Dating Age Calculation

Ok, everytime I explain this to someone, they get confused, then they think it's neat, and then they ask me to write it down, so I'm publishing it here.

This is something I dreamed up after trying to figure out if someone was too young for me to date.

Be warned that this does NOT take into account individual maturity and/or experiences, it is just a general consideration.

Premise

The general notion is that the difference in ages between the couple shouldn't be a significant portion of the younger members life. This is because I happen to believe that it's life experience (and not necessarily maturity) that causes changes in personal growth. So in general the older people are, the more they've experienced, and the more likely they are to "know" what they want in their life, and less likely they are to ignore things that might make a couple "grow apart".

You will notice that this calculation was specifically crafted to not take advantage of the actual age gap, since gaps that are radically large when younger appear to be more acceptible at later ages.

Calculating the Differential Percentage

Differential Percentage = Absolute Value of the difference in ages divided by the youngest persons age.

Mathematically:

Differential % = |Age(A) - Age(B)| / Min(Age(A), Age(B))

For example: when one is 30 and the other is 20 the differential is (30-20)/20 == 50%

What do you with the Differential Percentage?

I happen to believe that you want the Differential Percentage to be something less than 50% (probably somewhere around 25-40%) since numbers >= 50% would seem to imply that the younger person is going to have a significant life experience gap to make up. This means that the older person has already experienced that "time frame" they've already made life decisions based on that knowledge, whereas the younger one has yet to cross those bridges.

My Minimum Dating Age

Using this calculation, my 50% threshold (based on my upcoming age) is right around 27 (or 60) and the preferable is 28+ (all ages rounded up to the next year)

Background graphic & layout courtesy of:
Windy's Fashionable Page Designs