gold-digging cradle-robbing gerbil-cougars

What?

So, I was having a conversation with my coworker/ex-tutor yesterday (who was, seriously, on a caffeine high). I've never seen anybody on a caffeine high before, but people always tell me I'm on a constant high on oxygen.(I've mellowed a bit since summer. I think the regular hours of sleep must have helped)
I've never believed them, but now I do.

It's a bit freaky, really, seeing yourself in a twenty-something man a head taller than you.

Anyway, just because my mind never travels straight, and because shit rarely go through my mind before it springs out of my mouth, I accidentally called him a cradle-robber. I mean, it was a joke. Like, one of those things you joke about, but at the same time, really really hope it's not true or else you've just put yourself in an extremely awkward position.
Which I kinda did anyway, but one significantly less awkward than I'd expected.

Anyway, anyway.

He was like, "Would you think less of me if I went out with a high-schooler?"

and I was like, "Hmmmm... no.... hm...."

Actually, it surprised me quite a bit that I would not. In fact, I might even find such a relationship a bit cute.
Then, even more startlingly, I realized that I would definitely think less of an older woman who dates a teenage boy. In fact, I would think that is disgusting. (I'm not talking about two or three years, but like, say, five or more.)

Am I setting another double standard  against my own gender?

I think relationships with giant age gaps, although unconventional, are perfectly acceptable.
My mother and her boyfriend are twelve years apart (he's older, of course), my father is seven years older than his second wife, my cousin -- a high-school freshman -- once dated a college sophomore (that, I did not condone). But then there are the adorable relationships that give you faith in true love. My grandparents are the same age, my father and mother are five months apart (okay, so maybe that wasn't "true love"), my other cousin and his wife met in college.

I've finally come to the conclusion that it all depends on the stage of life the two are in.

First, why I think it's disgusting for an older woman to be with a younger man:

• After a certain age, sex becomes a given in a relationship. (Unless you are from certain very conservative ethnic or religious sectors.) A relationship between an older woman and a teenage boy is a disaster waiting to happen, unless the male is extremely sexually experienced for his age -- which I find disgusting. Teenagers should not be going at it like rabbits, under any conditions. (Unless, it's the fucking end of the world and nobody wants to die a virgin.)
  Can you imagine a young boy with a barely developed pee-wee trying to get off a woman out of college who has probably seem more penises than he has?
• Women mature emotionally and physically faster than boys. A teenage boy, no matter how mature he thinks he is, will have too much emotional baggage to handle for himself, let alone help her unwind.
• Chances are, he'll think of her like his mother.
  Chances are, she'll act too much like a mother.
  Like, seriously? Fucking your mother?
• Women want things. It's a fact, I'm sorry ladies. No matter how low-maintenance you think you are, there will be items that you covet and you'll want somebody else to get them. For the more high-maintenance girls like my best friend, she needs the man to show his love through gifts. And if you fail, she gets pissed. (But the upside for girls like that is they gift back. God, the amount of cash she blows on her boyfriend irritates me.)
  For the more low-maintenance girls like my other best friend (haha, yes, I have more than one), you'll never know. She'll never tell you she wants something, or will try to get it herself. In which case you feel incompetent.
  For teenage girls, you might get by with a CD, a stuffed animal, a trip to the amusement park. For older women, really, are you going to blow your allowance on a Swarovsky necklace or just hand-make her a card? It's the thought that counts, right?

 And after we pass the teenage, it's significantly less disgusting but still unideal. The only age it would be sort of okay is twenty to thirty. After some point, a woman needs to become a mother. And it's cruel and unwise for a young man barely out of or still in his twenties to become a father.

"Oh, baby, stop crying! Do you want your bottle? Diaper change? Oh no, Daddy needs to go watch the Superbowl with his buddies now, please stop crying! You want some beer? Want to play with my textbook? MAKE IT SHUT UP!!"

Yeah, no.
Unless the man already has a career and a job that he can devote the rest of his life to, it just won't work. Perhaps it worked for past generations, but in today's society, people are in school until their late twenties. A baby then is just as bad as a teenage pregnancy. There's also the financial aspect, blah, blah, blah.
Oh, and you cannot knock up a chick without devoting the rest of your life to her, unless you're a humongous douche bag. And I don't think any forty-year-old man can survive life with a menopausal woman.

Now, the younger girl and the older man.
I find this less disgusting mostly because of the girls mature faster thing.

I'm sure my opinions will change a few years from now, but I think the latest age for a woman to have a child is thirty. Seriously, it's unfair to the child for him or her to have to deal with a cranky menopausal mother while s/he attempts to survive through his/her own teenage problems.

Now, it still comes down to the "stages in your life".

If the girl, say, has had sex, made-out, frequents parties, been through shit, et cetera. And is physically and emotionally ready for an adult relationship, then fine.
Or if the man is a complete saint and can abstain himself from any primal human urges until she comes of legal age. Which, honestly, is totally not happening.

Maybe my opinions of sex are skewed by the media, but I think of it as one of those things that, once you take a step in there's no coming back out. I see it like chocolate, drugs, or alcohol. Once you get a taste, you cannot abstain without extreme effort. (Okay, maybe you can abstain from alcohol. Beer tastes terrible.)
So it all comes down to the girl. If she's okay with sipping lemonade while her boyfriend chugs Bud Lite (because, again, you shouldn't kill your liver with alcohol before you even get to college), if she can stand the societal pressure against the relationship, if she can survive the feeling that he, as an adult, wields so much more power than she. Oh, and the fact that he's probably had a million exes. (No matter how big of a slut or how popular you are, a teenage girl can't have that many serious boyfriends.)

And I guess there's the little detail about how sex with a minor is completely illegal.

But, I mean, if a teenage girl is seriously happy with her significantly older boyfriend, then who am I to judge? If it works, it works. If he were pressuring her to do things against her will, that would be a different thing completely.

But what of the majority of teenage girls? Okay, maybe not majority at my age and in this century. But I'm talking about girls like moi who are so naive it's almost not cute anymore.

• I think it's the most amazing thing in the world when a squirrel crosses the road. And, yes, I still scream SQUIRREL!
• I think it's a really big deal to hold a boy's hand. And I still try to "play it cool".
• And I still imagine a magical first kiss before the setting sun, or under a waterfall, or after a very heated argument. (And at this point I'd like to apologize to all ex-boyfriends who I refused to kiss for the aforementioned reason.)
• And I'm still too afraid to hit on anybody.
• And I flinch when I see kids my age grinding on a dance floor.
• And I'm too embarrassed and insecure to go anywhere without at least one friend accompaniment, except the restroom. (But I'm prepping myself for my first solo cafe trip!)
• And I still disrespect authority and think I can do anything. (Totally juvenile.)

I mean, for an adult male to date a girl like me is like dating a ten-year-old.


I'm My Own Grandpa by Ray Stevens. Hilarious song, gives me a headache.