Big cleanup needed on May-December Romance

The page appears to be well-described and thought out. That is, there's no problem with the description or title or anything like that.

The problems lie in two places:

Firstly, there's a BIG difference between a May-December Romance, and a May-September Romance, not only in how they're treated in-story, but as to the social notoriety (and thus, trope-worthiness) of the May-September romance at all. Up until *very* recently, a 20-year gap between partners wasn't really notable at all, and thus, ISN'T a trope. So, there has to be a decision made as to whether we include May-September romances on this page, split them off onto their own page, or simply dismiss them as unnoteworthy, period. I also think we should be pretty hard on the age-gap boundaries, and not let examples seek in just because people think it's "improper". That's NOT what this trope is about.

Secondly, the page has become a pothole for listing ANY substantial age gap, particularly if the younger party is under 20. NONE of them belong on the page. Furthermore, people are horrible about following the page's description instructions for examples. I'm guessing that almost 75% of the examples are, at best, a dubious May-September style romance.

The page should probably have a disclaimer at the bottom of the description, indicating whether or not we include May-September romance (and, if we do, such examples should be marked as such).

I added some verbiage trying to be very explicit about what the trope should be.

However, I need a lot of help to clean up the examples. Particularly, there has to be a decision on the May-Sept inclusion or exclusion.

Courtesy link: May–December Romance.

The example section could use a bit of cleanup, even if we decide that May-September should be included. Some examples are very borderline even then.

Oh,lordy. That's is a mess.

First thing that needs to go all the ones where the younger partner is in their teens.

I'm so glad you brought it up. It was briefly touched in another thread when somebody wanted to consider cutting real life examples as potential flame bait, but I think at the end it wasn't even added to the maintenance crowner.

There are (were?) listed couples with ages like 17 and 23 — shoehorning if I ever saw one. These have to go.

However, I'm a bit uncertain about couples with ages like late-teens and mid-thirties. Jane Eyre (18) and Mr Rochester (36) or Marianne Dashwood (17) and Col. Brandon (36) of Sense And Sensibility. Emma (21) and Mr Knightley (36) come to mind.

To be clear, even the characters in-story comment on the age difference in each of the cases, so this was probably not that common either. However, considering that the description mentions one partner should be nearing a senior citizen age, I would say that they are probably not examples. May-September sounds more accurately.

Those are May-September, if they're even that, unless you're looking at them from the point of view of a young teen, who thinks anyone over 30 is oooooooooold.

Currently the page says that if the older partner isn't at least 40 it's not a May-December. I'd say that if the older partner isn't at least 50 it's not May-December, it's at best May-September.

I also think that the line about the "Half your age plus 7 years" being socially acceptable needs to be removed. It doesn't help clarify what counts; it's not widely accepted; the older the people involved are, the less it matters; and it makes it sound like that's an acceptable criteria for examples.

edited 8th Jul '13 7:16:20 AM by Madrugada

For the reference, there is the link the the discussion I mentioned. (The first post in the link and about seven more posts.)

I agree that these twenty-somethings and forty-somethings don't belong here and should be axed (though I'm a bit "biased" because I think I first got to May–December Romance article from Jane Eyre page;-).

However, the noticeable age difference feels like a related trope.

Personally, here's my preference:

(1) Exclude the "May-Sept" concept entirely. Another trope can be added later if it appears that this is noteworthy. This gets us out of the problem that changing social mores have altered what the "acceptable" age gap is.

(2) The description is rather good, and we should stick to it mostly. Here's what I see as qualifiers:

(a) The age gap must be sufficient for a TWO generation skip - i.e. the younger should appear as the grandchild of the older, to normal observers

(b) The older should qualify as a senior-citizen in-Universe, 60+ in human terms.

(c) Any examples between those with a longer-than-human lifespan and a normal human lifespan get pushed over to Mayfly-December Romance trope, same for the inverse

(d) Examples between two immortal/very-long-lived characters CAN go here, but then the qualifier has to be EXPERIENCE. Thus, a 1000-year-old vampire dating a 500-year-old vampire really shouldn't qualify here, as they're both very mature. A 1000-year-old one dating a 100-year-old one most likely WOULD be this. The key should be RELATIVE life experience.

(e) The inverse should apply to very short lived characters in terms of age, so if you're a fairy that dies at 10, an 8-year-old-fairy dating a 2-year-old one should be this trope.

(f) The trope SHOULD BE NOTED IN-UNIVERSE - this is something that either the characters or those around them should note as being an exceptional age gap. This removes the subjectivity that film/tv casting choices cause. If a 35-year-old is cast in one part, opposite a 75-year-old in another, but the 35-year-old is aged up via makeup to play the character as 50, then it DOESN'T apply.

(g) Real life examples better be the older is 60+, and there's at LEAST a 30-year gap.

(h) This has to be a real romantic relationship. NOT a friendship. And not "oh, I slept with him/her once or twice" kinda thing.

Whatcha think, folks?

edited 8th Jul '13 2:17:14 PM by trims

Agreed.

Agree sort of. Rather than saying something like "should be old enough to be the other's grandparent", I'd say "should be double or very nearly double the age of the younger at the time they began the relationship." Here's why: 1) Saying "should appear to be the younger's grandparent" is open to misuse based on looks; and 2) a two-generation difference is forty years — that's going to eliminate almost every example. Especially if you then add in the next qualifier:

Again, I agree sort of. I'd say 50 or 55, rather than 60.

So, I'd like to counterpropose:

The age difference is at least double the younger's age at the time the relationship began, the older is at least 55, and the younger is no older than 40 — If the older is younger than 55, there's no "December"; if the younger partner is older than 40, there's no "May"... This means a 55-year-old and a 28-year-old counts but a 45-year old and a 90-year-old doesn't.

Completely agree

Agreed.

Agreed here, too.

Disagree, mostly because you're conflating two things — age-inaccurate casting (already covered under Playing Gertrude (I think that's the trope)) and In-Universe mention. In-universe means that some character in the work comments on it. It has nothing to do with casting. Examples that are added based on the cast members' ages rather than the characters' ages are quite simply bad examples and should be removed with extreme prejudice.

Disagree. I think setting two different criteria for what counts in fiction and what counts in Real Life is a bad move.

Oh, very much agree.

I removed some of the wicks (but saved them in my to-do list in case we decide to have a sister trope as May-September Romance).

Also, should be consider Downplayed Trope? PlayingWith.May December Romance had downplayed trope as ages 25 and 40, but I changed it to 25 and 50.

Thanks for the ideas. This is exactly the kind of discussion this page needs.

I'm thinking that maybe we don't require the "looks like" requirements, since, as mentioned above, this is highly fungible. I'm open to futzing with the ages, but I think a hard line should be a minimum of 30 years difference to count as a May-Dec. No 55s with 35s.

I think the "Playing With" is a good idea for the May-Sept, but we should mention it on the main page description, so as to make it explicitly clear that people HAVE to mark it as downplayed or it gets removed. And still, I think that we should set hard limits on the May-Sept gap, something like a minimum of 20 years, with the older at least 40.

The note about the age gap when the relationship began is important, because we do want to include the 45+90 pairing, but only if it started 20 years before. That should go in the description.

Arranged marriages, I think, should NOT be included here, because, well, they're not romances. Unless it's specified that they actually ARE in love with each other (i.e. it is BOTH an arranged marriage AND a love affair). On that note, how do we handle arranged marriages which eventually become love affairs?

Also, re-reading the main page description, I'd vote to change the last couple of paragraphs.

This trope should not be subjective. It's not about acceptable marriages or anything like that. It's merely descriptive, so it should be an Objective trope. I'd delete the 2nd to last paragraph entirely.

On the way to work today, I had a thought:

What if we were explicit about the main page examples REQUIRING the agreed-upon parameters ( younger < 40, older > 55, min 30 year gap), but indicated in the primary trope description that the YMMV page would be where people could list the downplayed versions ( younger < 30, older > 40, min 20 year gap) ? We could even create a special section/folder on the YMMV page to put them in.

That could work....

I like it.

That is not what YMMV is for at all - the problems are not the same.

It's a problem, because I really think we should restrict the main page's examples to those which strictly fit the standard, and littering it with downplayed ones (even if specifically marked) is just asking for problems.

So, here's our choices so far for the May-Sept examples:

(1) Just remove them completely, and make sure the whole page is clear that they SHOULD NEVER be included

(2) Do #1, but also create a new Trope page for May-Sept

(3) Move them over into YMMV

(4) Allow them in the examples, but only if they include the 'downplayed note

(5) Move them into Headscratchers

(6) Create a specific subpage for them (not a new trope page, just a sub-page)

Any other possibilities?

1. Would work.

2. Would also work.

3. 1) Tropes don't "have" YMMV; they either are or are not YMMV. 2) As Septimus, YMMV is not "place for examples that kinda but not really fit".

4. Another viable option.

5. That is not what Headscratchers/ is for. And tropes are not supposed to have Headscratchers pages, anyway.

6. That's not something we do anywhere else on the wiki, and I don't see a reason to do it that way. It's clunky. If we're going to have both but split them, they should be on the same page, like every other trope split into internal subtropes.

Frankly, my vote is just purge everything that doesn't fit the primary description, and NOT do the May-Sept thing at all. (my choice #1 above)

May-Sept is hard to trope-ify anyway, as it's really a case of Values Dissonance and the like, and, as such, we really shouldn't be classifying many of these types of relationships as a trope, because the author (and the audience) didn't see them as anything special when created.

If there's enough outcry, we could do the #2 option above, but I think it's better not to at all, and explicitly state in the May-Dec trope page that such pairings shouldn't be considered a trope at all.

Do we vote on this somehow, or, just go ahead? Since this isn't the Repair Shop, I'm not sure how to proceed...

That's the problem; that this isn't TRS. Clean-up was ok as long as we didn't discuss changing the definition...

I agree with stricter age limits and allowing downplayed examples, but those should be bounded as well.

Also, agreed that this shouldn't be YMMV or Audience Reaction. It's usually noticed by characters in-universe.

I'm in favour of creating May-September Romance because when a teenager has a relationship with a person in their mid-thirties, it gets noticed and it's important for the story.

If May-Sept doesn't fit the definition of this trope, it should not be here. Maybe deleted, maybe it's own trope, but not here.

After thinking about it, I'd say take May-September off completely. The baggage a twenty-year age difference carries is different enough from that of a 30+ age difference that I think it should be looked at as its own trope. The biggest one I can think of is that the suspicion that in a May-September, the younger one is simply a gold-digger or is looking for a meal-ticket is much lower. (Although, come to think of it, it may be more accurate to say "the larger the age difference between the two, the stronger the suspicion/assumption that the main reason they're together is economic becomes")

Just to clarify, what I meant was that I'm in favour of creating May—September Romance as a new Sister Trope. Obviously only if it has support in YKTTW and if it's rendered tropeworthy.

OK, this weekend, I'll redo the trope description so as to explicitly state this is only for the May-Dec instances: 30+ year difference, older is 55 minimum, younger is under 40. I'll include some verbiage about May-Sept being considered as a separate trope. Please feel free to adjust my edits if they don't sound just right.

Once we get a good description down, we can start trimming the examples, and someone then should open a YKTTW topic on considering May-Sept as a trope.

Also, does anyone know how we go through and cleanup all the pages which refer to this one? That is, we need a list of all pages with "May-Dec" on it, so we can then look to see if they still apply...

In the bottom row of blue buttons at the top of the page, there's one labeled "related". Click that and it will take you to a list of all the pages that link to May–December Romance.

OK, I made changes to the main article, and a couple of minor ones to the "Playing With" definitions.

Please check them out and either make comments on the changes here, or fix up the trope if you think your changes are suitably minor and/or obvious improvements.

I think we can get this all done this week, so next week we can start cleaning up the Examples.

I cleaned up a bunch of obvious May Fly December Romance examples.

However, reading through the examples, it brought up two questions, and I only had a reasonable answer to one:

1) I added a line in the description criteria to note that cryosleep/suspended animation and the like DON'T count. As this trope is mostly about the life experience difference between the partners (and a bit about the physical age difference, especially around how long the partnership can maximally be expected to last), simply counting all that time in frozen sleep makes no sense. Sound right?

2) The bigger problem is how we deal with the "looks like X, really is Y" issues in non-live-action media. A lot of this was May Fly December, due to an immortal/Elf/mystical posing as a human (or, Really 700 Years Old) . But it still is a problem for others. My gut says that we completely ignore how old they LOOK, and go with actual age. But, I can also see other views on this.

Comments?