Enough of criticisms on huge age-gap in relationships

Modern feminists and liberals has effectively demonised huge age-gaps in romantic relationships with buzzwords such as predator and prey, manipulation, gaslighting and all other modern nonsense. Here’s why I don’t appreciate the noise.

I want to know TWO things before I’ll endorse relationships. Two things and two things only. One. Are you both adults? Two. Do you both consent to the relationship? That’s it. That’s all I need to know. Any and all other considerations are yours and yours alone to work out between you.

I’ve taken a stand that’s broadly in line with my ‘none of my business’ approach; I don’t care what people do in their own time as long as it doesn’t interfere with my life. I would prefer people to have excellent and balanced relationships based on respect and trust, but I can’t mandate it — and so I won’t.

Nonetheless, most of the demonisation of men in relationships makes you think either think adult women are not adults, or you think they’re delicate little creatures that need protecting from the vicissitudes of life.

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You can’t have it both ways. The reason you can’t have it both ways, because we’re either in the process of empowering women or disempowering them. We can’t empower people to get things right and then disempower them when they fuck up. You get one or the other, binary choice.

People make shit decisions all the time especially in relationships. I have a list of shit decisions made across my life. Some of those things happened because of my inexperience in making said choices plus a total lack of foresight. Some of those choices involved other people and some of those choices involved the machinations and nefarious actions of other people.

At the end of each messy situation, there should be a moment of recognition of your own part to play in what unfolded. If you conclude at all times you’re the victim of everything and everyone, you haven’t done a full enough analysis of what transpired.

Let me be clear… If you’re an adult looking back at an unhappy time in your life because of a previous relationship with an older partner, you’re absolutely allowed to regret the said relationship. You can absolutely look back and say…. ‘fuck, that was a bad thing we did’ — but the emphasis must be on the words ‘we did’.

Why? Because you are an empowered human and one half of a poor decision-making team. The narrative that has you solely as the victim does you no favours at all.

You might’ve been the inexperienced member of the team, the minor partner, you could’ve been swept away by the sheer excitement of it all and not heeded the warnings given to you by others… Provided you consented and you were an adult, getting into the relationship was one thing and one thing only.

A shit choice.

Now I’m not going to endorse the terrible things people do to each other throughout relationships. People can be, and often are, awful — but someone else’s malevolence does not allow you off the hook of poor decision-making in the first instance. Warning signs were missed. Youth and inexperience can be mitigated by careful attention to your own thought patterns and motivation.

I can appreciate that’s a tough pill for a lot of folks to swallow. A lot of people have jumped in to talk about how they were manipulated and dicked around by others. Particularly those who were older than themselves. This always seems to be where ‘the other person should’ve known better’ and never contains any further analysis.

These people then term such relationships as ‘abusive’ or ‘imbalanced’. I draw the line. It’s not abusive by virtue of its existence. Two adults getting into a mutually consensual relationship is not ‘abusive’. It has the potential to become so certainly—meaning younger adults must factor their inexperience into their thinking before they make a choice. When in doubt, seek advice.