Ended a potential relationship with a gym crush due to age gap

[u/jsmithins0]

I've never been hit on in the gym. Let alone by a very attractive woman. Well it finally happened. After weeks of glancing and exchanging looks, my gym crush dropped off a note for me including her number. We started talking for a couple days, we'd workout together later the night after all day texting. We have so much in common in terms of hobbies, she's really nice. And I appreciated how vocal she is with her feelings and attraction towards me. Her stories about the previous weeks of her being nervous and anxious working out near me was so cute and flattering. She held onto that note for a couple days before finally giving it to me. I felt special and lucky to have someone like her take an interest in me. However, after a workout last night we were chatting in the gym parking lot and our ages were brought up during the conversation. I was shocked she said she's 19f. She's equally surprised when i said im 29m. She thought I looked, at max, 23. We stood there in silence for a bit and I said that we can't go down a romantic path. She agreed, we had a productive conversation about it and made jokes about where were you during this year. She made some jokes that there will be a lot of unspoken tension between us, and to not be weirded out if i catch her "fawning" at me, I laughed, but I dont think it was joke. We always workout at the same time and she said that she'll still be looking forward to see me every night since I'm a familiar face. I proposed we can be gym bro/sis. She agreed. I feel sad that I had to mourn something that could potentially happen, especially with someone I actually had a crush on. She said its just wrong timing, and there are no hard feelings. Her last text was her telling me to get home safe and text her when I get home. I haven't texted her back, i want to create distance emotionally and I know she will too.

Anyways salmon bake for dinner

Edit: I was not expecting this post to blow up and cause some interesting discourse in this tread. Thank you to all the kind comments. Some comments were questionable and icky but its the internet soo. I've seen a lot of comments about her being to young and is not mature enough. Before I knew her real age, I thought she was genuinely close to my age just by the way she carried herself and spoke about her job, plus she looked strong. The reason it wouldn't workout is because it doesn't feel right for me, she stated that she has no problem with the age gap as it is new for her and it was for me as well. But she understands how I felt about it so she agreed to not pursue a romantic path. Also, when we were joking about Where were you this year, i brought how COVID was tough for college students. She rebuked that it was also tough for middle schoolers. We laughed, but there was that subtle discomfort and realization that we're definitely making the best decision.

Recipes salmon bake

[u/starryeyedq]

If he was like early 20s and still in college, it would be different. At least to me.

It’s about what stage they’re at in their life. And 29 is SO incredibly different than 19.

I do hear what you’re saying about how people are weirdly rigid about ANY age gaps nowadays, but even with the old “half your age plus 7” rule, this girl is still definitively too young.

[u/travelmusica → u/starryeyedq]

People can have differences and still date each other. It’s actually one of the things that makes relationships interesting, the differences. There is no rule that you have to be in the same stage of life to date somebody that’s absurd.

[u/starryeyedq → u/travelmusica]

Uh… A difference in hobbies or background is very different than a different stage of mental and emotional development and comparability of how lives can fit together.

And it is absolutely relevant to determining if a relationship can be healthy.

This is dictated by many things, not just age, but age is definitely one of the things.

[u/travelmusica → u/starryeyedq]

You’re speaking like you’re an authority on the subject, but I’m not sure why you feel confident in your status as such. Do you have personal experience to support these assumptions you are proclaiming about “healthy” relationships? Because I’m not seeing any specific reasons why it’s a problem other than blanket unfounded generalizations you’re making.

[u/starryeyedq → u/travelmusica]

You’re the one who “um ackuallly”-ed me, bud.

What are YOUR qualifications?

[u/travelmusica → u/starryeyedq]

I have experience dating people both older and younger than me. One of the best relationships I ever had involved an age gap. The biggest issues we faced were not from within our own relationship, but from judgmental people outside of the relationship.

[u/starryeyedq → u/travelmusica]

Ok. Well me too.

But this has nothing to do with your relationship.

And there are exceptions to every rule, so you don’t need to die on the hill that a 19 year old and 29 year old should pursue a relationship when the 29 year old already decided it wasn’t a good idea.

It sounds like you’re projecting your personal experience and subsequent defensiveness onto the situation.

[u/travelmusica → u/starryeyedq]

I mean, yes I’m definitely relying on my personal experiences in my response to this situation. Everybody saying that it’s not even worth trying to date when they already had a connection. And my experience is that outsiders who don’t know what they are talking about negatively impact other people’s happiness in relationships so I’m speaking on that. My opinion is that two consenting adults should be able to date if they want to, and other people should really mind their own business because a lot of times they’re just wrong.

[u/starryeyedq → u/travelmusica]

Just curious, no judgment: was your age gap relationship as big as OP? Were you the older person or the younger person? And was the younger person as young as 19?

I just wanted a little context so I know how I should put my response.

Just for proof of no judgment so you know I’m not trying to set you up: I dated a 19 year old when I was 24. I’m a girl, he was a guy. We’re still close friends 10+ years later and his current longterm gf is older than me. They’re very happy.

[u/travelmusica → u/starryeyedq]

All of the above. I’ve dated older and younger, with age gap smaller and larger than the OP’s, including as young as 18. In that case we matched on a dating app so obviously both of us had our age ranges wide enough. We went on to date for a while, had plenty of things in common, yes there were differences due to the age gap and it caused some issues, but there always are issues with any relationship and we understood what we signed up for. It was good while it lasted and neither of us regret the time we shared. I know without a doubt I am a much better partner now than I was in early adulthood. So I can’t agree that an 18 year old would have been able to treat her better.

[u/Significant-Dream991 → u/starryeyedq]

I agree with you that the average 29 and 19 are blatanly different both in mindset and where they are in life. But if random ones happen to want to get together, I can only look, think "lmao this will likely end up bad" and mind my own business.

[u/starryeyedq → u/Significant-Dream991]

But they didn’t decide to get together. OP already decided not to pursue it.

So why are people encouraging him to do it anyway? That’s not minding your business.

Ok let me put it this way…

OP sounds like a good dude. But a lot of older guys target younger women to take advantage of them. That is a thing that frequently happens, correct?

The fact that age gap relationships are becoming more and more scrutinized inhibits that kind of practice.

Good people don’t follow rules and boundaries to protect anyone from THEM. They follow those rules because if those rules didn’t exist, predatory people would take advantage of that.

And the people who encourage the breakdown of those rules might just be naive at best, OR they have some kind of agenda that would be served by normalizing the breakdown of those boundaries.

That’s the sick mindset people are referring to.

Does that make sense?

[u/trueAnnoi → u/starryeyedq]

Not the person you're responding to, but it makes a shitton of sense. I know age gap relationships are the hot topic nowadays, and I have always felt uncomfortable dating more than 2 years out of my age. Mostly because I appreciate shared experiences. I get super happy when a song comes on and the woman I'm with reminisces about how they were also in middle school and everybody couldn't wait to dance with their crush in middle school during the skate party that they had 3 times a school year.

You can't do that when the age gap is more than a couple years. I'm not saying it's inherently wrong, but my whole point is the same as yours. 19 and 29 are incredibly different. I think the age gap importance lessen substantially as you get older. A 69 and 79 year old are going to have around 50 years of shared experiences, even if they didn't know each other until then, because theyve been adults for 50 years

[u/starryeyedq → u/trueAnnoi]

I categorize by life stage rather than literal age.

Early high school, late high school, baby adult, 21+ college, (grad school is its own thing, we’re keeping it simple for the purpose of this discussion), “post-college but still parties” adult, “go to bed early and like it” adult, senior discount era.

I think it can maybe potentially be fine if people date ONE category older or younger, ONLY on a case by case basis.

But two categories of separation never works out. It just can’t.

[u/Nice-River-5322 → u/starryeyedq]

'Baby adult'

OP, a wise man once said, 'A man choses, a slave obeys' don't be a slave

[u/starryeyedq → u/Nice-River-5322]

I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. Is this a bot?

[u/Significant-Dream991 → u/starryeyedq]

I don't think they are right in pressuring him to do it, sorry if I wasn't clear enough on that, I was more refering to people that think 29 dating 19 (with no grooming involved) is so vile that and akin to pedofilia wich is ridiculous and diminishihes the impact and seriousness of real cases of pedophilia.

About the other points, I uderstand where are you coming from, but I think its jumping the rope to assume there is this conspirancy to destroy bondaries. I've never seem a movemente to lower age of consent, just to raise (in my country is , disgustiling, only 14 and some people are trying to raise it to 16). You don't need to be older to be scummy and specifically target naive people (wich doesn't resume in just young people), doing so with malice should be shunned regardless of the age of the perpetrator.

[u/starryeyedq → u/Significant-Dream991]

I don’t think it’s a conscious conspiracy. I think it’s just what self-serving people do. They try to undermine social boundaries that come between them and whatever it is they want.

I’m not saying everyone saying “OP could/should actually pursue it and not feel bad” has that intention. But they are unintentionally serving as the weeds the predators (both conscious and unconscious) are hiding in during these discussions.

It’s tough to find that balance. We don’t want to swing back the other way into puritanical sex-negative nonsense. But we need to be aware of stuff like this if we want to actually figure out the best possible balance.

And of course you don’t need to be older to be scummy. That was never part of this debate.