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I've known many violators of this "rule", male and female, on both sides of the equation. It's profoundly insulting to all parties concerned -- especially thos

I've known many violators of this "rule", male and female, on both sides of the equation. It's profoundly insulting to all parties concerned -- especially those on the younger side, but well into adulthood (i.e. in their mid-20s or above). Who presumably, according this "rule", must be too naive, or too needy, to appreciate the fact that their older partners must be "creeps."

mjevans 12y ago
My standard library does not contain any such rule. I therefore consider such a rule to not be common sense/knowledge. Please /define/ what you consider the 'standard' rule to be. Offhand, yes there are situations that I realize qualify as such (usually the gold digger style scenarios), however I have never heard of an actual logically applicable /rule/ to quantify that emotional sentiment.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  > Please /define/ what you consider the 'standard' rule to be. youngest_age_you_can_date = f(your_age) = (your_age / 2) + 7 The inverse function applies to find the oldest person you can date without it being creepy.
jasode 12y ago
You're interpreting "rule" as some type of prescription. Such as "it's a rule to not accept a date after Wednesday night, etc." That's not how it's used in "Creepiness Rule". In this case, "rule" is a synonym for "heuristic" or a prevailing generalization[1]. But saying "Creepiness Heuristic" doesn't have that snappy and headline-friendly sound to it that the "Creepiness Rule" does. [1]See definition #2 at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rule http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rule
- randallsquared 12y ago
  > That's not how it's used in "Creepiness Rule". It is. It's supposed to be a guideline, not merely a descriptive statement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships#The_.22half-your-age-plus-seven.22_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relatio...
  - icambron 12y ago
    From that link: "...whether the age differences in their potential intimate relationships are socially acceptable" Sounds to me like a descriptive statement to me.
    - avmich 12y ago
      http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908934.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908934.html "The last-known Union widow, Gertrude Janeway, died in Jan. 2003 in Tennessee. John Janeway joined the Union army in 1864 and was briefly a POW at Andersonville. The couple married in 1927, after waiting three years until Gertrude turned 18. John was 81. The person thought to be the last-known Confederate widow, Alberta Martin, was born Dec, 4, 1906, and died at age 97 in Alabama on May 31, 2004. In 1927, at age 21, she married William Jasper Martin, then 81. Martin joined the Confederate army in May 1864. Upon her husband's death, she married his grandson from his first marriage." Looks like Western culture standards aren't cast in stone. Or made in heaven.
      - GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
        This is hardly an "I refute it thus".
      - kjs3 12y ago
        If you have to go back almost 90 years to prove a point about contemporary cultural standards, you are really delusional.
      - shalmanese 12y ago
        Those marriages were made to pass on pension benefits.
  - jasode 12y ago
    The word "creepiness" is nowhere on that wiki page and I don't believe that creepiness is strongly associated with that formula attributed to Maurice Chevalier. To clarify what I mean by "associated", I'm talking about typical people holding both that formula and the "creepiness rule" as interchangeable labels for the same concept. There is certainly some overlap between the two concepts but a 43-year old woman would understandably find a 73-year old chasing her a little "creepy" even though the she's within acceptable range of that math formula. Therefore, the "creepiness rule" is something else outside of that formula. Another difference is the age/2+7 formula is a guideline for how society (the non-participants in the relationship) perceive the age disparity. The "creepiness rule" is more descriptive of how the participants perceive potential partners.
Glyptodon 12y ago
Forget creepiness - there's the issue of biological clock in women. Any man who wants to have kids pretty much has to work with an age ceiling. I was actually surprised to see such a linear age range band, but maybe it's because it's so normal to have multiple marriages/divorces and such now. (I'd assumed men would have a bit of a ceiling for the age they were looking for around 42 or 44.)
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  While not as significant as that of women, we men seem have a biological clock as well. With all due respect, personally, I do not think that pinning things entirely women is a healthy attitude. "A 2014 study had experts suggesting that the debate based on mixed evidence whether a father’s age is linked to his child’s vulnerability to individual disorders like autism and schizophrenia had been settled.[6][7] The result being that "Men have a biological clock of sorts because of random mutations in sperm over time". Dr. Patrick F. Sullivan, a professor of genetics at the University of North Carolina, who was not involved in the study said "This is the best paper I’ve seen on this topic, and it suggests several lines of inquiry into mental illness"." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect
  - Glyptodon 12y ago
    I didn't mean to be pinning things on women so much as male lifestyle patterns.

mjevans 12y ago

My standard library does not contain any such rule. I therefore consider such a rule to not be common sense/knowledge. Please /define/ what you consider the 'standard' rule to be. Offhand, yes there are situations that I realize qualify as such (usually the gold digger style scenarios), however I have never heard of an actual logically applicable /rule/ to quantify that emotional sentiment.

ForHackernews 12y ago
> Please /define/ what you consider the 'standard' rule to be. youngest_age_you_can_date = f(your_age) = (your_age / 2) + 7 The inverse function applies to find the oldest person you can date without it being creepy.

jasode 12y ago

You're interpreting "rule" as some type of prescription. Such as "it's a rule to not accept a date after Wednesday night, etc." That's not how it's used in "Creepiness Rule". In this case, "rule" is a synonym for "heuristic" or a prevailing generalization[1]. But saying "Creepiness Heuristic" doesn't have that snappy and headline-friendly sound to it that the "Creepiness Rule" does. [1]See definition #2 at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rule http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rule

randallsquared 12y ago
> That's not how it's used in "Creepiness Rule". It is. It's supposed to be a guideline, not merely a descriptive statement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships#The_.22half-your-age-plus-seven.22_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relatio...
- icambron 12y ago
  From that link: "...whether the age differences in their potential intimate relationships are socially acceptable" Sounds to me like a descriptive statement to me.
  - avmich 12y ago
    http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908934.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908934.html "The last-known Union widow, Gertrude Janeway, died in Jan. 2003 in Tennessee. John Janeway joined the Union army in 1864 and was briefly a POW at Andersonville. The couple married in 1927, after waiting three years until Gertrude turned 18. John was 81. The person thought to be the last-known Confederate widow, Alberta Martin, was born Dec, 4, 1906, and died at age 97 in Alabama on May 31, 2004. In 1927, at age 21, she married William Jasper Martin, then 81. Martin joined the Confederate army in May 1864. Upon her husband's death, she married his grandson from his first marriage." Looks like Western culture standards aren't cast in stone. Or made in heaven.
    - GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
      This is hardly an "I refute it thus".
    - kjs3 12y ago
      If you have to go back almost 90 years to prove a point about contemporary cultural standards, you are really delusional.
    - shalmanese 12y ago
      Those marriages were made to pass on pension benefits.
- jasode 12y ago
  The word "creepiness" is nowhere on that wiki page and I don't believe that creepiness is strongly associated with that formula attributed to Maurice Chevalier. To clarify what I mean by "associated", I'm talking about typical people holding both that formula and the "creepiness rule" as interchangeable labels for the same concept. There is certainly some overlap between the two concepts but a 43-year old woman would understandably find a 73-year old chasing her a little "creepy" even though the she's within acceptable range of that math formula. Therefore, the "creepiness rule" is something else outside of that formula. Another difference is the age/2+7 formula is a guideline for how society (the non-participants in the relationship) perceive the age disparity. The "creepiness rule" is more descriptive of how the participants perceive potential partners.

Glyptodon 12y ago

Forget creepiness - there's the issue of biological clock in women. Any man who wants to have kids pretty much has to work with an age ceiling. I was actually surprised to see such a linear age range band, but maybe it's because it's so normal to have multiple marriages/divorces and such now. (I'd assumed men would have a bit of a ceiling for the age they were looking for around 42 or 44.)

hkmurakami 12y ago
While not as significant as that of women, we men seem have a biological clock as well. With all due respect, personally, I do not think that pinning things entirely women is a healthy attitude. "A 2014 study had experts suggesting that the debate based on mixed evidence whether a father’s age is linked to his child’s vulnerability to individual disorders like autism and schizophrenia had been settled.[6][7] The result being that "Men have a biological clock of sorts because of random mutations in sperm over time". Dr. Patrick F. Sullivan, a professor of genetics at the University of North Carolina, who was not involved in the study said "This is the best paper I’ve seen on this topic, and it suggests several lines of inquiry into mental illness"." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect
- Glyptodon 12y ago
  I didn't mean to be pinning things on women so much as male lifestyle patterns.