Standard Creepiness Rule

[unbibium]

Today's XKCD has put forth the Standard Creepiness Rule: Don't Date Under (Age/2)+7.

Has anyone here violated this rule?

It certainly doesn't look symmetrical, but since it doesn't define an upper bound, it doesn't have to be.

And incidentally, who pioneered chart-based humor: XKCD or Demetri Martin?

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

My wife violated this rule when we started dating.

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

Guess I'm officially OWNED. Why? (28/2)+7=21

Oops.

[baryon.livejournal.com]

Using this rule, if you are somebody else's lower bound, then they are your upper bound.

Let's say Jill is your upper bound, whose age is U.

Say your age is X.

Jill's lower bound is equal to your age, so:
X = (U/2) + 7

Solving for U:
U = (X-7)*2

So there is an upper bound, assuming both people obey the rules.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

So miwasatoshi could date down to 21, or up to 42.

This of course assumes that both partners are always equally creepy when age is the deciding factor.

[darquis.livejournal.com]

I'm glad some people like to date younger, because I've always had a thing for older partners. [Never even been attracted to someone outside of this range. This might change as I age, but who knows.]

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

samantha2074 and I were within the bound when we started dating, but not by that much.

My parents

[notr.livejournal.com]

don't seem at all abnormal for their generation: 15 and 19, high school sophomore and college sophomore. My big sister and her husband were 20 and 28 when they got together. (Weird, I somehow never quite realized before that she had finished college in 3 years even after switching majors midway. Gotta love those AP credits!)

Does this mean it's creepy to date at all before age 14? The closest I ever came to dating before hooking up at 28, we were 11 and 13. Maybe that's why she gave up on me so fast!

[w-b-yeats.livejournal.com]

Yeah I brake that rule a lot but I'm good with collage girls so it works out well anyway.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Gross, you go out with girls that you paste together?

I don't want to know

[notr.livejournal.com]

what he pastes them together with.

[w-b-yeats.livejournal.com]

Collage
College
Ah the difference a letter can make. Very funny comment.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

I think I won a spelling bee with "Collage" once.

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

Both XKCD and Demetri Martin are pretty recent. The Onion has been doing internet-based chart humor longer, and if you consider non-internet media, Mad, Cracked, and National Lampoon were doing chart-based humor in the '70s, at the very least.

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also, this used to be offered as "legitimate" advice, except they referred to it as an ideal marriageable age, and used the formula (Age/2)+10. So, does that mean that people are now OK with dipping a little lower in the age range?

Also, the rule in the past only seemed to apply to men, and there was no discussion of the upper range at all. It was actually suggested that you should seek a woman younger than yourself, at half your age plus ten years. At least now things seem more gender neutral.

Never marry under 20?

[notr.livejournal.com]

Or was that maybe for second marriages? Even finishing school doesn't take a girl straight out of high school to age 20.

Re: Never marry under 20?

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Yes, if you're on your second marriage before age 20, that might be a problem.

I had one coworker from Alabama

[notr.livejournal.com]

whose 17-year-old wife and her mother were pretty successfully sucking him dry in a divorce. I'd be surprised if she wasn't married again at least once by 20.

Re: I had one coworker from Alabama

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Depends on how much alimony they're getting. Because getting married means you stop collecting alimony, and suddenly the sanctity of marriage doesn't mean all that much.

Carbonated Dating

[infrogmation.livejournal.com]

Ah, I was about to say that I thought the "Half age plus 7" was originally what upper class Victorian British men were supposed to look for in a wife.

I've usually dated woman within a couple years of me one way or another, but I did violate the above dating figure once, when I was 32 with a gal of 19. (Curiously, it was she who went after me initially. I suppose I went along with it as it was shortly after my marriage broke up. I guess it did help restore my confidence.)

I do recall one of my college house mates dated a high school girl. We others in the house thought it a bit creepy, though there was only some 3 or so years difference between them because, like, we were college men now, and hey, she was still in high school.

[motis.livejournal.com]

My wife and I violate this (stoopid) rule, and we're quite happily married almost three years into our relationship.