Jinger and Lawson courting?

[nastyhobbitses]

4 hours ago, Lewy said:

II personally find 13 and 18 very weird, 13 is barely out of being a child, but I don't see any issue with 22 and 26. 

In fairness, Alyssa seems quite mature for her age/upbringing, especially compared to the J'Slaves at the same age. I always think she's older than Jessa/comes right after Erin in the Bates line up because of it. 

Yeah, 13/18 is skeevy as all hell. 22/26 isn't that weird, but I think how weird it is depends on maturity. I think half your age plus seven is a good guide, but my bellwether for creepy/not creepy age differences is relative life stages. A 13-year-old is at a very different life/developmental stage from an 18-year-old. Depending on culture and maturity, a 22-year-old and a 26-year-old are likely around the same life/developmental stage. I think that's why bigger age gaps (within reason) get less weird the older both parties get. Personal example: I had a fling with a 23-year-old guy when I was 16. My parents made me break it off, and in retrospect, he was pretty skeevy. But if I got with a 31-year-old guy/girl now at 24, I don't think it would be nearly as bad. Still a bit odd because thirties can be very different from twenties, but it wouldn't have that hint of "do I need to call the cops about this".

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

18 hours ago, Lewy said:

II personally find 13 and 18 very weird, 13 is barely out of being a child, but I don't see any issue with 22 and 26. 

In fairness, Alyssa seems quite mature for her age/upbringing, especially compared to the J'Slaves at the same age. I always think she's older than Jessa/comes right after Erin in the Bates line up because of it. 

The J'Slaves are SO sheltered they can't help but be immature. They have never had to make any decision for themselves, not so much never had to as never allowed too, they are told what they can wear, what they can read, what they can listen too, what they can see, who they can see. Josh is proof that they cannot function normally in the real world, he was in DC for a year, 18 months and he managed to ruin a job that a cockroach could do. Jill sounds like my friends 12 year old daughter, not very bright but she LOVES to play with babies and wants to be a rock star when she grows up.  This family is doomed if at least 9 or 10 of them can't get jobs to support themselves and other siblings. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

14 hours ago, nastyhobbitses said:

Yeah, 13/18 is skeevy as all hell. 22/26 isn't that weird, but I think how weird it is depends on maturity. I think half your age plus seven is a good guide, but my bellwether for creepy/not creepy age differences is relative life stages. A 13-year-old is at a very different life/developmental stage from an 18-year-old. Depending on culture and maturity, a 22-year-old and a 26-year-old are likely around the same life/developmental stage. I think that's why bigger age gaps (within reason) get less weird the older both parties get. Personal example: I had a fling with a 23-year-old guy when I was 16. My parents made me break it off, and in retrospect, he was pretty skeevy. But if I got with a 31-year-old guy/girl now at 24, I don't think it would be nearly as bad. Still a bit odd because thirties can be very different from twenties, but it wouldn't have that hint of "do I need to call the cops about this".

I met my husband when I was 25, and he was 34.  We clicked, yes there are times it is painfully obvious he is 9 1/2 years older than I am, but for the most part we have no issues. I've always been attracted to older men, I've never had the patients for boys and games.  I dated 1 guy my age for about 6 weeks, he was 2 days older than me, and called me his "older lady" he was very weird about it, and that pretty much confirmed for me that I needed to date older men. Yes I'm lumping all men into the same category based on 1 twit, but I've got a great guy we've been married for 19 years and on Christmas Eve will be the 20th anniversary of our 1st date.  Yes, we had our 1st date on Christmas Eve, that is just how we roll. 

[Bad Wolf]

4 days older than Mr. Wolf. He reminds me every birthday. 40 years married. There's no magic age formula.

[twinmama]

On 12/10/2015 at 3:30 PM, TuringMachine said:

I would guess Trace for Joy. Lawson is five years older than her so I feel like that would be a little weird (or is this not weird in fundie land?).  Trace on the other hand is the same age as her.

I'd say ONLY weird in fundie land where you are marrying when one is 18 and the other is 23. The difference between 30 and 35 is like nothing IMO. Tho really those fundies have the exact same life unmarried at 18 as they do unmarried at 25, so it probably makes no difference. They're all stunted at 12 anyway.

[SledCat]

I was 16 (almost 17) when I had my first meaningful relationship. He was 21. The relationship was condoned by both sets of parents, and our church. Looking back, it does skeeve me out.

[TuringMachine]

If they were older I wouldn't find it weird. My parents are five years apart but they were 28 and 33 when they met. What I meant was that the difference between an 18 year old and a 23 years is pretty drastic.

[19 cats and counting]

32 minutes ago, twinmama said:

I'd say ONLY weird in fundie land where you are marrying when one is 18 and the other is 23. The difference between 30 and 35 is like nothing IMO. Tho really those fundies have the exact same life unmarried at 18 as they do unmarried at 25, so it probably makes no difference. They're all stunted at 12 anyway.

Wasn't Alyssa 19 when she married 24 yo John?  

[SassyPants]

49 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

4 days older than Mr. Wolf. He reminds me every birthday. 40 years married. There's no magic age formula.

I am also 4 days older than my husband. His B-day is Christmas Day. We have been married 32 years.

[halcionne]

On 12/12/2015 at 5:41 PM, CreationMuseumSeasonPass said:

Des Moines area here, too! Seriously, this city is amazing. As Iowa is a swing state, you can find a lot of different-minded people, and that's just fine! This was months ago, but I remember when there was a rumor on FJ that there might be a courtship between Jana and a young Republican from Des Moines because of a Twitter following. I can't remember his name, but I do remember hoping to God nothing came of it. The Duggars have been to the Iowa Caucuses before, and I don't want to give them any more cause to be a blemish on my beloved city.

It was this guy. He'll be here in a minute, just as soon as he checks his google alerts. 

http://www.freejinger.org/topic/22759-taylor-egly/

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

41 minutes ago, halcionne said:

It was this guy. He'll be here in a minute, just as soon as he checks his google alerts. 

http://www.freejinger.org/topic/22759-taylor-egly/

He looks like a douchey assbasket, You know, that guy that is better than everyone, just ask him. 

[HarleyQuinn]

The Joker and I are three years apart. It felt like such a huge gap to me at the time because he could go to the bar and I couldn't. 

[Karma]

Can I admit I was 18,  6 months out of high school when I met Mr Karma?  He was 24.  We dated for 7 years before getting married.  He insisted we took the physical side of things slowly as I was young, but he had also not dated before me.  We are 49 and 55 now.  The age gap has never been an issue, although when our daughter turned 18 we realised that it must have been hard for my parents to cope with.  I asked my parents about it recently. They said they knew I was mature for my years, and wouldn't have been happy dating someone my age.  The same age gap when the girl is still at school though, that is a bit off, IMHO.

[InThePrayerCloset]

3 hours ago, SledCat said:

I was 16 (almost 17) when I had my first meaningful relationship. He was 21. The relationship was condoned by both sets of parents, and our church. Looking back, it does skeeve me out.

I had a similar first relationship, 15 and 20. similarly skeevy in retrospect. my parents were right to object to it. subsequently learned the guy was pretty fed in the head

[herpderp]

I think that once you're an adult, it all comes down to individual circumstances. Like, 13 and 18? Hell no. That's pedo territory. But I don't find 18 and 23 creepy at all, tbh. The guy might be immature if he can relate to a teenager, but it's not malicious (except for those cases where he's obsessed with being older so he can feel in control of the relationship - that's gross). I think job/school situations play an important role too. For example, someone I know married a 28-year-old surgeon when she was a 23-year-old medical student. They're perfectly happy and you certainly couldn't call it "creepy," but personally I would be uncomfortable just because of the power differential between established doctor and student. Whereas if a 23-year-old engineer went to work straight after getting her bachelor's and married a 28-year-old colleague, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. 

[St.Clara]

The present king of Bhutan met his wife Jetsun Pema for the first time when he was seventeen and she was seven. There seems to have been an instant liking on both sides. At least, the king later said that he promised her at the time that if they´d still feel the same way when they´d be adults he would marry her if they both were still single. They were married in 2011 when she was 21 (but, as far as I know, did not meet again before she was a grown up woman).The king had to take a lot of crap because he refused to marry in his early twenties (not the present queen but anybody) which seems to have been the custom.

I am aware the story could sound somewhat creepy but it admittedly does not to me. I believe that you can feel a strong closeness to another person, even if there is such an age gap. (It is clear, though, that there should be a "reality check" when both partners are more mature, like in this case.)

Although Bhutan allows polygamy, the king said that he would never marry another woman, and that Jetsun Pema will be his only wife in the future. They are expecting their first child next year.

[donnal]

I met my SO when I was 16 and he was 24. We didn't realize there was such a big age difference until we had known each other for a few weeks and birthdays finally came up in conversation. I had already moved out of my parents' house at this point so he had just assumed I was over 18. I had met him through a mutual friend who was about 19 or 20 at the time and assumed he was about that same age.  We sort of called ourselves "just friends" for 7 or 8 months(even though we were spending every possible second together), before finally admitting that there was something more going on between us. Long story short, nearly twenty years later we're still very happy together.

 

I absolutely get why people judge these things as creepy and abnormal, but in the end every relationship is different.

[JemimaPuddle-Duck]

My husband and I married when I was 21 and he was 33. I never thought it was strange, though he did get some teasing from friends about cradle-robbing, and we could recognize that if we'd met a few years earlier it would have been squicky ;-) I was also mature and quite ready to be married. He looks young for his age. And in general we seem to balance each other out in that he makes me seem a bit older and I make him seem a bit younger. People are always very surprised to find out we have a twelve year gap. 

[VixenToast]

I'm with a 47 year old. I'm 26 :/

[CreationMuseumSeasonPass]

17 hours ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

He looks like a douchey assbasket, You know, that guy that is better than everyone, just ask him. 

Douchey assbasket FTW! As much as this guy and I have polar opposite political views, it did cross my mind he wouldn't have ANY problem with giving Jim Boob the verbal finger. Sooooo, point for Taylor Egly?

[nastyhobbitses]

18 hours ago, InThePrayerCloset said:

I had a similar first relationship, 15 and 20. similarly skeevy in retrospect. my parents were right to object to it. subsequently learned the guy was pretty fed in the head

I was pretty pissed when my parents told me I couldn't see the 23-year-old guy anymore; I was a very awkward teenager, so having an Older Boy tell me I was pretty, kiss me a lot, spend all this time with me, and shower me with attention was huge for me as a mostly friendless, chubby, nerdy 16-year-old. I felt like my parents were separating me from the first person who didn't think I was ugly and weird.

But after a little while and a little work on my self-esteem, I came to realize that they were right to make me end it. He really was kinda skeevy, and it turned out that he had pretty much no direction in life, which just led him down a further spiral of skeeve. He kinda became a slightly more attractive version of those guys on OKCupid who are convinced that they're misunderstood geniuses and girls turn them down because they can't handle Such A Nice Guy. Looking back, I think I dodged a bullet.

These days, I would be willing to date someone older, but I think the fallout of that relationship and some other factors make me a bit wary of a significant age gap.

[singsingsing]

6 hours ago, VixenToast said:

I'm with a 47 year old. I'm 26 :/

Right, you're 26, not 16, and I'm guessing you're not a sheltered fundie maiden.

[unforgiving]

I know a 24 year old who has recently broken up with a 52 year old. The 24 year old is the guy. They were together for over 3 years. 

[VixenToast]

6 hours ago, VixenToast said: I'm with a 47 year old. I'm 26 :/

Right, you're 26, not 16, and I'm guessing you're not a sheltered fundie maiden. [emoji6]

Nope, I'm not. He's my dirty old man I met him because his middle child is my little sister's best friend.

I'm a year and a half older than his oldest lol.

[elliha]

I think the age difference is partly cultural, I don't really have a problem with a 15 year old dating someone in their early twenties, on average. It is on case to case basis, some 15 year olds cannot handle it at all but frankly, a lot of my friends in school dated older boys from 18-25 when they were 15-17 and they were not treated worse by them than by guys their own age. My country has 15 as age of consent and there are no rules on how old the other person can be be if they are also 15 or older. If my own daughter would date an older guy at 15-16 I would meet him first before I said if the relationship was acceptable to me or not. My impression is that the guys who want to date younger girls are more likely to be immature than out to harm the girls and they are actually often on the same level as the girls they date.