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Monday, November 06, 2006

The Difference 6 Years Makes

I’m quickly approaching my 24th birthday, and I find myself in a relationship conundrum because I’m still young enough to want to be as wild and reckless as a teenager, but I’m also just old enough to want to settle down and start a family. My dating pool is quite plentiful, but somehow I’ve wound up caught between two very different men, one who has the fresh face of 18 years old, while the other who has the maturity of 30 on his side. Both relationships are in their beginning stages where nothing is too serious and nothing is expected, but we are soon approaching the time when I must chose between the two, and I’m completely clueless about the decision I will make.

When you date a man 6 years your senior, no one even bats an eyelash, because it’s only “natural” for a woman to choose someone older. However, if I even begin discussing dating a younger man with friends or family, I get nothing but “are you crazy looks.” I know that everyone is just trying to be helpful, providing me with a slew of logical reasons why I shouldn’t waste my time with a younger man. They, of course, mention his natural immaturity, saying that there’s no way that he can give me the support that I need because he has to finish school and establish himself first. What frustrates me is that it’s perfectly acceptable for women to support their older boyfriends as they finish their law degrees or complete their medical residencies, yet if a woman wants to support her younger boyfriend through his undergraduate years, then it’s considered mothering. It infuriates me that anyone would call the support that I would offer him mothering, as if that is a negative thing. All good relationships are based on support, and if we are successful in providing support to one another in a relationship then that can only speak positively of how supportive we would be as a married couple. Why shouldn’t I offer him the kind of support a family member would, especially if I want to make him my family in the future. But alas, I’m getting ahead of myself, I can’t even be sure that my feelings for this younger man are true. Maybe my attraction for him is just as shallow as the freshness of his youth, and maybe knowing that he is straight out of high school, straight from under his mother’s wing is an exhilarating taste of something almost taboo.

I have nothing but respect for my 30 year old beau, but he just doesn’t excite me in the same way my 18 year old does. The 30 year old would be a rational choice because he has so much going for him. He’s attractive, well established, and has lead a good life. His experiences truly fascinate me and when he speaks he exudes confidence and an overpowering intensity that only comes with age. I feel like there is so much that I could learn from this man, but I’m unsure if I could ever learn to love him, which is truly the most important lesson of all. It’s still too early to know that for certain whether or not love is an impossibility with the 30 year old but it’s something that I would have to work harder at with him and that I might not be successful in achieving.

If these two men were both the same age, wouldn’t this choice be a lot easier. It’s clear who I currently favor, but my obsession with this arbitrary numeral is keeping me from going after the one that I truly want? I really don’t understand why I’m trying to conform to what everyone expects of me because there is no benefit in playing it safe, no special reward given to the woman who plays by all the conventional rules of man and society, because in matters of the heart, 6 little years mean nothing at all.

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