Tuesday, April 14, 2009

N/2+7

I'm in a meeting at work this morning when suddenly my boss makes a comment about a well respected guy who works for another bank, and who we all know.

"Actually, that guy hasn't been very productive since he got married to that young woman a few years ago!"

We all laugh, because my boss is clearly implying that instead of making money for the bank that he works for, he's got better things to do!

"But he broke the rule," my boss continues, "because she was only 25 years old when he must have been about 52."

"What rule are you talking about?" I ask.

"N/2+7," replies my boss cryptically, "where N is the age of the man. No man should marry a woman who's younger than N/2+7. So this guy's limit should have been a woman aged 33!"

"But who says?" asks another colleague, "I've never heard that before!"

"It's just a reliable rule of thumb," says my boss confidently, "something's just bound to go wrong if you break the rule. Hasn't anyone else heard of that before?"

We all shake our heads and soon the meeting moves on to work related matters. But for the last few minutes of the meeting I'm thinking about the rule that my boss mentioned.

It even seems sensible for young guys. If a guy is 18, the rule would say that his female partner shouldn't be younger than 16, which works in the UK at least because that's the age of consent. The rule was stated for heterosexual guys and marriage of course, but even so, I can't help wondering. Perhaps it's also a sensible rule for gay guys?

7 comments:

Mike said...

How amusing! If I were there I'd probably blush. I wonder what your boss's wife would have to say ;-)

The 'rule' for gay men I've seen - and stolen - is an age range of ((A/2)+8)=X=(2(A-8)) where A is your age and X is the age range you should look in. So if you are 30 then X is 23 to 44. If you are 50 it's 33 to 84(!) - heck, with viagra and other medical tricks it could work...

GB said...

For the lower end of your age range formula, Mike, that's almost exactly the same as what my boss told me :-). But I don't believe you when you tell me that you'd have blushed, because unless I'm mistaken, you write this blog!

GB xxx

Ken Skinner said...

Oh dear. I think there has to be some adjustment for real age vs gay age. In my books, the day you accept you're gay and get out there you need to reset your clock back to 16.

For example, a friend of mine lived a full str8 life, wife, 4 kids etc. At 55 he finally admitted to himself that he was gay, came out and reverted to being a horny teenager. Due to the number of str8 relationship years he came up to speed quicker than a teenager, perhaps maturing at triple speed.

I'm also a firm believer in threshold values, though. In the vast majority of UK cases I don't believe that anyone's truly ready for a lifelong commitment before they're 30.

Hence, you need to make an adjustment where (for each party)

N = 16+3*(this year minus coming out year) for N < real age

In addition, where N < 30, proceed with extreme caution!

In my case, I came out at around 25 and I'm close to 40, hence my gay age has caught up with my real age.

If I've done my maths right then my gay age and real age actually caught up at around the 30 threshold, which *was* about the time I was ready to settle down. I think I met my husband when I was 31ish.

I know it's just me getting old, but I'm cynical when it comes to young love. 6 months ago I went to the wedding of a couple of 19 year olds. They were school sweethearts (awww). The girl is already trying to shag someone in her office. Hey ho!

And yes, I do think it's a feature of our society. There's so much variety and so many options that it's hard to be resolute sometimes.

Mike said...

Well, now I'm blushing all the more! But I love that N=16+3*X formula because (a) it means I'm only 19 in gay years and (b) I have a few years of safely-carefree fun ahead... :-)

Ken Skinner said...

Mike, what you have to watch out for is that sometimes you overdo the partying and your 'gay age' overshoots your 'real age' without you noticing and you end up being an old man before your time :-)

One of these days I'll slow down... but it won't be today!

Anonymous said...

This formula works from age 14 to age 100, and is fairly reliable.

It is based on one of my favorite web comics xkcd.com

Here is the specific strip
http://xkcd.com/314/

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog

at my age of 28....
This means I could meet up with guys 21 to 42 (n/2 + 7)
Or 22 to 40 using ((A/2)+8)=X=(2(A-8))

as I am out - I'm still 16 years gay old! And if I come out today, I'll be about 33 when my real and gay age match up!