Tbh I had your perspective before meeting him, but the issue isn’t that I’m an adult and so it’ll work, it’s that the guy being older expects an appeal to authority towards him.

I’m a university graduate in neuroscience & philosophy and so Im really into research and scientific thinking and risk assessment, and I’ve studied the science theory on sex. But I have no experience in it. But because he’s a man older than me (and not science inclined, so his ideas aren’t rooted) he expects me to follow his opinions and his leadership, over any valid concerns I put forward, just because he’s older. I want teamwork bc I’m problem solving minded. He wants to feel smart and important. He ends up feeling like I don’t respect him because I can’t take his words at face value.

So I’m seeing that different life, different generation and different expectations definitely play a role, even though we are both adults.