OPINION If you’re single, looking for love and having no luck, it’s not you. It’s the age bracket you’ve set on your dating app — maybe. Pick your jaw up off the floor and meet us in the love laboratory, Kiwis, because there’s a dating trend receiving a lot of attention right now, and it starts with “cross” and ends in “generational dating”.
This form of relationship isn’t exactly new; it’s been part of dating culture history for years. Even King Charles had an age-gap relationship with Princess Diana, who was 12 years his junior. What is new, though, is the way it is being challenged by women both internationally and in New Zealand.
While an older male dating a younger woman was once considered “normal”, an older woman dating a younger man would receive tense backlash. An example of this is Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s relationship. They reportedly met when he was a teenager and she was 23 years his senior, as well as his director on the set of the film Nowhere Boy .
When Aaron was 19 and she was 42, they were engaged and faced widespread scrutiny about their romance. Sam recently spoke to the Guardian where she said to her and Aaron, the age gap wasn’t a problem, it was a problem only to people outside of their relationship. “Everyone at the beginning said, ‘It’s a terrible idea, it’s not gonna work’, and then you’re, like, 15 years down the road and have raised four kids and you’re like, ‘Really’?” The co.
