I’m in my late twenties. I never thought I’d date someone who is significantly younger than I am. My girlfriend is five years (technically four and a half) younger than I am. In the past, I generally went for women who were my age or older, as they gave off the impression that they were more stable and mature, but after a few failed attempts at digging into chicks who were pushing 30, I realized maybe I should start robbing the cradle.

Sure, she might have been in seventh grade when I was a freshman in college, but I wanted to see what it was like. I was well within my rights due to the “half your age plus seven” rule that is clearly stated in the Geneva Convention. After she met all of the rigorous criteria I put all of my potential partners through-funny, attractive, self-deprecating, is a brunette, likes Billy Joel-we made it official. I thought I had all of my bases covered.

Apparently I was wrong. Young women can be quite a challenge and you’ll learn a lot about them when you start dating.

1. She Never Wants To Sleep

Ever. Your strict 10:30 p.m. bedtime is long gone. She likes to stay up and talk, whether it’s to you or to her roommates. If it’s before midnight and you want to go to bed, you will be ridiculed. You will eat dinner at 9 p.m. every night and go to happy hour twice a week. You’ll find yourself waking up at 8 a.m. and scrambling into work most mornings. Your first major fight will likely be on the heels of you telling her, “I don’t care. Can we please go to sleep now?” one night. Book it.

2. She Drinks…A Lot

Remember how much you drank in your early twenties? Yeah, nothing’s changed since the early part of the decade. You were a goddamn degenerate from the ages of 18 to 25 until your liver finally begged for mercy. She’s going through the same growing pains. Good news, though. She can handle her liquor. There are no crying fits in the bathroom and no calls to her ex on the balcony. She just gets this glazed look in her eyes that should be enough to tell you, “Okay, it’s time to get this one home.” This is exactly what you’ll find yourself saying whenever you go out drinking. You don’t have to keep up with her-just shame her the next morning.

3. She Won’t Get Any Of Your Pop Culture References

The two of you grew up in two different worlds. “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” references will fall on deaf ears and you might have to go for a walk by yourself when she asks you if it was anything like “The George Lopez Show.” Your memories of the ’90s are a bit more romantic than hers-she thinks Gordon Bombay is a gin cocktail instead of a beacon of American excellence. You’ll have to find a way to bridge the gap at least a few times a week.

4. She Wants To Have Sex…A Lot

Your lady is in the prime of her reproductive years and Mother Nature is begging for a grandchild. Thankfully, she’s probably not at all ready for that kind of responsibility and is only getting down with sex for purely recreational purposes, not procreational. So, wrap up your still-potent skin flute and just hope you won’t have to explain that this “only happens when you’re too tired” when she asks you for round two.

5. She Is Not Financially Cognizant

She is not financially incompetent. She is not financially apathetic. She definitely understands how money works and how much of it gets deposited into her bank account every two weeks. She simply does not understand how far her money can or will go. She will ask you to explain her 401(k) and stock options several times. She can’t tell you how much her car payment is. She will buy groceries for $100 at a time. She will pay for movers when she could have just borrowed someone’s truck. The word “budget” is not in her vocabulary and it’s indeed a rare bird if you can find a 22 to 24 year old, regardless of gender, who has any idea how to manage his or her finances. Hell, I still have no idea where my money in between rent and insurance goes. A little sympathy goes a long way when it comes to the checkbook.

6. Her Friends Will Come Over…A Lot

Hope you like company. By the end of each week, you’ll find yourself wondering how many friends one person can have and still maintain any shred of sanity. There will be friends who ask you to set them up with your most handsome, sweetest, richest best friend who doesn’t exist. There will be friends who come over and bitch about their boyfriends. There will be friends who won’t leave until you explicitly ask them to leave. There will be friends over ALL THE TIME. Just pull a “Hey, I need to make a phone call,” slip out of the room, and go play video games until they leave, or worse yet, until your girlfriend finds you playing video games by yourself in the bedroom and asks you to “come out and be social.” Don’t tell me about my business, devil woman!

7. She Will Make You Feel Young Again

I’m just a big softy. In the end, you’re dating her because she still has youth and vitality. Not to say that someone your age or older couldn’t give you that, but you see a bit of your waning naïveté in her. Most of all, she has the amazing ability to get you off your ass, out of the house, and somehow into a goddamn apple orchard on a football Saturday..

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