Examples not fitting trope, and other problems: May December Romance

The trope (as well as the phrase) refers to "a romantic relationship where there is a drastic difference in age between the two participants". Lots of the examples are of age differences of only a few years. The intro section has apparently been reworked to try to stop people putting these in, but it still isn't very clear (and the idea that 50 was "ancient" in the Middle Ages is flat-out wrong). There needs to be a much clearer guideline for how big an age difference is necessary to qualify for the trope. (20 at the very least, I would say?)

Several examples, particularly in the Real Life section, concern older men with a known or speculated liking for young girls — which is not this trope either, since it's not romance without feeling on both sides.

"As a general rule it's usually acceptable to date someone half your age plus seven years" has been added back to the intro section after I removed it once. Since I don't wish to edit war, I'll explain here that I believe it should be removed because (1) there are many societies where this is not believed, and even within, for example, modern-day America, there is wide difference between what individuals find "acceptable"; (2) describing someone's relationship as "not acceptable" is extremely offensive. Okay, I'm aware that the "x/2 + 7" meme exists and is relevant to the trope, but I feel if it's to stay on the page it should be as a bullet point under Real Life and with more clarification of the fact that it's just what some people believe.

I think you're turning this into Political Correctness Gone Mad. Stating that people do or don't consider it acceptable may be offensive to some, but this isn't a politically correct trope.

edited 8th Feb '12 1:47:06 PM by KingZeal

What? Political correctness is irrelevant to this trope. It's not about approval or disapproval of the relationship (and that relationship needs to be voluntary on both sides, romantic and reciprocated to qualify) it's simply that the relationship exists.

There are far too many caveats and "must be"s in the description right now. I'll give it a going over later tonight.

edited 8th Feb '12 3:04:19 PM by Madrugada

On the contrary, the point to the trope is that the age difference has to be enough to raise notice. And one of the reasons it raises notice is due to public uneasiness. No one's really going to care if a 27 year old is dating a 22 year old, but they'll care if he's dating an 18 or 19 year old.

For what it's worth, I always saw this as "old person dates young person", not "older person dates younger person". I don't see how you could count a 27 year old as "December" given any rational interpretation of the title.

edited 8th Feb '12 4:07:49 PM by Fighteer

Good point.

IIRC, at one point we split off May October Romance, but it got merged back in because no-one could agree on the cutoff between the two. The compromise at the time was that May–December Romance will cover all significant age gaps, regardless of the actual ages. I think that's OK.

I think at one time the Younger-Than-Half-Their-Age-Plus-Seven was added in order to cull out the relatively small age differences, like 30/20 and 55/40 and 75/60. The problem with that is it fails more and more obviously as both partners get older (it would also cull out 60/37, which does fit.)

I think a generational difference is a good definition.

(Q. What if we're not sure if there's a generational difference? A. Omit it.)

Define "generation".

Around 20 years. So that one may be reasonably be mistaken for the other's child.

(I know, I know, people MIGHT mistake ANYONE for ANYTHING, and some grandmothers are 24 - but I said reasonably mistaken.)

I think it matters if the story makes a point of it. Remember we're talking about storytelling here. In Assassins Creed Revelations, Ezio is 52 while Sofia is 35. It's not a shockingly large age difference but it is very clear that she's attracted to his maturity and Hidden Depths while he's attracted to her youthful and enthusiastic intellect. They could have paired him with a matron his age but deliberately chose a younger woman. (Also, the premise of the story requires that he survive and have children after the events in the game, so she has to be of childbearing age, while he's a Badass Grandpa, figuratively at least.)

edited 9th Feb '12 9:16:22 AM by Fighteer

Also, if we're using this for ANY age difference, 20 years doesn't matter as the ages get higher.

Yeah, I'd like to leave it with the vaguer "generational" - if, at any age difference, the two act the same age and have zero culture clash, it's not May–December Romance.

Also, one has to be kind of old and one has to be kind of young. A 90-year-old marrying a 70-year-old would not be this because neither could be said to be in the May of their life, by any standard.