Love Is Proportional To Age

It’s been the traditional perspective that the younger you are the less you know about love. It is age where comes the capability of understanding love and ability to love. Frankly, this outlook seems very unfair and flawed. Why is it that when you think of love, you are more likely to think of a young couple madly in love with each other than an old couple in a feverish love? Why is it that in the movies, you always see these vibrant, young people falling head over heels for each other? If love comes with age, why are there not more displays of older people in “love”? What is it about younger people that render them so drained of such a feeling? I believe it is time to change this perspective and how it underestimates and undermines the younger ones of us.

Though said in many different forms, the idea is that love is proportional to age. The understanding of love and ability to love increases as one gets older. This idea stems from youth equals immaturity. The young mind is inexperienced and naïve, thus supposedly is far too primitive to conceive such complicated matters. Love is seen as an adult subject. To make love is adult. It is only adults who get married. Adults are “matured” and older. But what classifies as an adult? Merely someone who is not of the child or teenage years anymore? However, history and differing cultures seem to weave a different boundary. In the past and in certain cultures, it is in the teenage years where the line of adulthood is drawn. Particularly the past, people lived far less, and who was considered an “adult” would be much younger than a modern “adult”. It has been the extension of the human lifespan that has pushed the maturity mark. But then this question arises: If humans live even longer, would the cut-off for adulthood also be pushed back? When people lived to about 40 or 50, adulthood would mark at the beginning of the teenage years or so. Now that people can live up to 80, near 100, adult begins early 20s. So what if people lived to 130? 140? 150? Would adulthood be pushed to the 30s or 40s? Would the understanding of love and ability to love be pushed back as well, if the age of supposed adulthood be pushed back? After all, love is proportional to age, and being that the human would be living long, therefore being older, they would then know more of the workings of love. What would seem older now would be younger then; and because of this, they would be in the position of youth today. They too would have to be seen as lacking in the field of love, as do us in the younger ages.

Now let’s put the older person in the spotlight. The older person, mid twenties and older, is seen as more able because they are more experienced and matured in both body and mind. But is this so? Being so adapted in the matters of love, surely there should be no older person without a significant other. As love savvy as they are, there would not be any bickering, arguing, or divorce. There would not be a need to continuously date or a need to remarry. For if love is proportional with age, would it not mean these things, or remotely close to them? However, there are single people, some dying alone; there are couples who fight and argue; and there are people who divorce and remarry. Undoubtedly, it is possibly for there to exist an older person that is just as unknowing about love just a younger person. This contradicts the idea that love is proportional to age, in that even when aged, a person can still not understand love or be able to love; adults that exist in the undeveloped section of lovers.

Are those of the lesser ages really lesser when it comes to love? Do they really lack the understanding and ability to love? When it comes to love, are younger people that incapable compared to older people? If they are that would mean younger people would not be able to form meaningful relationships, or relationships that lasted very long. They would not display any love-like mannerisms, or be able to exactly feel love. They would not want to seek another for anything more than friendship or more than a sexual bond. Being that love is proportional to age, would it not mean all of this is true? However, there are young people who indeed form meaningful relationship that can last into adulthood; there exist young love absent of sexual content; and do feel and express what appears to be love. There exist young people who seem to display maturity towards love just as an older person. The idea that love is proportional to age seems to not being holding too well; both sides of this debate exhibit behaviors as their opposite.

The adult is overestimated and the non-adult is underestimated. If you remove all the other factors that come with age, love is all the same whether you are young or old. There is no inability to love and understanding of love. Love exists at all levels and different degrees, and none of them undermines one another. Love is a complex and abstract concept, and age does not entitle such mastery in this area. Yes, those younger may be still changing and developing, but those who are older do not escape change and develop. As humans, we are in constant motion, and though there are indeed areas in which age plays a major role, love should not be a slave to it.