Kia ora,<\/p>\n
Earlier this year I started seeing someone older than me \u2013 I\u2019m 21 and she\u2019s 29. We met online on a forum and got together when I went out to visit her (I initiated everything), and it\u2019s been the most fulfilling relationship I\u2019ve ever had. She\u2019s witty and clever and funny and hot and adores me and I\u2019m drastically in love with her. She has a long-term partner, which kind of takes the load off for me. All the life plans she needs to make are being made with them, so I just kind of get to hang on, which is exactly what I want. <\/p>\n
Every relationship I\u2019ve had with someone precisely my age has disintegrated, because people in their very early 20s are, huge surprise, bad at dating and bad at sex (including me, I\u2019m sure!). Recently I\u2019ve given up on seeing anyone else. I\u2019m not better than anyone, nor do I think I am, I just don\u2019t want to be dealing with huge drama in my dating\/sex life. It\u2019s refreshing to be dating someone who\u2019s put together, who knows what she wants and can articulate it!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the rub: I\u2019m planning to apply to grad school at the same school (different department) my girlfriend attends. It\u2019s the best school in the country for my particular niche, and I have a pretty good shot at getting in. I\u2019d be applying even if I wasn\u2019t seeing her. She\u2019s gently encouraging me to, but didn\u2019t bring up the idea first. I\u2019m fully aware it\u2019ll be a pretty awful situation if we break up and have to avoid each other around campus for years. But I can\u2019t not apply, and my life will be astonishingly improved if I can see her on the weekly. <\/p>\n
Is this a horrible idea? Are my friends right to be kind of suspicious of our age gap? Is it bad I think it\u2019s kind of hot? Is it OK to do something kind of stupid and inadvisable in my early 20s? I\u2019m generally a regulated and very anxious person (I don\u2019t party, I don\u2019t drink, I don\u2019t smoke, I stretch every day, I eat my vegetables, and meticulously track my finances), so I feel like I kind of deserve throwing caution to the wind just this once.<\/p>\n
Help!<\/p>\n
Antinous (yes, she calls me that sometimes)<\/p>\n
![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/noOd9T3x-HMH_LineBreaks_Dice.png\")
<\/p>\n
Dear Antinous,<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if this qualifies as throwing caution to the wind. Maybe throwing caution to an invigorating summer breeze? Either way, I love your enthusiasm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Of all the outrageous, ill-advised, borderline reckless ideas, moving to a city to attend a well-respected postgraduate program at a university your older girlfriend also happens to be enrolled at is hardly scandalously risky or hedonistic. It would be hard to describe your decision as anything but a mildly sensible idea, which, at the very worst, is only likely to result in a broken heart and a prestigious qualification \u2013 always a gamble worth taking, as you can get a broken heart anywhere, but a good education is hard to find.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You should always apply to the school you most want to study at, whether or not your lovers, friends or enemies happen to go there. Even if you\u2019d already been through an acrimonious break-up with this person and wanted to avoid them, I would still say it was worth it. The fact that your girlfriend, whom you\u2019re drastically in love with, just happens to go there, is just strawberry icing on the sensible, macrobiotic, raisin-studded cake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moving cities to be with someone is the kind of borderline irresponsible thing you can afford to do on a whim when you\u2019re in your early 20s and aren\u2019t tied down elsewhere. Eventually, it will stop being her city and start being your city. But it\u2019s always good to have a few friendly faces who can introduce you to their friends, and show you where the best public toilets, pool halls and Indian restaurants are. The fact that your partner is excited about you coming, but isn\u2019t putting any kind of pressure on you, bodes well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for the age gap \u2013 who cares? I understand the general concern, but the discourse has become a little unhinged. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s wrong that your friends are a little suspicious. It just means they care about you, and are looking out for you for your well-being, but it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean there\u2019s anything to worry about.<\/p>\n
The problem with age gap relationships is when people make a habit of seeking out younger partners, because they\u2019re easier to bamboozle, and they\u2019ve learned people their own age won\u2019t put up with them. It\u2019s harder to know what constitutes heinous or loserish behaviour when you haven\u2019t had a lot of dating experience. You\u2019re much more susceptible to being conned into doing a 37-year-old DJ\u2019s laundry when the power dynamics are heavily skewed in their favour and you don\u2019t have a lot of relationship experience to back you up.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s impossible to make any sort of hard-and-fast rule about age gaps, beyond the obvious legal parameters, because things often only seem creepy in retrospect, when you\u2019re older, and are properly able to appreciate the considerable emotional gulf between 20 and 30. There\u2019s also the problem of having to navigate different life stages together. But considering your girlfriend already has a partner, and isn\u2019t pressuring you to settle down, perhaps this is less of an impediment than it otherwise might be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I do think there are some advantages to dating someone your own age, and being on a more equal romantic footing. But life doesn\u2019t always work this way. Sometimes age is just a fluke of the calendar. As long as you\u2019re feeling respected and cared for, and confident in your ability to advocate for yourself and your emotional needs, I can\u2019t see anything inherently wrong with the situation. In the end, we\u2019re all just dumb animals, crawling around in the mud, and there\u2019s only so much of an intellectual and social edge that a decade gives you. I say take care, keep checking in with yourself and listen to your friends, if they have any specific concerns beyond \u201cthis seems a little kooky\u201d.<\/p>\n
If it all goes horribly wrong, it\u2019s still fairly easy to avoid someone on a busy university campus. The biggest risk you\u2019re taking on is a broken heart, and at your age, that\u2019s less of a risk and more of a statistically inevitable rite of passage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m 21 and she\u2019s 29. Is it wrong that I find it hot? Want Hera\u2019s help? Email your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[492,156,18400,111,139,69,12458,2935],"class_list":["post-107867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-comments-enabled","tag-entertainment","tag-help-me-hera","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-relationship-advice","tag-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}