purely anecdotally I went on a date with a 20yo when I was 23 and decided I would never do that again... wasn't a morality thing! we just had very little in common.

Well fair play, albeit I can't imagine that small an age difference making the difference. Although I often had little in common with people around my age so Idk.

Otherwise I find this pretty agreeable as a view, the focus on learning actual independence and not being a highschooler, yeah. Your bit about "someone who dodged college would be getting presumably just as rich of an expanded life experience" actually makes me wonder if going to college in the normative, american sense, (as in everything paid for etc etc) lets people kind of keep being sorta highschool students for a few years, and put off that actual independence and "adulthood"...

not trying to say the age of consent should be 24

I actually do wonder if that's a consensus people have come to, honestly, and if so I have very mixed opinions about that but can kind of see the argument, I think. It seems like a lot of people do feel this.

Otherwise no need to clarify, ty for replying & sorry if I came off as weird. It's a pretty thorny subject, I just wanted to know about the framing you used but this is a very considered mess of jumbled thoughts, so thank you again ✨

i also can acknowledge I have some Catholic brainworms on this issue broadly that I probably should try to work out before seriously discussing it in future.

Oh that doesn't sound fun, hope it's not hard when you do :|

raising the age of consent is probably regressive in some ways in reality and I don't advocate for it... but I also think until capitalism goes in the trash can and our social structures and mores get some revolutionary overhauls, it's a challenging topic to approach and discuss in a revolutionary mindset.

Yeah I mean, so much of what can make age gaps problematic is financial and living situation related right? Obvs not all of it but capitalism does play into it a lot. Which, this sucks :|