i also think a lot of people dont conextualize age gaps. Not only is 18 and 25 a lot of years, but also an 18 year old, in their mental and emotional state is by far so much less mature and just in a different place in their life than the 25 year old. I dont want to imagine myself as a 25 year old comfortable dating/having sex w an 18yo. Even now, as a 20 year old, I look back at when I was 18 and see so so so so many differences from my 18 year old self and would never date someone who's 18.

ah, yes exactly! i mean i don’t judge people who have big age gaps in their relationship (i just heard one of my acquaintances is 23 and is in a relationship with a 33 year old), i mean you do you, but like you said, with age comes different states of mind. it also comes with wants! a person who’s 25 and a grad student, for example, will have different wants from a person who’s 18 and is just finishing high school. it’s like monica and richard’s problem in friends–she wants kids, he already finished raising his kids. their goals in life are different and if they’re really young (say, 18 and just out of high school and 25 and in grad school) it could potentially be traumatizing for the 18 year old :-(

and yes exactly! i mean i like to think i’m not much different from when i was 18 (i just got a lot skinnier) but, who am i kidding, if i actively sat down and thought about it i would probably easily see that my priorities didn’t lie in the same place. i mean, i’m 21 (turning 22 on friday) and i’m pretty sure a guy who’s 19 has been trying to date me or at least hook up with me since january, but like, everytime i just think of him as….a baby. it’s not even a big age gap but god, idk. some people think it’s cute that someone is much younger than someone else, but even for fiction and written text, it truly bothers me.