Navigating an age gap relationship – Gen X to Gen Z, and everything in between
Woody Wenman-Hyde writes about the highs and lows of his past relationship with an older man.
Credits: Matteo Vistocco via Unsplash
Recently, I ended a relationship with a man who was 19 years my senior. Almost two decades and nearly double my age. He is from Gen X and I am from Gen Z, two groups practically targeted against each other by society.
If Gen Z are as millennial-hating as the media portrays, how does that apply to individuals further back on the timeline?
For ten months, I grappled with this question. In between constant hand holds, tender kisses, giggling under the sheets and family gatherings.
So often the concept of being with an older man is a taboo subject. Especially when I am the (urban) dictionary definition of a twink and his greying beard forces him into the daddy tribe. For me, it never felt taboo or rebellious or rule-breaking. For me, I felt an all-consuming love. A perfectly valid one.
Homosexual age-gap relationships are under constant fetishisation from cinema and gay pornography. Frequently our conversations and experiences fell victim to the ‘father-son’ trope, which is either the joke of the story or the kink.
The term ‘twink’ was the most popular category on PornHub in 2023, and a quick Google will showcase other porn studios titled ‘My First Daddy’ and ‘Fun Size Boys’. Both sites highlight age-gap themed videos and many infantilise the younger looking men as lesser than their older counterpart.
Characters Oliver and Elio in Call Me By Your Name are frequently scrutinised for their seven-year age gap - a number much smaller than the one I dealt with and mine was much smaller than some others.
Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black are similarly 20 years apart, whereas lesbian couple Sarah Paulson and Holland Taylor are 32 years apart. With each year seems to come more differences, through life experiences, common interests and pop-culture references.
I think back to sitting in the plush seats of a theatre auditorium, ready for a showing of The SpongeBob SquarePants Musical. He was unaware of any character or plotline and unprepared to laugh at any of the pre-existing jokes. He was completely blind to a show that most of my generation grew up with. It was after his time.
These were, by no means, the catalyst for the end. Like any other relationship, our differences got the better of us. Our desires and beliefs were suddenly absolutely paramount to our individual characters and I struggled to negotiate.
Young is paired with free, and that is what I want to be. Not stuck inside a bubble of commitment and responsibility. Inside, I feel the need to run away whenever necessary. I want no ties keeping me shackled. Entering your forties, the world has different expectations. Whether it be career stability or settling down and starting a family. I was not ready for that and no matter how much he claimed, he couldn’t escape it.
Sat with my mum, he was closer to her age than mine, although it never felt uncomfortable. We laughed on the floor and played with my nephew, helped my nan off her mobility scooter and snuck ass grabs when no one was looking.
We were never out of place and were never made to feel like it. He shared some uncomfortable political views with my father, but otherwise was a perfect extension of me. Someone that I was proud to share with my family and friends.
It wasn’t always like that, especially in the beginning. The shame of age gaps caught us in a web of lies to both of our families. I was introduced to his mother while pretending to be six years older and I refused to show photos of his face to mine.
Instead, my family saw nothing but his bare back walking back from the beach after our first date. His sun-kissed shoulder blades and strands of sea-sodden hair sprouting upwards. My mum would agree that the photo was undoubtedly sexy.
His age remained a mysterious 25 when speaking to my family about him. The same age he used when speaking about me. His family were not surprised; it turns out his previous relationship was also much younger and lasted much longer.
My friends knew about my unwavering attraction to older men, having frequently come home from the house of someone who could technically be my father in the middle of the night. I did not find pleasure in the fact we were both slotting into each other’s types and sometimes I felt as though I was sinking into it more and more. A patch of quicksand that began to consume me.
Why do I have an attraction to older men and why does he seem to seek out younger men? In the past, I enjoyed their maturity and ability to take care of me. Not with money or intelligence but something that I cannot put my finger on. I shave my facial hair following the directions of one older situationship and still hope to meet him again one day. Show him where I am now with more years to my name, more time.
Neither of us have the healthiest relationship with our own dads. I am naïve to say that this has not had an effect on my behaviour, but do not have any evidence to completely negate the claim.
His upbringing was always slightly mysterious to me; I met his mum but never his dad. He didn’t speak highly of him and didn’t give specifics freely, it was not my place to pry. Does he, through some twisted and greatly contorted outlook, wish to be better than his own dad? If he doesn’t have his own child, how will he prove this? Through me?
Having come out of the relationship, I am trying my best to break from this behaviour. What’s wrong with people my age? People who were my peers in university and are sharing the same experiences at the same time? I had a relationship with someone in my school year before him. Currently I am not seeking a partner, but in the future I will no doubt try it out with someone my age again.
I never gave him the credit of being older and, therefore, wiser and never will. Wisdom is specific to the moment and when push came to shove, it often felt as though being younger was wiser.
None of this affected our day-to-day and only comes retrospectively. Our day-to-day was most frequently vivid with affection. His loud grin peered through my kitchen window while I prepared dinner or gripped his knee as we sang along on road trips. His constant acts of goofiness became commonplace in our friendship circle and we danced through the streets as though we were living a Hollywood fantasy. So often, we were the only characters necessary. Everything that was not hidden in the spit between our lips was secondary.
We would lay on beaches after he ran back in to find me a soggy stone from the ocean floor and lay in each other’s beds sharing sultry looks and caresses. Impossibly attracted to each other and so frequently thrilled to share our company. Eventually, this feeling began to slip away. One of us made it through the train doors and the other one stood, stuck on the platform. We began to move at different speeds, in different directions.
The age gap was never the reason for the end and still is not. It feels like a quirk of what we had, something that made the time we spent together so intense but also made it unattainable. Maybe not for everyone, but for me. Like relationships which are separated by days or months, our personalities could not complement each other forever. Eventually, we became catty and distant and unresponsive. The relationship was long distance, not in miles but in time.
Ten months of constant learning and compromise. We have both become altered by each other’s age, in significant and insignificant ways. In some ways, I feel less defined by the year I was born, although still run back to it for answers on who I am. I have had a taste of something before me and have become seasoned by it.
Our relationship never revolved around our age gap in the beginning or the end, and at no point do I wish either of us entered the delivery room at the same time. Our love spanned generations. Gen X to Gen Z and everything in between.