Age and Relationships

While it's all well and good to mumble truisms about how true love transcends age, the fact is that in most relationships (which are not necessarily true love) age is a factor. The usual thing I've observed is for men to get together with women who are a few years their junior. This trend has always bothered me, seemed like a lot of advantage-taking was going on, so age is one of the many bits of baggage I carry around with me in relationship-land.

But let's plumb the depths here.
In High School it made a kind of sense for girls to like older guys. Girls develop a lot quicker, generally speaking. Part of that is physical (remember in 6th grade when the tallest people were all girls?) but part of it is social.

I like to say there's a correlation between boys' ability to parrot various sound-effects and their tendency to pursue younger women: while the boys are off making farting, squeaking, robot jet airplane machine gun noises, girls are somewhere else, most likely gaining emotional maturity Who can fault young men and women for seeking out parity? Certainly not me.

In college it's more of the same, really. Many guys come to college with the idea that there's a certain amount of hell-raising that needs to be done. It's only later that they'll settle somewhat. By this time the girls their age (very early 20s) realize that there's a whole world of older, accomplished, financially secure men out there who are interested in them, and who's this silly college boy can't seem to come out and ask them for their their phone number?

Just one of my many issues.
That's not even nearly how it always works out, but it is the trend. It's something I've noticed, and for whatever (envy) reason it rubs me the wrong way.

So JT talks to 17-year-olds online, and I go to peace meetings around NYU and try to keep my mind on the war and off the college girls. I avert my eyes as much as possible from the fresh-faced and (beautiful...) idealistic collegiate women and JT fights his own attraction. We're both young men trying to overcome that "extra super jumbo creepy" urge to vulture. Good for us, I guess.

Finally, and depressingly, it occurs to me it had been a long time since I was in a relationship with an equal, someone who sands on about the same footing at me. I observe Frank the "universal adaptor" and ponder my seeming incompatibility with the people I meet. Is it really that I have "high standards" as I like to tell myself, or is it just that I'm irritable, impatient and slow to trust anyone?

Probably a bit of both, but it seems pretty clear that either I have to figure out how to meet women my own age (harder than you'd think), find an older women who isn't looking for a quick ride, or loose my agest prejudice. I really want more than the simple companionship/safety deal. I want challange and collaboration and independence all at once. I want to be part of some kind of crazy king hell power couple. I want a lot. Maybe I have to wait years to get what I want, maybe it's just around the corner. Hard to wait.