How old is 'too old'?

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I know there are various formulae for working out how young the youngest person you can date is, such as xkcd's:

Your age / 2 + 7

but nobody seems to have addressed the problem of the oldest you can safely date, and this has made me curious. How old do you think is 'too old'?

There are often cases where you seereally young women with alot older men, why? --> Moneh, and lots of MONEH.
And they will run around spouting nonsense like "it's love, age dosnt matter" lol

And the age differs with the mainstream view of where you live i guess, in some countries i guess it's normal to marry with a huge age gap --> Like some of those islamitic countries, and yadda yadda

that all depends on whether the person wants kids or not for sure. Going for an older person might have the side effect of less chance of having kids. On the other hand that might make them more desirable if the person doesn't want kids anyway.

You could always invert the xkcd equation: (Your age-7)*2
Beyond that, I have no thoughts on the subject.

I remember when I was using match.com to help me find a companion (I met my husband, to whom I have been married for 6 years and have two children with, on match.com).

Anyways, at the time, I was 31 years old. I wanted someone who was no more than 10 years my senior (so my maximum age was 41), I wanted someone at least past their mid twenties - so my minimum was 26. I figured that I would have more in common with this age bracket than people younger than 26 or older than 41.

I also looked carefully at the profiles of the men that were "matched" to me. If a guy was 40 and he only wanted to date women who were 18 - 35, I figured that he was fairly shallow. I know, I know, there are men who are older who want to have a family and someone who is between 18 and 30 or is the healthiest age for having a child. Whatever.. I had no interest in a middle age man who would be interested an a slip of a girl at 18. He is old enough to be her father.

My dear husband's profile indicated that he was interested in women from their late twenties to their early forties. He was in his late thirties at the time - I felt that this was reasonable.

Anyways, in answer to the question regarding the formula - how old is "too old"????

It depends. Are you looking long term or short term? If it is short term, it doesn't matter does it?

If you are looking for long term - you would want someone who is not going to be so very old that they will be in ill health while you are still in your prime. I would caution a twenty something person from considering a long term relationship with someone in their mid to late fifties. In 20 years, they will be in their mid forties and their lover will be in their late seventies... Unless they are someone like Clint Eastwood (holy crap that is one sexy old guy!! !! ) there might be health issues and changes in what they are interested in. I'm not saying that the idea of a relationship should be dismissed completely. I am just saying that serious thought has to be made of the realities of the age difference.

For a general rule of thumb - don't date someone who is old enough to be your parent (if they were to have a baby at a standard adult age of 20 or more). So if the person is over 20 years you senior - they are too old.

Let me check my theory I will consider that I am a legal adult (the age of consent is 18, but I am going with 19 as this is the age I can join my older lover for drink in a bar in my province). If I was 19, I could date a 39 year old. Meh, okay. If I was 29, I could date a 49 year old, meh, okay. If I was 59, I could date a 79 year old (yeah, he's getting on in years, but I'm no spring chicken at 59 either). At 69, I could date a 89 year old (there are still some spry 89 year old men who might be interested in a young chick who is pushing 70 years) If I was 79, I could date a 99 year old - okay, after age 79 I would be happy if they guy is healthy enough to blow me a kiss if I was to date a 99 year old - but you never know). At 89, I would be dating a 109 year old - I don't think that he would remember me from day to day and each date would seem like a first. When I am 99, I would be dating a 129 year old and we would be in the Guiness Book of World Records.

I guess this formula sort of works.

Your age, plus 20.

It's funny, I'd feel comfortable with someone quite a bit younger, but not too much older. I'm 30, and the youngest I'd probably date would be 21. However, I'd feel uncomfortable dating someone who's 34ish

This.

Another possibility that I heard an NT say about the topic is that it's not so much the age number itself that's important, it's the stage of life that the people involved are in. She said that ideally the stage of life of the two people should be pretty much equal. For example, if both people have had their kids grown up already and they're both empty nesters who are already well-established in their lives, then it frankly doesn't really matter that much if one is 40 and the other is 55 or even 60. The problems seem to come when the stages are highly disparate, because that typically means that their experience and maturity will be quite disparate as well. That's what has a tendency to kill relationships, not the age number per se. Such disparity is more likely to occur the younger one of the two people is, since things tend to even out as people get older. Other than that, it's kinda hard to make a blanket statement of age that applies to everybody and every relationship.

I prefer men who are about ten to twenty years older than me. I don't really relate well to men my own age and the younger ones -- forget it! I really don't understand them. The older guys, I understand.

I think it has to do with my family. I was the youngest child by about 13 years. My parents were from the WWII generation and all of my siblings are Baby-Boomers, so while I'm technically Gen-X, I don't really relate well to the rest of my peers.

Now there's an excellent point.

As it happens my wife is about 11 years older than me. So there's that number.

Wikipedia actually has a graph using the xkcd equation and the inverse:

link

edit: Apparently wrongplanet doesnt like vector images, so here's a link to the image itself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Half- ... p-rule.svg

i think that it depends on what age you are.

If you are in high school then you should stick to your own age as it can cause lots of peer presure

for someone out of high school i would say the youngest you could go is 5 years and oldest 10 years

hope this helps

I have no interest in older males, period. I find them to be physically revolting, and I have nothing at all in common with them. The last time I really hankered after an "older man," I was probably about 16, and he was probably a member of Duran Duran.

Sadly, I dunno too many young dudes who're into women older than themselves; I did find, though, that guys in urban areas seemed to be more open-minded. I needs to get myself back to a city, oh yes I do.

Oh, I'm into them all right. And not just ones like you, either. There's something about a hot woman in her forties or fifties, a kind of gracefulness and ruggedness at the same time. MMMmmm cougars!

And I know other guys who are the same. About two moths ago I went to this small town festival, and I was friends with one of the organizers. He saw me trying to get the older ladies to dance with me. Afterward, he asked me whether I liked older women, and said he liked them too. And this was in a quite rural suburban area, though still quite close to some cities.

That's not to say I can't also appreciate women my age (or younger--though that can't go TOO far before they're no longer legal).

I probably wouldn't date anyone below the age of consent. Beyond that, I have no set-in-stone rules. But I have two considerations:

1. Although I am attracted to many women aged 25+, I tend to rule myself out immediately. I just don't think I have what they're looking for. I even suspect that women my age largely see me as something of a child, afraid of doing things other men his age wouldn't mind doing, afraid of taking risks and so on. Until I have a steady job, which may not be until well into my 30s if I pursue an academic career, then I suppose I don't have anything to offer most older women.

2. I am conscious of what other people would think of me or my partner. There is the old maxim, "Don't care what other people think!", but taken in its strongest and most literal form it is obviously false and I don't know to what if any extent it is true. If I dated someone much younger than me my mother, who is something of a feminist, may have issues, and older women going out with younger men are often the subject of nasty jokes.

On the flip side I prefer women who are more or less 10 years older than me. I really don't relate well to my Gen-X peers either. I've dated two women who were much younger than me and that didn't go too well. Okay for a fling I guess but nothing long term.

Finding someone on the same wavelength as me is my top priority when it comes to dating, but as far as age, I prefer people closer to my age.

My FWB is about 2 years older than me (I'm 29, she's 31).