morris-chestnut

In regards to dating, there’s overt ageism in the gay community. Even more so than for heterosexuals, I would argue.

Even I’ve been guilty of it myself on both ends of the spectrum.

At 37 years old, I tend to view dating men in their 20’s as babysitting short attention spanned, culturally deprived, dingbats who will fuck anything (with or without a condom).

On the flip side, I often view many older men (45 and up) as boring, culturally unaware, socially allergic, fuddy duddies who spend their entire Sundays sipping wine in a silk robe while humming gospel music songs all day.

Many gay men have their own reasons for their age prejudices, but ever since I’ve been actively dating in the gay community I’ve observed an ever present cloud of disdain for older men or getting older in general in regards to dating…and I’ve also observed a disrespect for younger men due to assumptions of immaturity and sexual promiscuousness.

Talking

Possibly as a result of these prevalent age prejudices, we see gay couples with large age differences all the time.

Younger man have told me they prefer to date older because most men their age are immature. I’ve heard similar rationale from older men claiming younger men are only good for No Strings Attached sexual encounters.

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However, I’ve also heard many men say they would never date older men because, well, those men are old, past their gay expiration dates.

Are these generalizations limiting men from finding potentially long term compatible partners in a gay community already notoriously limited with very few dating options?

Shouldn’t gay men date regardless of age if there is a mutual attraction and mental connection?

Even Cypher Avenue co-founder Octavius Williams is in a strong long term relationship with a man many years his senior (although this may be an outlier since his partner looks at least 10 years younger than his actual age).

If a relationship is your goal and you haven’t been finding what you’re looking for within your age group, it may be time to open up your options.

PERCEPTION

Let’s say you do open your dating parameters by dating younger/older men (or even outside of your race), will you then face criticism by the ageists (and racists) in the gay community?

When openly gay college basketball player Derrick Gordon was seen on the GLAAD Awards Red Carpet with a Caucasian man 20+ years his senior, many gay men went ape-shit online. Many of these critics must have also been Psychiatrists because they all had psychological explanations why each man would be dating the other.

According to many (lonely and bitter) gay men, you must stick to your own race and stick to your own age group, regardless of what makes you personally happy.

 

On the other hand, there are levels to this. We live in a society where perception plays a big part how others interact with you. So seeing a 47-year-old man with a 22-year-old college student is guaranteed to raise some eyebrows.

If only there was a way to determine how young/old is too young/old when dating.

CALCULATOR

For those of you who are open to dating younger and older, you may need help in deciding just how older and younger is socially acceptable to date. Fortunately there is an unspoken rule called “Half Plus Seven.”

The way “Half Plus Seven” works is you take your current age, divide it by 2 and add 7 years. The result gives you the MINIMUM age of a partner that you can date and it still be socially acceptable. On the other end, take your age, subtract 7 and multiply it by 2. That result gives you the MAXIMUM age of a partner that you can date.

Granted, we’re mainly talking about dating. If its just sex you want, you can have at it with any age (I would assume).

By these calculations, the youngest aged man that I could date would be 25-years-old and the oldest aged man that I could date would be 60-years-old.

Wait, what?

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I gotta sleep on these numbers.

Ironically, I feel equally reluctant to date the 25-year-old as I would the 60-year-old.

Plug your age into the Dating Age Range calculator below and tell us your results…would you date within that range?

How do you feel about dating Younger/Older in general?