Zzzzzzzzzz
It's firm. The problem with allowing it to "fall a little short" is that doing that leads to creep; example A falls "a little short" of the criteria; Example B is added, which only falls "a little short" of A; Example C falls "a little short" of B; and we're back in the same mess we cleaned up before, with "examples" that are only 10 or 15 years apart.
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
I see what you mean, but that's also because each time the number just out of reach of the next example is being compared to a number that is smaller than 30 to begin with and not 30 itself. If it was changed such that if all the other criteria are met, there can be some elbow room if the year is slightly below the minimum target of 30. However, by the same token, ALL examples would need to be going off of 30 and not be compared to other examples that were just slightly off.
For example, the minimum age of one party is 25, and the other being 55. In that case, what is the difference if the younger party was 26 and the older party was 54? Or the younger was 28 and the older was twice the age of the younger at 56 years? How much experience difference is there between a 28 year split to a 30 year split purely at face value?
Couldn't find this having already been discussed, so here goes.
Anyway, the trope page for May-December Romance says the minimum age difference between the two needs to be at minimum 30 years. However, is it a cut-off or is it ok to bend that rule a little for pairings that fall just short by a year or two? Like, would a 28 year difference still count if it meets the other criteria?