The Rate of Growth
When finding individuals to date or marry, people usually try to find someone their own age. I know, I know, there are all of those trophy wives and people with fetishes, but I’m talking about 95% of society. When you ask people how much older or younger someone is willing to do go, their answer depends on their age. Rarely is a 17-year-old high school senior willing to date a 14-year-old high school freshman. At the same time, no one would care if an 85-year-old married a 70-year-old.
Why this there an opening up to age differences as one grows older? Some would claim that the difference between older people is smaller than the difference between younger people. Inherent in this claim is the idea that human maturity and experience has logarithmic growth. People seem to believe that a younger people change more rapidly than older people. On a physical level this may be true, but I don’t necessarily believe personality is affected like this.
My greatest period of personal change probably happened between 22 and 24. During this period, I gained a completely new outlook of life, the world and my place in it. During high school, on the other hand, I was pretty much the same person through the four years gaining only knowledge, confidence and a disillusionment with women. What was the difference? Experience. When I was 22, I moved to China and changed nearly every aspect of my life. Something new happened to me every day. High school was fairly routine- I did my homework, played sports, watched TV and hung out with friends.
Now there is a correlation that exists with most people regarding age and new experiences. Older people tend to be boring stick-in-muds that have lost the desire to try new things (not all, but most). Still, through time they’ve picked up more experience that the annoying immature young. The younger tend to be more open, though again, there are boring mother-fuckers out there. This may be why people search out age as correlating feature of maturity, but ease the rules as time goes on since people “levels out” with experiences. So, in the end, this whole tendency to date someone your own age has everything to do with experiences and little to do with biology.
This does not bode well for the interesting. They are trapped finding people their age immature and boring, yet are not socially able to date up in age too much. Additionally, the more new experiences one goes through, the less people there will be do date. More and more people will seem immature and passé. I suppose if one really wants to find company in this world, the best thing to do is to stop doing interesting things. Yes, the path to maximizing the members of the opposite sex that match you is to become as boring as the bulk of them. Get a job, a mortgage, start watching the Apprentice and let love making begin.
Why this there an opening up to age differences as one grows older? Some would claim that the difference between older people is smaller than the difference between younger people. Inherent in this claim is the idea that human maturity and experience has logarithmic growth. People seem to believe that a younger people change more rapidly than older people. On a physical level this may be true, but I don’t necessarily believe personality is affected like this.
My greatest period of personal change probably happened between 22 and 24. During this period, I gained a completely new outlook of life, the world and my place in it. During high school, on the other hand, I was pretty much the same person through the four years gaining only knowledge, confidence and a disillusionment with women. What was the difference? Experience. When I was 22, I moved to China and changed nearly every aspect of my life. Something new happened to me every day. High school was fairly routine- I did my homework, played sports, watched TV and hung out with friends.
Now there is a correlation that exists with most people regarding age and new experiences. Older people tend to be boring stick-in-muds that have lost the desire to try new things (not all, but most). Still, through time they’ve picked up more experience that the annoying immature young. The younger tend to be more open, though again, there are boring mother-fuckers out there. This may be why people search out age as correlating feature of maturity, but ease the rules as time goes on since people “levels out” with experiences. So, in the end, this whole tendency to date someone your own age has everything to do with experiences and little to do with biology.
This does not bode well for the interesting. They are trapped finding people their age immature and boring, yet are not socially able to date up in age too much. Additionally, the more new experiences one goes through, the less people there will be do date. More and more people will seem immature and passé. I suppose if one really wants to find company in this world, the best thing to do is to stop doing interesting things. Yes, the path to maximizing the members of the opposite sex that match you is to become as boring as the bulk of them. Get a job, a mortgage, start watching the Apprentice and let love making begin.
posted by American Dilettante at
5:30 PM
2 Comments:
Indeed, I think this proves that it's best to join the 5% and get a nice healthy fetish! Perhaps the best one to get is a love for older women, so that then one can become more and more interesting and then really come into their own with the ladies late in life, and while most may find them dull, you'll find these fine dames fascinating. Forget peaking at 18, we should shoot for peaking at around 56!
By
DaveS, at 2:36 PM
i think most of us seek out people our age to marry/date because of the relativity factor. we're repelled by older men/women because they remind us of our parents, and younger men/women because they remind us of our younger siblings or the little kids we used to tutor.
By
Clever Hans, at 1:38 PM
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