My wife & I have an 18-year-old son. He started university in September, studying medicine. There he met this 41-year-old man - a classmate, and they became really good friends. This man has just started university now at this age because apparently he was born poor and in the first half of his life was focused on making money, but medicine is a dream of his. Son has always been an introverted, shy, socially awkward kid with little friends, but now goes out often. Honestly my wife & I are uncomfortable, and we can’t help but side eye the dude.
I work at a college and I used to have some great conversations with one of our student workers about board games, math and other dorky stuff. He graduated earlier this year, and I miss talking to him. I learned a lot from that kid.
Every single person I have met that goes to college later in life are driven to meet their objectives regardless of their starting conditions and environments and generally a good influence to everyone around them. Since you are around his age, it should be easy to imagine what it would take for someone with his background to stay determined and commit to study for years as a 41 year old. I understand why you may be worried but it may honestly be better for your child to be around with someone older who has had time to work on themselves, know where they are going and willing to commit to get there.
I understand why you may be worried
What’s the reason? They’re worried about this guy fucking their son? Or is it more that they’re worried he’ll give their son a second opinion about what the world looks like to middle aged people?
Possibly that he will use his many more years of experience living as an adult to manipulate their son.
I used to play Star Wars 4th Edition Pen and Paper RPG with a 40 year old and his 32 year old wife when I was 16. They were just harmless geeks, like me.
If anything, my mom making snarky comments about the 40 year old guy really soured our relationship for a while. My friend who was my age and who also played with us sent her a picture in the mail of the 3 of us holding hands under a rainbow. She was pissed.
It’s fine. Your son could just as easily be friends with someone his age that’s a psychopath. It’s in the person, not the age. At 18 you’re going to have to trust his judgement a little more.
I started working for the post office when I was 19 and half of my friends were suddenly 40 year olds. Now I’m 40, most of those friends are retired, and I talk about video games and stuff with a bunch of 20 year olds.
I think in some insitutions you’re just bound to associate with older or younger people if you’re the odd one out and college strikes me as that kind of place
Not quite the same gap but I grew to be good friends with a work buddy in his 40s when I was 25.
Throughout my life I tended to connect better with people older than me.
It doesn’t have to be creepy or problematic, but your son would have to know what worrying things to look out for. Nothing wrong with having a chat saying “hey just because large age gap friendships are rarer, i wanted to make sure you’re on your guard…but your friend might be awesome, just have your eyes open”.
What specifically worries you?
Maybe I’m projecting my own feelings but being basically this guy’s age I can’t imagine hanging out with someone so young. It just gives off bad vibes.
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Of course you can’t.
But picture putting your life on hold for 30 years. Would you not then feel extremely out of place with your own “peers” who didn’t do that?
Age isn’t really what defines where you’re at as a person, that’s stuff like culture, hobbies, career, education. People don’t connect over being the same age. They connect over stuff like video games, philosophy, books, nerding out about their industry, how that one class at school sucks, etc.
What would you do if you were the 40 year old hanging out with an 18 year old? Really dive into your fantasy and let us know what you are thinking. I bet you can come up with some really wild imagery that the IRL 40 year old would never dream of.
I don’t quite get what you’re implying but as I’ve said I wouldn’t be hanging out with an 18 year old in the first place.
I’m a shy, awkward soul that never felt ‘in sync’ w/ my generation. Old people rock, life would be a lot more empty without them.
If you go to uni, hanging out with people aroind your son’s age is implied. I bet the guy might feel out of place as well - but consider he is now living his dream of studying in university. He is surrounded by 18 year olds and he has two options - be isolated for nothing but his age or make friends and experience life he couldn’t experience when his age was appropriate for it.
It is likely your son and this guy just clicked. When I was around 16 I had a great virtual friendship (played World of Warcraft together, only met once) with a guy in his 30s. We also just clicked. I’d say he was my best friend in that guild. We are not in contact anymore but I still remember that friendship fondly.
I understand your concerns as a father and I’d recommend discussing it with your son with open mind. Friendship is just friendship, I don’t think there is an age limit on it.
So I have two things to say about this. First, you should know that this is very much a thing. I’m in kind of an opposite situation as a younger expat in a country where people from my country tend to be older, and people can and will get along regardless of age when they’re put in the same place; it just doesn’t happen often because the way modern society works ends up with people being basically sorted by age.
Second, as someone who grew up with overprotective parents trying to control how your son acts will never end up. Seriously it can be infuriating to be on the receiving end of that, so if you care about your relationship with your son know that there are very few situations where it’s okay to control who your adult son associates with, and just being “uncomfortable” is not one of them.
I literally never stated I’m trying to control anything.
I think their point was: even if you’re uncomfortable, what are you going to do about it? Interfering in any way - even just suggesting that this relationship is a problem - is controlling.
As another reply said, if you want to say something like “I’m not implying anything about this guy, but it does remind me to make certain you know the signs of predatory relationships”, that’s probably a good thing.
Just know that your son may react defensively at the perceived threat to his first meaningful friendship outside his home town (even if you’re not actually a threat), and you have to let that be okay.
For the record, I’m 40 and have had friendships that started in my early 20s with people much older than me, and am currently friends with some kids in their 20s. Especially for introverts and people with niche hobbies, there’s a lot more care for shared interests than social norms like age gap.
I wasn’t necessarily looking for ways to “do something about it”, the question was more about my own thoughts. And I don’t see having an open conversation about potential dangers / concerns and worries as “controlling”, we already had a good talk about it, went very well. This isn’t his first meaningful friendship outside his hometown, he never left his hometown - we live in our country s largest city & all the good schools are here; he still lives at home like most of the students raised in the city.
I mean that’s true but then what kind of response were you expecting? Any way of channeling that discomfort you mentioned into productive action will end up as control.
This man has just started university now at this age because apparently he was born poor and in the first half of his life was focused on making money, but medicine is a dream of his.
So the guy worked to get to a place where he could reasonably go back to school to do something he’s passionate about.
Son has always been an introverted, shy, socially awkward kid with little friends, but now goes out often.
Going to college will do that, what’s the issue? Is it impacting his grades?
Honestly my wife & I are uncomfortable, and we can’t help but side eye the dude.
Why are you uncomfortable? What about the guy is off-putting to you? And are you really untrustworthy of the guy, or uncomfortable about the new choices in behavior your kid is exhibiting now that he has autonomy?
With how little information is provided, I can only fall back on my own experience as a kid with an over protective parent who had to be explicitly told to let me be an adult, and I get similar vibes. But that could just be my experience coloring your post.
I think you’re misunderstanding me. My issue isn’t him going out often, I’m happy about that, it’s a good thing. My concern is that it’s almost exclusively with this guy, and it’s worrying to me that they spend so much time together. I’m this guy’s age and I can’t imagine regularly hanging out with someone so young. It’s just odd and gives off bad vibes. And my son always had autonomy, that’s not what this is about.
It’s not odd. If that’s who you interact with, that’s who you’ll be friends with.
Age is a number, and friendship with someone with life experience isn’t going to hurt anyone.
What, specifically, are you concerned they might do, or might become? Are you afraid this might become a predatory sexual relationship? That he might become codependent? That the older guy is immature and will be a bad influence?
When you can define your concerns, it will reveal what action (if any) is appropriate.
There were some older people at my university and they always sadly had a lot of trouble making friends and fitting in. Be glad your son is a good guy who doesnt judge people by their age.
At age 17 I made friends with a coworker in their 40s. I found out he was into D&D and he invited me to sit in on a game. Now I’m 30 and I been playing with this group of now 50-60 year old dudes every Sunday since. Age gap isn’t strange but if your getting weird vibes maybe have a chat with your son about your concerns, but he is an adult in college now. He will likely have many connections of all ages.
I see why your son has no friends, not his issue tho, it’s the side eyeing
As a 40 something man, I’ve found that my friend groups tend to shift by life stage more than age.
We have friends that are 10-15 years older than us because our kids are the same age, and we have friends that are 10-15 years younger than us because we have overlapping hobbies or work together.
At this point in my life, I don’t even bother finding out someone’s age until I’d consider them friends, because it doesn’t matter if we’ve found something we connect over.
One of my friends of at uni was a woman in her 60s. She told me that in her experience young people who could make friends with mature age students tended to have healthy relationships with their parents.
Depends entirely on the person. I have friends that are a similar age gap to the one you mentioned, it just never occurred to me to think of it as weird.
We’re all into the same hobby and that’s how we met, but we also like similar video games, music, TV, etc, so there’s plenty to talk about and have a friendship around. I don’t think about their age really at all, it just doesn’t come up.
But yeah, it entirely depends on the individual, on both ends. You can have a weirdo older person, you can have a weirdo 18 year old. Just got to weigh up a person and try to figure out what their deal is :-)
The age gap itself is absolutely not a problem. Is he a good person? Finding out can be more than a little tricky, and you risk coming off a bit like helicopter parents at best, and grossly overbearing at worst.
Your own son is not a child anymore. He is perfectly capable of independent thought and judgement. Is he good at it yet? Probably not, but the only way for that to change is practice.
Still, you can’t keep him on a leash anymore, so trusting him to navigate life on his own isn’t optional.
Make it clear that whatever happens your son can come to you for support. And tell him, explicitly, that you understand that ultimately, as a legal adult, your son has final say in how he lives life.
Once I was legally an adult, my parents made it very clear that my life choices were now up to me, but that they’d always show concern for me, and always help and support me, if I ask. They give unsolicited advice at times, but they do not try to make decisions for me, and I adore them for it.
There are tons of things about my life I’ve kept, and keep, from my parents, but never anything big or serious about my well-being. Their unconditional willingness to let me make my own mistakes, and be helpful rather than judgemental when I do, has ensured I will always turn to them in times of need.
Once your kid is control of their own life, that’s kind of the best you can hope for.
