How young can you date without looking slimy?

If you have to ask it might be an issue but there is math for that!

Apr 11, 2023

On Tuesdays I write a new post that tries to stick to one topic and have a thesis and a conclusion. It totally happens every Tuesday. Except this one where it is sort of an old post but not really.

Unpacking

As I sit on bed I look across the room at my suitcase. It is packed.

From last week’s trip. So more aptly it is still packed.

I’ve noticed that it takes about the length of the trip for me to motivate to unpack. Perhaps this has to do with the volume of luggage, but I don’t think so. It’s just one of those time is relative things.

Five day trip, five days to unpack.

Two week trip, two weeks to unpack.

X=X

Even for English majors this is math you can follow.

Recovering from a break-up

Another rule that seems to hold true is breakup recovery. I’ve found that it takes half the length of the relationship to really get over the breakup.

My first real boyfriend took 4 months to get over. Which didn’t mean I sat home washing my hair, just that I wasn’t ready to settle in with anyone else until those endless four months had eked by.

It took four years for me to start a relationship with Steve after my first husband. But the clock started when I moved out, not once the paperwork was filed.

I’ve done the math for lots of friends and it usually turns out to be true. Although you have to take care to pinpoint the breakup. You can be emotionally gone before you literally go.

X = 1/2X

Meals

It seems to take 1/3 as long to eat a meal as to prep it, and twice as long to clean it up as to cook it unless Steve is cooking which seems to require all the pans. This is part of why cooking seems inefficient to me. So chewing time to prep/clean up is not a good ROI. Particularly with IBS or GERD.

1/3X +4X = X Where X = eating. (It has been a while but that equation is not looking correct.

Dating Age

A friend introduced me to an apparently universally accepted fact that it is socially acceptable date someone half of your age plus seven years. I think there is a gender bias on this one. He is perfectly comfortable dating a “woman” in her mid twenties. When I try to switch it around, after fumbling with the math for a bit I ask if he would date a woman in her fifties. He does a good job of masking the flicker in his eye before he manages: “I think with the right person that would work.”

Perhaps enby’s and people dating their own gender can be either the older or the younger part of this couple but if I were dating a 31.5 year old a lot of eyebrows would be raised. Most of all mine. Or actually most of all Steve’s. If my mom were dating a 42 year old those family dinners would be so awkward that I might just end up doing the dishes. Or upstairs unpacking my suitcase, from the trip that I took with the 31.5 year old. In that case I wonder, who would have cooked?