that was it. In fact, we had to end all of this, tout suite. Wait, what? I told someone I loved him and he told me he didn’t feel the same way, he was seeing someone else, and he didn’t want to see me anymore? I sobbed for hours and hours, into the early morning. I can completely, completely understand how some people go a little bit crazy when they get dumped. The inside of my head was absolute lunacy for several days.
Yet I had to drag my carcass to work in the weeks that followed, easily avoiding him. Sometimes when I was alone at the office, I cried, and wanted to run and find him, but I knew it would be beyond unprofessional. So I did the only thing I could do. I left for another job within a few months—thanks to Older Man who was still on my resume (oops!) and charitably provided me an excellent reference. Maybe he thought he was getting rid of me? Well, it worked. That fall and winter, I moved on with my life like a normal 22-year-old woman in New York City would: I fooled around with guys my own age, worked crazy hours at my new job, and hung out with my friends who were, thank God, just platonic. After all we’d gone through together, the Older Man and I hardly talked and scarcely saw each other in person for many, many months. But one time we saw each other, he gave me a small gift of a religious icon to put in my apartment to watch over me. Despite the fact I’m not religious at all, I’ve always hung that icon on the wall over my bed to keep an eye on me in my home.
Then, one year after the end of our friendship and our little love affair, over July 4th weekend, I logged onto Facebook and saw the Older Man’s status update. He was engaged to the women he’d left me for. What the heck?!?! I emailed him in surprise and he wrote back to say he’d meant to tell me in person. Ah, well, you didn’t. A couple of days later, we met for lunch and he told me they were in love and they wanted to marry and have kids. Well, OK then.
I have not spoken to him since that lunch; he hasn’t responded to emails, which is probably smart on his part. The friendship has long been dead and anything resume-wise that he wants to know about me, he could see on Facebook or Google. The Older Man, his wife and their child (children?) live in the same building as one of my friends, so I hear tidbits here and there about what his life is like. And perhaps foolishly, I still have, and cherish, that small gift he gave me.
I wish I still had the Older Man in my life somehow, though. I wish he were still my mentor and my friend. I wish I were in his kid’s life. I wish I could introduce him to my boyfriend, who is the best friend and lover that I have always deserved and that I’m going to marry. I wish the Older Man could see how I worked extremely hard—how at 25 many of the dreams for my journalism career that I had when I graduated from college at 21, I have actually made happen. I know he would be proud of me and happy that I’m finally happy.
But despite all those wishes, with 20/20 hindsight and a lot more maturity, I can see what he did to me was wrong. He should not have rebounded after his long-term relationship collapsed with someone who looked up to him and whom he had a bit of power over, period. Beginning to date that other woman when we were sleeping together and then telling me about it when I finally verbalized that I was in love with him was just cruel. He knew he was a treasured best friend to me, and he could clearly see that I loved him. Clearly, the Older Man could have handled it better! Nevertheless, as his former friend, I realize why the flawed person that he is just didn’t do that. Maybe he couldn’t do that.
I’m not innocent here, of course. Sometimes I ask myself, What were you thinking? You really thought a 37-year-old man was going to marry his former intern? But I’ve come around on the version of the story where “The Older Man Who Has 15 Years More Life Experience Should Have Known Better Than To Let The 22-Year-Old Fall In Love With Him.” When my heart was raw and hurt, I used to listen to this Alanis Morrisette song, somewhat maniacally on repeat, called “Hands Clean.” The song is supposedly about a statutory rape situation Alanis had as a teenager with a man who was supposed to be her guardian, but some of the verses are absolutely applicable to the (totally legal) relationship the Older Man had with me:
That’s the best way to put it: Older Man just washed his hands clean of me when he was done using me for what he wanted. That stung for years, I promise you. But as I’ve grown older, I can see all the very obvious signs I should have heeded, such as, oh, not dating someone who is clearly on the rebound and not dating someone who keeps you a secret from his family/friends/coworkers. I’d like to go back and shake my naive and eager 22-year-old self, sparing her all this drama. But I try to honor everything that happened to me and use the fact that I know what a May-December romance feels like and behave with compassion towards other young women in the same situation. Because it is hard. These days, I’m proud to say, I’ve washed my hands clean of him, too.“If it weren’t for your maturity none of this would have happened
If you weren’t so wise beyond your years I would’ve been able to control myself
If it weren’t for my attention you wouldn’t have been successful and
If it weren’t for me you would never have amounted to very muchYou’re essentially an employee and I like you having to depend on me You’re kind of my protégé and one day you’ll say you learned all you know from me I know you depend on me like a young thing would to a guardian I know you sexualize me like a young thing would and I think I like it
Ooh this could get messy But you don’t seem to mind Ooh don’t go telling everybody And overlook this supposed crime
We’ll fast forward to a few years later And no one knows except the both of us And I have honored your request for silence And you’ve washed your hands clean of this “
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
Humble Bee
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 12:46 pm: [report]
all I can say is wow.
Thanks for sharing, this must have been really hard for you at the time. I’m glad your smart & you took this as a major learning experience. I was totally glued to my computer screen even though I had a giant cup of coffee and had to gooo badly. That means your a great writer.
tigerstripe
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 12:47 pm: [report]
Good for you, realizing that you deserve better. This is one of my favorite posts that I’ve read in a long time.
hlnbabe
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:03 pm: [report]
It’s amazing what we learn as we get older. Not just regarding older men, but men in general and how relationships should work.
MarieMacCee
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:09 pm: [report]
this and Anouk’s post are why I love the Frisky. thanks for sharing
....well, these posts and the “In bed with hotties of every size and shape” column
Cheerios
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:10 pm: [report]
I came close to a similar relationship myself and I’m sure many of your readers are experiencing the same thing if not having gone through it themselves. I can understand your 22yr old self who was in the middle of it all and even though she knew the warning signs, could not pull herself out of it.
The older man, younger woman meeting at work story is not new but it’s certainly had a few different versions and endings to it. I really enjoyed reading yours.
Vfab
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:11 pm: [report]
Amazing. This was a great post.
JenniferRly
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:13 pm: [report]
Beautifully written. It’s giving of you to share such a lesson.
loveitlala
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:14 pm: [report]
Ohh been there with the May-December… similar ages too. Felt like he should have handled it better too. It didn’t take much for me to wash my hands clean, though. He was a bad, bad boy and I’m so glad he’s gone!
lalala
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:20 pm: [report]
I love this article. I’m going through a breakup right now, and much of what you said is exactly how I feel. He is older than me, strung me along, and used me for his own personal/ professional needs. He gave me no indication that he wanted to see other people, it ended abruptly, in fact he made plans to spend time with me the day before he dumped me. He didn’t even breakup with me in person, instead I found out 3rd party. He’s totally washed his hands clean of the relationship we had, and I’m still wondering why. He says that he’s in love and happy with her, but all I can think is, ‘where’s my happiness’? While the immediacy of the pain I felt is gone, I can’t help but wonder when I’ll finally be able to wash my hands clean of him…
lawyrgrl
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:22 pm: [report]
Thank you so much for sharing. I, and probably many other Frisky readers, have had the same experience. Time and distance are a great resource for healing but the most valuable has got to be the emotional honesty that it takes to examine the roles that each person played. Very few people have the guts to do anything other than view themselves as a victim and as a result make the same errors over and over in different forms. Brava to you and your courage!
Raugiel
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:30 pm: [report]
22/37 counts as a May/December romance? If that is the case, when I was a similar May, I dumped my December for not having enough relationship smarts.
Joey Daytona
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:35 pm: [report]
Very familiar refrain there, we had an intern at a state agency and (of course) we hit it off and she wanted me to help her pick out a gift for her friend so we went shopping, and maybe some lunch at the mall, and she held my hand and boy was I was surprised!
Impulse control is a real issue these days.
If I hadn’t been involved w/ another I may have fancied such a dalliance w/ a very younger woman, it was a boost to my ego fersure.
I still wonder ‘what if?’ on occasion…
majicksand
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 01:36 pm: [report]
I’m glad you’ve been able to put this behind you and chalk it up to experience. Thank you for owning up to your part in what happened as well. Too many people simply allow others to shoulder the entire burden without taking any responsibility for their own choices. You’ve proven yourself a great role model today.
sophie19
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 02:34 pm: [report]
So, what would you have wanted him to say when you told him you were in love with him? That he was in love with you, too, only to take it back a week, two weeks, a month later and tell you about his new girlfriend? I think it showed compassion that he was honest with you directly. “I love you, but” is much more hurtful than “There’s no chance for us.”
Ginger
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 02:37 pm: [report]
About a year and a half ago I had a flirtation/almost affair with an older man. It took me awhile to realize that he may have liked me, I may have liked him and we may have gotten along but he was really just using me because he wasn’t happy in his marriage and I was just really into being told by someone older that I was amazing and wonderful and all of these other things.
Since it wasn’t that long ago I still think about him and wonder how he’s doing or what could have happened. He sent me one email after I went off to college but I chose not to reply.
Thank you for sharing, Jessica. Even though your situatuion was far more intense than mine it’s nice to know that other women have gone through similar situations and eventually find what they want, need, and deserve.
_jsw_
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 02:47 pm: [report]
As pretty much everyone else has also said, that was an amazingly well-written article, Jessica. Thank you for it.
I’ve been the younger man, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. I’ve been the older man, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. I’ve also dated mostly women who were essentially my age.
What I’ve learned is that there are very few relationship issues that can legitimately be pegged purely on age differences, especially since so many people have internal “ages” which are much different than their biological ones. Yes, agreed, a large age difference also tends to imply other things that, themselves, cause the issue. But it’s usually not the age difference itself. In jessica’s case, the guy had issues and probably had the same ones a decade earlier and will a decade from now.
The other thing I’ve found is that, when you are constantly aware of the age difference, you won’t work out as a couple. I’ve known working couples with large age differences who seem unaware of the difference, and I’ve seen couples constantly worried about the couple of years that separate them.
joyy
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 02:59 pm: [report]
@_jsw_ - exactly. When I was a jr in college I started dating a guy who was 8 years my senior and lived on the other side of the country. Almost 4 years later, we’re still together.
Also, I have only met ONE guy my age who was even remotely close to being dateable. Unfortunately for him (he had a crush on me), I was already with aforementioned older man when we met, and even if I had been single, we had pretty much *nothing* in common. That said, 12 years is about the biggest gap I’ve personally seen people pull off.
Kai29
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 03:19 pm: [report]
I really enjoyed reading your article. I also appreciate that you’re emotionally mature and self aware enough to understand that you could have told the story with different spins ie victim vs equal participant. I think broken hearts always teach us something (if we let them), and you let it teach you. I’ve always been attracted to older men. My first love (and ex-husband) was 15 years older than I. However the reasons it failed had nothing to do with the age difference, but everything to do with his issues and my idealism and inexperience. I’m currently involved with an older man and things are fine. He’s honest with me and I am honest with him. Both of us are recently divorced and take things extremely slowly and allow things to go with the flow. I don’t think May/December romances are destined to fail. There are many examples of these types of relationships that do work.
mokti
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 03:42 pm: [report]
You know, as interesting as the article was… this singular sentence turned it sour for me.
“I can see what he did to me was wrong.”
Really?
I had a brief moment of pause earlier over…
“Then, one year after the end of our friendship and our little love affair, over July 4th weekend, I logged onto Facebook and saw the Older Man’s status update. He was engaged to the women he’d left me for. What the f**k?!?! I emailed him in surprise and he wrote back to say he’d meant to tell me in person. Ah, well, you didn’t. A couple of days later, we met for lunch and he told me they were in love and they wanted to marry and have kids. Well, OK then.”
...but coupled with the ‘what HE did’ bit. What the #&@$%? So what if he got engaged and didn’t tell you A YEAR after you were over. Honestly.
I find your whole attitude exasperating, even through your attempts to share part of the blame. All because of one sentence.
tooticky
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 04:45 pm: [report]
Going through the same thing right now! It is so much easier to see the parts we play when it is someone else’s production, though. Thanks
snap
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 05:02 pm: [report]
WOW.
SO WELL-WRITTEN!
WAY TO GO, JESSICA WAKEMAN!!!
warmfuzz
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 05:19 pm: [report]
Great article! going through the same thing and I agree that it’s refreshing for you to own up to your part in this mess. KUTGW
lawyrgrl
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 08:42 pm: [report]
@moodymint Charming comment. Please do the rest of us a favor and refrain from speaking until you have something constructive to say. The adults are trying to talk and your foolishness is bothersome.
Countess Mariska
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 09:43 pm: [report]
Sorry to hear of your bad experience, but 22 and 37 is not May/December. Maybe something like May/late July.
chouette
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 10:03 pm: [report]
@ Countess Mariska seriously! My experience was 19/62. I have trouble even typing that, it was so messed up and wrong.
Jenn27549
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 10:13 pm: [report]
I think its the best, or one of the best, articles she’s written. But I don’t think the major issue in the relationship was age. Very rarely have I personally witnessed a relationship succeed or fail based on the age of the participants. Age certainly leads to certain differences/similarities/proclivities/likes/dislikes/moods/norms, etc…but most of those things can also happen or be isolated from the individual’s age. Someone who is 22 can be in the “life stage” normally ascribed to 37 year olds and vice versa. Just depends on the situation and the people.
Kate134
wrote on September 23 2009 @ 11:45 pm: [report]
I’m dating a man 13 years older than me and who recently moved here from Italy - we are pretty different and have lots of different cultural opinions, experiences etc. But here we are a month shy of 3 years and still completely in love and happy together. We don’t even generally notice the age difference, except when we talk about the 90’s or when other people give us weird looks.
I hate the term may-december romance, it makes it sound like his life is over already! It’s more like May-August, he’s got at least a good half century at least left in him!
og217
wrote on September 24 2009 @ 12:46 am: [report]
I think the article is very raw and well written, and I can definitely sympathize. That being said, you wanted to play with the big kids, well, when you do that, you can get hurt. It’s then no one’s job to patronize or protect you or owe you love and marriage. He didn’t “do” anything to you. He was just a guy looking for love and stumbling along until he found the right woman. He does not owe you an apology because you were not that woman, or simply because you were 22. You were an adult, you were in an adult world and there, sex is not always about love and children and marriage and forever. You said yourself there was no great attraction, you both just sort of fell into it because you both were lonely. he helped you with your career, you helped with his self esteem, even steven.
BlueVibe
wrote on September 24 2009 @ 09:01 am: [report]
I’ve never dated an older man but I have plenty of friends who are basically a generation older than I am. My experience has been that some people never grow up no matter how old they get. I’ve got friends in their 50’s who are as moony over crushes as any 21-year-old (me? I’ve never been moony, even as a teenager). Sounds like your guy was right about himself after all: He might be one of those leftovers. I’m with Jen27549—my guess is he would have had pretty much the same issues even if you and he had been the same age.
This isn’t an age thing, this is a creep thing. He could have been 22 and done exactly the same thing. Heck, I bet if you knew his complete history, he probably HAS done this before.
Vicequeenmaria
wrote on September 24 2009 @ 02:47 pm: [report]
Thank you for sharing. I really enjoyed reading someone who doesn’t play victim, knows her boundaries and enacts compassion.
But I have to agree with BlueVibe, there seems to be an element of creep here. I’ve even had platonic relationships with men (my same age 40+) who were like energy vampires, engaging my friendship and then suddenly dumping. It hurts a lot, even when you don’t hit the sack.
SueSue
wrote on September 24 2009 @ 08:26 pm: [report]
Jessica, this was amazingly awesome - thank you for opening up about this and for doing it so well!
aroundtheblock
wrote on September 24 2009 @ 08:30 pm: [report]
May/October romances have an honorable history. The only White House wedding for a President was between President Cleveland, then 49, and his former ward, a 22-year old. Society has since junked most of the norms of Christian sexual morality, yet now condemns May/October romances as somehow morally suspect (usually its older women who take the lead in condeming, for obvious reasons. Older men can frequently best treasure and appreciate younger woman with wonderful qualities that are overlooked by men her age. I have found that a significant minority of younger women connect on a deeper level with much older men than they do with younger men. It’s a wonderful mystery.
canadiancutie
wrote on September 24 2009 @ 10:22 pm: [report]
I would love to have a May-December romance with a doctor that I work with. However, he is married and has kids. So, yeah, not gonna happen. Sadly for me. Something about him I find so alluring I just wanna f**k the crap out of him. It’s inexplicable. I mean, he even has a bald head.
I am also crushing on his (younger and more “conventionally attractive” counterpart) I work with, another doctor, but he’s also married! That one would be a May-August romance. So yeah, I guess no romances of the sort for me!
moonshine
wrote on September 25 2009 @ 08:35 am: [report]
Whoa, 37 is not December. If that’s December, then I’m October. It’s a bit much for a 20-something to declare that a guy the next decade up is “December”.
I was 23 years old with a 72 year old - he was amazing - I still remember him fondly.
_jsw_
wrote on September 25 2009 @ 08:39 am: [report]
@moonshine: That’s not a May-December romance. That’s a May-Septuagenarian romance. But all that really matters is that it worked for you.
genibre
wrote on September 25 2009 @ 09:03 am: [report]
I’m sorry, a 23-year-old with a 72-year-old? Major ew factor.
On another note, Jess, excellent, well-written article. I see you have come quite far since our NYU newspaper days. Best of luck
Jen Smith
Art M.
wrote on September 26 2009 @ 06:50 pm: [report]
37 divided by two, add 7. That’s 22, right?
Seriously, there is very little in this story that has anything to do with age at all, and it is probably incidental.
37 and 22 actually sounds close in age to me.
If anything, her youthful nature might be more of an issue than the age difference per se. That’s what I’ve noticed. I’ve seen mature 21 year old’s and very babyish 29 year old’s.
Art
Sandyshores
wrote on October 14 2009 @ 12:17 pm: [report]
Jessica, Well written,emotional,and from the heart. I do want to point out that even though this experience did happen to you it is not representative of outcomes of all May to December romances.
Having been on the “December” end of a relationship that developed over a thirteen year period I can relate to the self questioning of “Was it Right?”, “Was I used?”,“Did She manipulate, Did I manipulate?”....
I cherish every moment we had as a couple and as a family w/her children. There were never issues of age differences(>20yrs). It ended when “May” stuggled with her faith and decided she needed a more fundamental Christian partner. I felt insulted and confused that I somehow was not being considered Christian enough.
Just as in any relationship “May to December” romances can
end with either partner…not just at “December’s whim.
smiles
wrote on October 14 2009 @ 09:55 pm: [report]
i am 24 year old college student and i am living with my 50 year old boyfriend of 3 years and his youngest child whos 13 and in middle school. we may not make it to forever but we have made so wonderful memories that i will have forever. the only thing that keeps us from getting married is the fact that when i graduate college i plan on moving up north. as of now he can’t leave his aging mother because she is in poor health, should her health status change maybe his mind on moving up north will also. things aren’t always great most people think i am his daughter. some don’t understand the love we have for one another. but as long as we are happy and no one gets “hurt” (not emotionally but physically) i see no reason why we shouldn’t be toghter.(even if his oldest child is still older than me) he loves my two kids, though they do not live with us, i love his son, even though hes a pain in the a$$, his family mostly hates me, my family feels the same about him. the funny thing is, hes known my family longer than i have been alive, and my grandfather helped him pick out his first car! things in our relationship are not based on age but love, and always circumstance.
if you think that age matters well, your wrong, age is just a nuber used to keep two people apart(unless your under 18) i feel like it should not even be considerd in a relationship. love, honesty, commitment, faith… should be what its based on!