I used to laugh about people being inflammatory about age-gap relationships. It wasn’t that I was the foolish 20-year-old who thought that I really had a future with a 35-year-old: I just hated when people acted silly about perfectly normal age gaps. I dated a 19-year-old sophomore when I was a 22-year-old senior in college, and for some reason, that really made me feel like a creep despite it being literally so normal. 

While hyperbolic age-gap talk is a big trend in Gen Z, there is some truth to the idea that it might be a pretty bad idea to date someone in a totally different stage of life as you. I wouldn’t bat an eye at a 25-year-old dating a 35-year-old, but an 18-year-old dating a 28-year-old (or even someone older than 22) is often cause for alarm. That’s not always the case, but it’s a good rule of thumb that if someone consistently tries to date someone younger than them, it’s probably because people their own age won’t have them.