I feel conflicted because I felt like I was very competent as a male at age 18 to make that choice with any female I choose to date regardless of age (legally of course always) and regardless of age gap. I would also chose a small age gap - but if a guy wanted to date a cougar I have no problem with that either as long as the male is 18+ and its legal in that country.
I see females state they are more mature at 18/19 than males who are 18/19 are (I myself dont believe this is true or see any evidence for this - rather I think both genders are emotionally mature at equal rates each age - unless someone can site strong evidence othwrwise). So they say this to justify dating older men +3-10 years older often and reject males their own age while younger.
Then when they are older when men no longer want to date girls their same age most times and prefer to date slightly younger on avg (based on the maturity argument this actually should line up well mathematically if the maturity argument girls use when younger is true) - as they can always continue to chose to date older anyways - but the same girls when older often shame males for this - and state that until a girl is 25+ she is not emotionally responsible enough to make her own choices with dating or who she can/cannot chose to have sex for herself.
This seems like a bit of a double standard, is it not? Or am I looking at it differently and maybe I'm just missing something. Curious to hear what people feel about this, or what age should be most suitable for everyone to truly make their own choices without double standards.
As always please keep all comments respectful of the other's lived experiences.
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