Hey guys. Throwaway here. I’m 24F, he’s 41M.
I started seeing this guy about two months ago and he just broke up with me through text and I feel weirdly torn up about it, given how short it was. He took me to a lot of really nice restaurants, and propositioned sex after each date. (These were not the reasons I liked him but I felt they were relevant to include because it might help you guys understand the situation better). I said yes usually, and on the occasions I turned it down, he accepted it gracefully. However, that aspect of our relationship escalated almost immediately.
Earlier today he sent me a text telling me that our age difference was too much for him to feasibly feel comfortable with. I said okay, but I feel like that might be an excuse because he knew I was 24 when we started our situation. I asked him if he felt respected and valued during our time together, or if he felt like I was too sexually pushy. He replied that he did feel valued and respected, and that he wished I were *more* sexually pushy. I just feel really stupid and like I must have done something wrong but don’t want to pester him further. I just feel sad.
TL; DR-41 year old love interest broke up with 24 year old me after very physical relationship, saying I was too young. I don’t know if I did anything wrong.
10 comments
If he posted this half /r/relationships would probably be judging the hell out of him so it’s understandable that he feels uncomfortable with the age difference regardless if the issues are real or imagined.
I’m rather curious why you think you did something wrong when he’s the one who is so emotionally immature that he had to date a woman young enough to be his daughter.
If I had to guess, I would say he either spoke to his friends/family about you and they thought he shouldn’t be dating someone your age OR his fantasy of a girl in his 20s was unrealistic and seeing you were a normal person and not someone out of a porno wasn’t what he wanted.
Both situations you did nothing wrong. It may if been he just felt you weren’t compatible and that’s OK too!
I don’t understand.. maybe he just realized the age difference was too much.
You did nothing wrong. You two were not compatible. His reason may or may not be the true reason. Ultimately it does not matter.
You may feel torn up about it because you experienced mixed signals from him. His words and behavior were not in alignment. Plus it may be that having sex caused you to feel more emotionally attached during that short period of time.
Hopefully, you can move past this quickly. I view all relationships as opportunities to learn more about ourselves, what we want, what our values are, and how to better discern the other person’s behavior.
You are young and you are missing a piece of the puzzle. Here is the puzzle piece that you are missing.
People normally go out with other people who are their own age. Normally you would find people to go out with who are about your age and normally he would find people to go out with who are about his age. But, when you get to be that age and you start dating people who are younger, it’s because that is all that you have *left.* in other words, the women who actually are his age take one good look at him and go **running** away. When you found him, he was single, and there was a damn good reason why. You just didn’t know what that reason was. You are starting to see the tip of that iceberg.
Stated another way, He didn’t date you because you could, he dated you because that’s all that is left for him in the dating pool. That’s a big red flag. That’s one of the reasons that people so much different in age than you can be a big red flag.
You have only seen him a little bit but already you are starting to begin to see the other red flags. Like being so very hung up on sex and how you do or don’t initiate it.
Things unfolded here a million miles an hour because that’s how his age generation works, it doesn’t take a lot of dates to sniff out who someone is and what type of person that they are and how long it takes to detect that they are incompatible.
And the reason that he gave you to break up had to do with pillow talk *before* sex. Hahaha. Aha hahaha HAHAHA. 🤣
Yes, there are some things that are wrong and you are only beginning to scrape the very tip of the iceberg.
Girl, he didn’t break up with you.
** you dodged a bullet is what happened.**
Being a guy in his early 40s. I can see it. 24 is old enough to be considered a full adult ,I say that because I would consider a 21 year old to be considerably immature still, and no way I would want to deal with that immaturity. A 24 year old can be expected to be extremely attractive,sexual and considerably more mature.what guy wouldn’t like that? so of course he would want to go out with you and see where it goes.
But being my age, i can also see how a woman that young could get annoying.The attention required would be large, at my age I feel most guys prefer quiet, chill time. Not, lets go here, there, call me earlier, now, later, tonight, dealing with all your friends, why aren’t you texting back 10 times a day etc.
In short you did nothing wrong. But maybe he realized he just doesn’t want to spend the energy required for a younger woman. I don’t mean sexually all men have a separate energy tank for that, i mean the other kind of energy, personal attention, going out etc. Also your likes, dislikes maybe have been something he doesn’t want to deal with.Guys like me who grew up in the early 90s are almost a completely different breed from guys who are in their early 20s right now.
Also maybe he realized what you will want, and some of us don’t want to go thru that again. I know if i divorced there is no way I would get with any woman wanting a family. Been there done that, I’ll pass. But there are some guys out there that are willing/wanting that round 2.
Why do you want to date someone old enough to be your dad?
gag
Knowing your age as a fact and knowing what it will mean in terms of your experience or what it’s like to hang out with you are different things. He gave you a try and after a few weeks decided it wasn’t for him. That doesn’t mean either of you did anything wrong.
Don’t worry about it too much, just respect that you aren’t a good fit for him. Keep looking for someone who is excited to be with you. It’s not worth interrogating someone over their reasons for not wanting to go on another date. If they say it doesn’t seem like a good match, whether they give a reason or not, the appropriate thing to do is say ‘ok, I enjoyed meeting you and wish you all the best out there’ and let it drop.
This happened with me once. I was 20 and he was 30, he broke things off with me because of the age difference but I didn’t understand because he knew how old I was when we started dating. He told me later that he was freaking out about getting older and a lot of his friends had started settling down etc.. He knew I wasn’t ready for that life.
‘more *sexually pushy’* sounds like a red flag though, he probably had this idea in his head about dating a 24 year old, trying to fulfil some unrealistic fantasy. You dodged a bullet.