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- I started working and one of my older coworkers found me so attractive that I couldn’t attend meetings.
- Despite a 17-year age difference and living in different states, we found common ground.
- I think our age difference strengthens our relationship and we hope to get married.
“This is going to be hard.” That was the first thought my former coworker and now fiancé had the first time he saw me appear on the Teams video tile as part of his regular work meeting.
It was March 2022 and I had just joined the marketing company where he was a senior account executive as a senior freelance writer. Shortly after, he was assigned to lead a weekly meeting that included me and two other people. This continued until the end of that summer, when he decided that his initial attraction to me put him in an awkward position.
“Not only were you beautiful, but I really started to fall in love with you as a person, so I told myself I needed to back off and keep work and personal life separate,” Collin, who is now my future husband. , he told me later. “I had never been in a position where I felt this level of attraction to someone at work. I thought, ‘I have to give this meeting to someone else; I can’t run this.'”
Our similarities outweighed major logistical differences
Communication between Collin and I was minimal until September, when a mutual colleague told him that my previous relationship of 10 years had just ended. He asked our office manager for my phone number and texted me to ask how he was doing. He even sent me a photo of his dog to cheer me up.
I always knew he was a very friendly extrovert, so it took me several days to realize that his texts were bordering on friendly and then some. That’s when I asked him how old he was.
“I’m 44 years old, how old are you?” She immediately replied to the text message at that time.
His age surprised me at 27 years old. His personality was so playful that I thought he was maybe in his 30s. I didn’t expect to be 17 years old. age difference.
Meanwhile, I had assumed that I was under 30 due to the stage of my career and my perceived maturity.
Things were further complicated by the fact that I lived in Boise, Idaho, which is not very close to my home base in Charleston, South Carolina.
Still, we agreed to talk. While our connection sounded a little mysterious on paper, we discovered that we also have a lot in common: We both attended a small music school with dreams of becoming composers, and we both changed majors when we realized there were probably more . stable careers. We had both lived in Nashville but had a long-standing attraction to Charleston, South Carolina, for no identifiable reason.
After a week of conversations, Collin booked a $600 plane ticket to fly across the country for a first date, a trip that was hampered by an unexpected nine-hour layover and a change of destination. Instead of landing in Charleston around 4 p.m., he landed at a Georgia airport two hours away, where I picked him up after midnight.
It’s been love ever since.
Our age difference only makes us stronger
After publishing an essay about the differences between Collin and I when it comes to life stages, finances, and retirement planning, I quickly realized that age gap relationships are still quite controversial. I received hate mail for the first time in my life and it opened my eyes to how couples with age differences are often left out of the larger “love is love” conversation.
In my opinion, our age difference makes us stronger as a couple. We had to have serious discussions about life issues from the first week of conversation, covering topics like how we define love, where we want to live, and whether we want a family, establishing a healthy foundation of vulnerability and honesty.
It has offered me a level of wisdom and maturity that helps me fight my own challenges every day and helps keep it young. While we are no strangers to difficult situations that could manifest themselves in the future, such as me being his caregiver when he is older, we certainly don’t think it’s worth sacrificing everything we’ve found in each other.
We are both more in love than ever and can’t wait to elope and continue building our lives together, from big experiences like international travel to smiles and little moments in between. We are committed to maintaining a lens of curiosity towards each other so that we are always growing together.
Kelsey Herbers is a freelance marketing journalist and writer based in Charleston, South Carolina. Connect on LinkedIn.