By Reza Ganjavi
[I refer to "women" here – but the same thing probably happens to men(?) - I just know it from the perspective of relating to a female]
Why do older women who are "in a relationship" often get nervous, don't like it, and condemn when a man goes out with a younger woman? It seems to be psychological insecurity because they project that happening to them, i.e., their man going with a younger woman. I've read some interesting discussion on this within context of evolutionary psychology.
I've seen this in my own life and lives of others I know. It seems so ridiculous and obvious. Why else would an older woman get so adamantly opposed to an age gap other than insecurity that her man might get the idea? Does age gap even matter for love?
Just some sporadic thoughts...
Comments by Reza Ganjavi:
I think there's a misunderstanding because I personally don't see anything wrong with a woman dating a younger man or vice versa. In terms of society's values, the label you mentioned for example, is just wrong and is rooted in a sexist background in many societies including some of the most modern countries. Another related concept is a term like "womanizer" -- whereas the fact is there are a lot of adventurous women and research in evolutionary psychology has shown that but I've never heard the term "manizer" despite there being millions of such women around (LOL)... I'm not saying being a manizer or womanizer is right or wrong -- just saying the language itself is skewed based on gender.
I think any sense of possessiveness of another person has animalistic roots -- that's not to say it's wrong. We all have animalistic conditionings -- of course part of a challenge is to be more than animals... What I wrote was just pointing at something I've seen: condemnation of age gap and I'm linking it to psychological insecurity.
I think you're talking in terms of protection. In what I wrote I didn't address manipulation because I assumed the two people are intelligent enough to know if there's manipulation or not -- and a relationship that is manipulative is no good!
… A person condemns age gaps often because of insecurity in their own relationship!