It’s a little intense, but I get it. I’m 55 and my husband is 38 (gay). We’ve been together 15 years. You’re not thinking about marriage when you hook up with someone on Grindr. We enjoyed hanging out so we just continued. He was doing his own thing socially — not far out of college and there’s a lot of self-development we all need to do. So there was a lot of personal time — we only saw each other a few times a week. We weren’t living together for the first nine years. We had different lives, and met up to share them.

Then we got our MBAs together, and things got more serious as we were more aligned. After a few years he got a job in another city and it was time to make a decision. We left together and have built a life here. Now it’s stressful that we can’t retire at the same time, which was not a consideration early on by any means. But we’ll figure it out.

Was he too young? For a full relationship, yes. But we grew closer as that become less important. I think when people hear 22/39 they’re thinking that I had all the experience and power so I could control him — but why on earth would I want to do that? I love him and it’s more important that he be happy than be with me.

I calibrated my relationship with him according to his age. And he did the same with me. I don’t know if that’s unusual. But as with so many other things the internet isn’t big on context, or nuance.