Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but when you see people who are /always/ dating well outside of their age-group, the exceptions are few and far between.
I don't buy it that there's only one person for everyone. Because if that's the case, what a coincidence that all these 20-year-old girls (and really, at 20, you're not a woman yet) just /happen/ to find them over and over in these older men. Are they finding their "one true love", or are they projecting issues they have with relationships and with their past into these people?
I may be coming off a little strong, but it angers me to see post after post of people saying that it's not only okay to date older men, but it should be encouraged! More often than not, the older men involved in these situations have issues with control and probably fantasies about even younger girls. Either that or all the people their age just realized they were complete buffoons not worth their time. The younger women involved in these situations are often blinded by how sweet they are (at first), or how much more financially secure they are than the "boys" their age, or whatever else. Plus, there is always a bit of the "looking for daddy" thing.
I'm not saying that relationships with a vast age difference can't work. I'm saying that, in the way our society is, the vast majority of them are misguided and based more on the issues and insecurities the people involved have than on the relationships themselves.
To the person who discounted my example of a 21-year-old dating a 14-year-old as not good because it's "against the law" ... that seems a pretty convenient way to discount a perfect good comparison without having to think about it. It's really the same thing, and the relationships exist for the same reasons.
Again, just think about it for a minute... maybe /you're/ mature enough to handle dating an older man, but what kind of screwed up people do they have to be to even WANT to date younger women? Would YOU date a 14-year-old? I sure hope not. Think about yoru reasons for not wanting to, and apply them for why you shouldn't date someone significantly older, at least not at the age you are now. I guarantee that most of these older men have a pattern of dating younger women, too. Is it just an extreme coincidence that they always happen to find their "soulmates" in this age group? Or are there really much deeper and more disturbing issues at play here? Whenever you have a pattern in your life, the issue /isn't/ everyone else. There's only one constant: YOU. So the women who are always dating older men aren't doing it because they happen to find the qualities they like in older men. They're doing it because they have issues and work them out with this age group. The men who always date younger women are doing it because they have SERIOUS issues about women in general, and can more easily emotionally and physically manipulate the impressionable high school and college girls.
A relationship is a reflection of yourself. What you like about others are reflections of yourself. So, again, it's not that you just happen to find what you want in an older man, it's that your inability to deal with certain issues causes you to /need/ an older man, and all that it represents.
But maybe the problem isn't you. Maybe the problem isn't that all men your age are idiots. Maybe the problem is that you're looking in the wrong places. I've known a lot of people in a lot of different age groups, and I see the same qualities in all these age groups. I know people will take this last line and say that there's a reason why it's okay to date older, and I say, again, that the older men that are good people and well adjusted don't /want/ to date younger women (and not even to the "well, I don't want to, but you're so special!" stage, because the well-adjusted men don't let themselves get to that point). So since the older men you want to date also want to date you, that's big flashing neon sign number one that that's not a good person with whom to be.
But back to the point, all people are not the same, but people who /are/ the same tend to congregate. If you keep going to the same "dating pool" and finding the same sorts of people, don't think that /all/ people of that age group are the same. Think that you need to look somewhere else. Or think that you need to look inside yourself and figure out why you keep picking the same sorts of people.
And I know I'm coming off as a broken record, but I seem to have been misunderstood before, so I just want to make sure. The reason that all men your age that you date aren't good for you is the same reason the older men you date aren't good for you either. It's not the men. It's you. They're both different sides of the same coin. To say that you can't find what you want in your own agegroup is a cop-out. If you can't come to terms with why you keep getting in failed relationships and what it says about yourself, what makes you think you'll just happen to find the perfect guy who's a little bit older? It's not the men. It's you. The patterns are caused by you, and the same aspects of your personality that cause you to pick bad younger men will cause you to pick bad older men, too. You just might not realize it as quickly, and that's where the danger lies.
PS. "your" is a posssessive pronoun; "you're" is a contraction of "you are".
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