Numbers, Relationships, Social Pressures

Me & some friends were having a rather interesting discussion about the age that we would prefer our partner to be and the differing views between men & women.

We were analysing why a woman would rather not date a younger man and also how the acceptability trend in terms of number of years is affected while you age. Somehow, men tend to be more open to younger girls as they grow older, i.e. the limit of no. of years younger increases. While women it's the other way round. There was some explanation that maybe for guys, the age of the ideal girl stays the same, hence the increasing of years younger. For women, we tend to prefer guys who are more matured, and 1 friend suggested that a guy who is older is able understand women better as they can relate better to us as they have gone through a certain phase in life as well.

Of course, the inevitable question of how old & how young will we accept in a relationship came up. After some consideration, I think for "older", it would be up to 7 years (used to be 5 years though). For younger, last time, I used to thing "never" but now, I think as long as not more than a year younger/same age is slightly more acceptable, but also depending on whether the guy is matured enough.

Hmm...all these numbers thing seem like a social pressure which has built itself into a psychological barrier because in our society, it is more acceptable when the guy is older than the girl.