Generally Creepy

If you’re not famil­iar with the Stan­dard Creepi­ness Rule, it says that you shouldn’t date any­one under the age of ((Your Age / 2) + 7). It’s con­sid­ered a “stan­dard” rule because the divid­ing adjusts your dat­ing pool over time, since older cou­ples with age gaps are more socially accept­able than younger cou­ples with equal age gaps. For exam­ple, a 78-year-old dat­ing a 68-year-old is a lot less creepy than a 22-year-old dat­ing a 12-year-old. Fol­low­ing the rule, a 78-year-old can date any­one 46 or older, whereas the 22-year-old must date some­one at least 18.

But when most peo­ple think about the rule, they only think about the low end of the spec­trum. If you turn the equa­tion around, ((Your Age — 7) * 2) gives you the absolute old­est per­son you are allowed to date with­out being creepy. That same 22-year-old could be see­ing a nice 30-year-old, and that 78-year-old could have a 142-year-old sugar daddy. :)

Mo and I were talk­ing about this the other day, and we agree that although the rule is sound in prin­ci­ple, it would be very weird to date any­one our sister’s age (or younger), so I will have a con­stant rule of (My Age — 4) for the rest of my life. Eddie and I talked about the same thing, and he men­tioned that our friend Tyler had no prob­lem with this and was glad that his sis­ter had turned 18, so he could now hit on her friends. And of course Eddie is an only child, so he has noth­ing to worry about.

Any­ways, I bring this up because I noticed an attrac­tive girl on the bus ride home today. And then I real­ized she was get­ting off on the stop after me, which means she’s prob­a­bly a fresh­man, and thus out of my non-creepy range. :(

4 comments.

  1. wow, creepi­ness reduced to a math­e­mat­i­cal equa­tion. i was not famil­iar with this.

    don’t sweat it, dinh … maybe she just works at the DC? :razz:

  2. Half plus seven rule, eh.… I think it’s pretty good stan­dard to go by. I once told it to my friend, who got upset because when he was 17 he dated a 13 year old. Haha­haha ugh.

    I’m pick­ier than that, and pick­ier than Age 4 or Age — 4. For me it’s prob­a­bly Age 2. SADLY, the few guys who do hit on me are almost ALWAYS younger (1–3 yrs) or older by way too much (28 ).

    And Dinh, there’s noth­ing wrong with dat­ing a fresh­man at your age, tech­ni­cally. But I would def­i­nitely make fun of you for it anyway.

  3. Well it depends on how you round. I bet there are some 19 yo fresh­men, not to men­tion some trans­fer stu­dents live at Castil­lian, and nor­mal peo­ple live at Piñón. In other words, go on face­book and stalk. If she’s 19 , wait in the bushes around Castil­ian, and ambush when you get the chance. At that point, you should bring up the equa­tion and she will no longer think you’re creepy, actu­ally invit­ing you into her domi­cile for some Halo 3 co-op action.

  4. […] I’m not sure where it falls into the Gen­eral Creepi­ness Rule if you are attracted to a fic­tional char­ac­ter who falls (just barely) out­side of the non-creepy […]

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