When You’re in Love — But There’s a 20-Year Age Gap
There may not be a problem. Until there is.
Your best friend tells you there’s someone new in her life.
“It’s serious,” she says, gushing down the phone. I can’t wait for the two of you to meet.
“Spill the tea,” you say, settling in for a chat. She lives abroad so you haven’t caught up properly for a while — you didn’t know she was dating anyone, let alone planning a future with him.
She expounds on his general amazingness then stops abruptly. “OK there’s this,” she says firmly. “He’s 20 years older than me.”
You’re cool with it, of course you are. Until the call’s over. Then you load the judgment gun. He’s freaking 48. And not even Leo deCaprio. Seriously?
The Taboo That Won’t Die
Relationships with yawning age gaps have made headlines down through the ages, often accompanied with a generous dollop of social disapproval. There’s more stigma when there’s a perceived imbalance of power and money, sex and beauty. Think Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner and the young women who shared his life in the Playboy Mansion.
The celebrity world is littered with examples of age-gap relationships where glamour often tempers the stigma.
