I’ve never heard of this before today, but a friend sent me an IM earlier that read (paraphrased):
SP: Have you ever heard of this rule? The “Half Plus Seven” rule states that attraction to someone who is younger than half your age plus seven years is creepy.
ME: Never. So I’m stuck with 25 year olds? Screw that! I’m going down to 18. I’m bucking convention! LOL
SP: You are now officially creepy… You are to be shunned by most nuns you will meet.
Now of course I was joking since I am happily married, but the idea that someone came up with that “rule” is interesting. Apparently the idea of the half plus seven rule isn’t new, either. Wikipedia references it, Urban Dictionary has an entry for “Half Plus Seven”, and there’s even a page that has a calculator for it.
Is an age gap any wider than half plus seven really that uncomfortable to people? I guess I see things a bit differently since one of my best friends is happily married to a younger woman, and add to that the fact that I’ve known many couples in a (ahem) May-December romance that works out great, so it doesn’t bother me at all.
It’s funny that most of the vitriol that I read on the subject concerns older men and younger women together, but the idea of a Cougar or a MILF seems (more?) acceptable; which seems like a sort of reverse discrimination if you ask me. I believe that the most important issue is whether or not a couple is happy, if they communicate well, and they genuinely care for each other. I don’t care if a 40-year old woman is dating a 23-year old man, or if a 60-year old man is married to a 37-year old woman; which also happens to be the cut-off for a 60-year old according to the half plus seven rule.
July 26th, 2008 at 171931
I am so happy to have read this. At least someone else feels the very same way that I do about age differences. Socially acceptable standards should not matter… there are far worse problems that the world faces than relationships with wide age gaps.
I think the people in these relationships are more entertained than the rest of us who find it appropriate to marry our high school best friend.
August 7th, 2008 at 033713
hey!.. i’ve just started seeing a guy who’s 20.. i’m 23 n a bit. technically i’m 3 years and five months older than him. basically the guy i’m seeing is younger than my own younger brother so he’s giving me hell. but i’ve been looking up stuff and asking ppl and it seems perfectly ok. the problem is i live in a small island.. and it’s like everybody knows each other. so i don’t know if i’m gonna hear shit. but then i think if we like each other that’s ok.. and if something goes wrong.. we can always call it off. this is not an issue if it werent’ for the fact that i’d hear shit from ppl. sigh. i date a guy before this who was 8 months younger than me. and that was fine. wasn’t even an issue.. but this suddenly is. i need a good slap!