Some people, men and women, sometimes prefer to date people younger than themselves. Relationships that may or may not last, like Anne's 42-year-old best friend who only dates men in their twenties. In "Sans Rendez-vous", the sexologist and psychoanalyst Catherine Blanc, tries to understand why the love stories of this woman do not last very long.
Anne's question
My best friend is 42 and despite her age she only dates 20-25 year old boys. But his stories never work for very long. Is it related to the age difference?
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Catherine Blanc's response
It's not a problem to have a taste for younger people either. But that begs the question: how old does she think she is? Does she only go out with younger men because she needs to be superior in years, because there is something maternal about her that needs to be found in this way of life? to play the feminine Pygmalion of this young man who will discover sexuality thanks to her?
Or is it because she sees herself as a 25 year old girl and doesn't feel the maturity to face a man who asks her to be a 40 year old woman? She therefore finds herself in a more secure situation. She's a woman who surely also has trouble being in this maturity.
Is it the same for men who date younger women?
These are the same reasons. An older man with a younger woman is in fear of his age quite often. It reflects a refusal to grow old, a need to be stimulated by youth, to be seen as young or powerful by a young woman. There is no question of judging the different ages. There are wonderful stories.
But we can ask ourselves the question: when we go systematically towards younger men or women, what does that say about his personal difficulty in seeing himself as being mature or of needing an ascending position on the other ?
Does the age difference become even more complicated to understand as we age?
Today, we are in a situation where people do not plan for a long-term construction. We want to burn the candle at both ends without taking into account what will happen.
What is happening is obviously painful for the person who is getting older, and who will do whatever it takes to feel young, there will be a young man in front of him who will mature and who will perhaps look at a young girl at some point. Or not, because if this young man was interested in a more mature woman, it is because he is rather interested in a more mothering, more powerful figure.