age gaps aren’t inherently bad between adults, but they are incredibly suspect in instances where one party has significantly more agency and experience due to their age. a thirty year old dating a forty year old, for instance, isn’t all that big a deal. but an eighteen year old should be VERY suspicious of a thirty year old wanting to get with them. they’ve had twelve years to establish themselves as an adult. an eighteen year old has had maybe a few months to do so.
i’m saying this as a person who briefly dated a thirty year old at age 19 (it wasn’t good lol), and also as a person with happily married parents who have a 12 year age gap. the difference is that my mom was in her thirties when she met my dad; she’d had plenty of time to find a career and a name for herself in the world.
stay safe, love urself, try to make good decisions but don’t beat yourself up if you’ve ever been the victim of an unbalanced or abusive relationship
there’s this church sign i pass every day that says “hurt people hurt people” and i know it’s supposed to mean like “people who are hurt, hurt people” but it sounds like a command
I used to think it was important to have common interests with the person that you are in a relationship with but now I think it is more important to be similar in other aspects. like how kind you are. how you treat the people you care about, how you treat strangers. how you deal with anger. how you deal with pain. and not necessarily dealing with all these things the same way but being perseptive enough to understand what action each situation calls for. it’s important for both people to be on the same page about what that action should be. it’s important to me to have that kind of synchrony.
