Do you have a minimum or maximum age requirement or age preference for dating partners or casual hookups? Would this preference change if you are considering a serious relationship or if you’d want this person as your life partner?

We are asking because one of our Adam4Adam blog readers wants to hear what you think about the matter. We did a little digging and Psychology Today says there’s a mathematical equation for finding out the “minimum and maximum socially acceptable age of anyone you want to date.” 

It’s the first time I’ve heard of this “age rule” but the article says that the minimum is half of your age plus seven. To get the maximum age on the other hand, you’ll have to subtract seven from your age and then double the number you’ll get. This means that if you are for example, 36 years old, simply divide that number by two and then add seven; according to the aforementioned equation, you’ll get 25 at the minimum and 58 at the maximum. They added that with this equation, someone who is 24 years old can “feel free to be with anyone who is at least 19 (12 + 7) but not someone who is 18.”

Do people follow this “rule?” Maybe, maybe not; what we do know for certain is that there are gay couples who have huge age differences between them but they went ahead and got married anyway. We all, of course, have heard about Tom Daley who married Dustin Lance Black; the couple has a 20-year age gap between them. Then, there’s British actor Stephen Fry and his husband Elliot Spencer who is 30 years his junior, and the late Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wofford who married Matthew Charlton—a man 50 years his junior. 

My personal take is this: are both parties adults, of legal age? If so, granted the two of you are both willing, why not give that relationship a try? Life is, after all, too short for us to care about what other people—most of whom we don’t know and don’t even know us—think. But that’s just me; what do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.

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