Age-Gap Relationships

Leonardo DiCaprio, a 48-year-old actor, generated outrage online when it was rumored he was dating a 19-year-old model. Leo’s history of dating has been consistent, he dates women younger than 25 and breaks up with them after. There’s even a famous graph that makes its way online of his dating history.

But why does Leo make news with his age-gap relationships when there are so many other celebrities (1, 2, 3) involved in them? I think it’s because Leo is considered on of the good guys. He isn’t some Harvey Weinstein type Hollywood ghoul. He’s into progressive issues, makes good movies, he’s into environmental awareness and he’s invested in plant based meat companies. He’s someone who should be onboard with the mainstream progressive ideology around relationships. That means dating someone who is close to your age.

Age-gap relationships are an interesting topic because who are you to tell two consenting adults what to do? Consent is an important ideology today we all adhere to.

As a society we cannot express a moral affront to behavior that is not directly harmful to another person. We don’t have the vocabulary to do that anymore. Traditional advice says living a good and fulfilling life entails settling down with a partner and starting a family, rather than continuously dating a multitude of young women.

Since the “good life” cannot be spoken of publicly, the argument for DiCaprio’s has to go through other avenues such as sensationalizing abuse claims instead. Is Leo, a handsome movie star, with hundreds of millions of dollars really abusing a 21 year old woman? That’s a difficult argument to make. He is a catch to many women of various ages. Much more fun than dating an accountant.

Losing any conception of a good life reminds me us losing another part of society, “the social contract”. I see sometimes someone smoking a cigarette or other antisocial behavior on public transportation and no one else intervenes.

I think there is the unsatisfying and less solvable fact that no one really agrees on the limits of Minding Your Own Business when it comes to minor antisocial behavior today. But that’s a discussion for another time.

Age-Gap Relationships and the Lindy Effect

Age-gap relationships were much more common in previous eras. That doesn’t mean every relationship had an age-gap. It depended on culture, demographic issues (war, migration), finance (you need money to marry). There were fluctuations. That all ended in the 20th century. The gap between the ages of husbands and wives in the U.S. fell in each decade from 1900 to 2000. This has mirrored a trend globally, with a few outliers.

In this newsletter I argue that age-gap marriages will make a comeback in the near future because of the shifting environment:

1) Women have specific preferences in mates and those preferences do not correspond to gender ratios, especially education.

2) “Minding Your Own Business” will replace Wokeness

3) Increasing life expectancy through vitality drugs and remarriages

Let’s start with preferences.

Female Preference and Education

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