Here's a truly alarming trend I had not known about ...

[eppur_se_muova]

... and findings from one 2011 study suggested that the number of women married or cohabiting with a man five years or younger had almost tripled since the 1970s.

from a BBC article, which maybe could have used a little more blue pencil: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220317-age-gaps-the-relationship-taboo-that-wont-die

[hlthe2b]

1. Editors seem to be a dying breed...

just at a time when fewer and fewer people leave primary school (or even college) with the ability to write well. Such examples are initially humorous but signal a real long-term problem.

[highplainsdem]

5. Copy editing pays very little, especially compared to the cost of living in media hubs like

London and New York. And, sadly, a lot of people think spellcheckers can substitute. If they even use those.

[Emile]

2. I guess we are old fashion. I am 1 & 1/2 years older

than my wife.

[niyad]

4. The way it is written implies that the male is five years old or younger.

[lark]

3. I am 9 years older than my husband - but we've been married 34 years.

Maybe we started the trend?

[niyad]

6. see post 4.

[highplainsdem]

7. Have dated both men old enough to be my father (when I was younger) and men who

hadn't started school yet when I was in college. Really don't care much about age. What matters more: empathy, intelligence, sense of humor, talent/creativity, health, looks.

Was going to add "politics" but I have gone out with conservatives, if they were interesting/appealing enough otherwise. Would never be able to live with one, though.

[wnylib]

16. I went out with a younger guy once.

It was awful. My downstairs neighbor had joined a dating website. She was not interested in this guy who kept contacting her so she asked if I was interested. He was 25. I was 36. I thought it would be fun, a lark.

But it wasn't. Totally different interests in life, mostly due to age. Except for that one time, I have always dated guys who were my age or a couple years older.

[highplainsdem]

17. The age difference with younger guys can be awkward. I've never been a cougar,

never deliberately went after younger guys, but I look younger than my age and they'd assume I was their age or close, maybe younger. I'd hope they were older than they looked, as I was. Always felt that both men and women should try to stay as healthy as possible, stay in shape, and try to look as young as possible as long as possible.

So when I met one of those younger men at a university library and we chatted a bit and he asked me out within minutes of meeting, I told myself he was just a young-looking teacher, or at least a grad student. I wanted to believe he wasn't too young for me. He was beautiful. From Kentucky, with a very soft Southern accent. Reminded me a lot of a young B.J. Thomas, a little of a young Elvis. Probably about 6'3", which I thought was great because I'm tall.

So we went out, to a bar that was playing classic rock. I remember they were playing the Box Tops song "The Letter" and I told him how much I'd always loved it. He told me he'd never heard it before. That's when I finally asked him how old he was, and discovered that the only reason he'd been able to get into the bar was that the legal age for drinking hadn't been raised to 21 yet.

He didn't seem bothered by the age difference. I was. Ended up having one of those angel/devil dialogues in my head.

He's too young!

But he's beautiful!

Back when you were first hanging out on campus on Saturdays, wearing enough makeup to look older and telling people you were a junior - and leaving out that it was "junior in high school" - so you could meet college guys, he would have been just a few years old.

LOOK at him!

Some of the older guys you used to date are probably older than his dad.

Doesn't matter.

You have almost nothing in common. Very little to talk about.

Can't we worry about that tomorrow?

You KNOW there's too much of an age difference,

The age difference never bothered the older guys I went out with.

True, but you also thought they'd be pathetic if they were interested only in much-younger women. You wouldn't want people thinking you're interested in him only for his young bod.

Every sane, straight woman I know would understand.

You think you can talk to him about politics?

Well...

Music? He was still wearing diapers when the Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show.

He might like some good music.

You probably wouldn't even want to know who his favorite singer is. He might love disco.

But LOOK at him...

And so on. I did talk myself out of any involvement and another date. I was raised Catholic, and though I left the church in my late teens, I can still do guilt and self-questioning really well. Too well.

But it wasn't the last time I went out with a much younger guy. I probably should have asked how old they were, but that can be an awkward question. A lot of guys would take that as suggesting they're immature. And some might lie about their age. I remember one guy who told me he was 25 (I can't remember whether I had actually asked about his age, or if he'd mentioned it for another reason) and admitted later he was 22, but he thought I was about 22 and he'd wanted me to think he was an older man, so he'd added a few years to his age. Sigh.

[Earth-shine]

8. My wife is 16 years older than I. Been married about 8 years. We're still in love.

[Mr.Bill]

9. My wife is three years older than me. We've been married 27 years.

we didn't even meet until she was 40.

Because she skipped a grade in elementary school, when I was a freshman in high school, she was a senior. And isn't it every freshman boy's dream to hook up with a senior?

[niyad]

10. This thread cracks me up.

[highplainsdem]

11. Just because the article says "five years or younger" when what was clearly meant was

"five years or more younger"? We are ALL so used to seeing badly written sentences, especially online, that people are responding to the overall point of the article, not just that one dumb sentence.

[niyad]

12. Because I took it to mean that the poster was "alarmed" about the sentence

as written. Tongue-in-cheek, anyone?? sheeeeesh.

[highplainsdem]

14. I saw both that - and responded to the lack of editing in my first post here - and the

discussion of age differences, the subject of the article linked to.

Maybe if the OP hadn't linked to the article, which people obviously went to, and just quoted those few words, it would have narrowed the responses down.

But discussion threads tend to take off in any relevant direction, and the link made the discussion of DUers' own relationships pertinent.

I suppose people could try to rein in (or rule out) anything but one particular type of response to what they post, but good luck with that...

[eppur_se_muova]

13. One missing word can make a big

[highplainsdem]

15. But people will just fill that word .... as they read.

The same way people can, most of the time, look at words with scrambled spelling and read the correct wrod.

We're all much more used to that sort of thing these days than we were before we saw so much text online.

[malthaussen]

18. Moi aussi.

But perhaps it disproves the contention that better copy editing is needed, since most of the people saw no error, and those who did knew what was meant anyway. The error did not, in this case, impede the message.

-- Mal

[highplainsdem]

19. I would like to see better copy editing for anything professionally published. I don't think

all the mistakes are a good thing, and I cringe all too often at mistakes I've seen in TV news chyrons.

But we have become used to them.

I've sometimes posted tweets from people I admire who are very highly educated, but who do make mistakes writing fast on Twitter. Occasionally I'll correct those mistakes when I'm quoting the tweet in the thread title. But I do expect people reading the tweet itself to overlook the minor mistakes and focus on the message instead.

[malthaussen]

20. Since no one uses "(sic)" anymore...

... or if they do, it is seemingly to be insulting, it does present a problem. And typos are with us always.

-- Mal