I just want a sanity check. I was talking with my friend recently, and we were catching up with each other’s lives. My friend is a Chinese man and an Indian woman. He was talking about one of his cousins, we can call him Tom (27), and mentioned that Tom is getting married soon. I was surprised, I hadn’t known Tom had been dating, but my friend explained that he had been seeing a girl for about a year now. My friend then mentions that the girl is 19. When I expressed my surprise at the situation, my friend just shrugged and told me that “these kind of girls get married early.”
I grew up in a normal neighbourhood so I know that his statement isn’t really true, or is a non-informative generalization at best. But for the rest of the night, I couldn’t help but feel weirded out about the idea of a 19-year-old woman marrying a 27-year-old man. I can’t help but look at Tom in a new light–a creepy light. Several friends of mine have been equally weirded out, but weirdly, not many of my male friends have found it strange, no matter what their ethnicity.
Am I getting worked up over nothing? What would your reaction be in this scenario?
Here are what netizens think:
- I’ll never understand why other guys who do this. I once had to work with a dude who was like 45 at the time (I was like 24 for reference). Once on a lunch break he asked me if I knew any cool spots to pick up chicks, I told him I didn’t and asked if he was into clubbing. He told me he was, which surprised me cause he had a very “homebody” aura to him.
- I don’t understand why it’s not weird to some people. Yeah, it wouldn’t be weird if a 30 year old married a 38 year old. But that’s not because of the age gap itself ; it’s because of the amount of life experience already had by each. 19 has no experience at all. Nothing. Likely can’t even regular her own impulses yet. It’s not okay.
- I’m married to a man who’s six years younger than me. I would never have dated him when he was 19, he would have annoyed me like it’s no one’s business. His own mother describes him as being 35 since he was 15, but even with that he still woods have been too young. At 28, when we started dated he had a really good idea of who he was and what he wanted in life. He had done things and wasn’t being taken advantage of. We were both adults, and I didn’t have any power over him due to an experience gap. We’re equal partners in our marriage and parenting our children because we treat each other as such. I don’t think anyone should aim to have an experience gap over their partner, it really makes things unbalanced.