Between us: I am in a relationship with a guy 16 years younger than me. I can confidently say that he raised me.

"4 years ago I wasn't even looking for love. Honestly, at that point, it seemed like a futile effort. 36 years old, a series of relationships that had left me emptier than I was when I started them, and I had the idea that love simply "wasn't meant for me". I had started to see my life differently: I would go on trips with my friends, drink white wine after work, and have a cat and peace waiting for me at home. I didn't want any ! any ! drama !

Until one day, hungry and out of the mood, I went into a fast food place for a hamburger. And you already knew he was there. Young, with some tattoos, deep voice. It was immediately clear that he was very young. I felt it. A voice "Yes, he's the age of your son, my goc'!" was beating in my head. (I don't have a son, so let's not get misunderstandings.)

But then, you know, I really liked hamburgers hahaha. A little flirting, glances, and of course, he found me on Instagram, wrote to me, complimented me somewhere. I let him write to me, for no reason. When he told me he was 21, I was embarrassed, and even really sad to be honest. “There's no chance for the two of us,” I thought. “Souls don't have an age,” he said with his frankness. “Okay,” I said, “but bodies do.”

But of course, I met him. And it was over. A glass of wine, a kiss, and then there was no turning back. At first I took it as an experience, an adventure that wouldn't last, I thought. Four years later, he's still here, my women! 

You'll judge me, but he really taught me love, a different form of it at least. He taught me that love is also that fight at three in the morning about something meaningless. It's also when he doesn't talk to you for two days because you overdid it, and you know it's your fault. It's when he hugs you even though you spoke to him in a bad tone, and he doesn't make you feel "guilty" anyway. The question arises, wasn't it a little late for me to learn this kind of love? Well, that's exactly what I did, I had forbidden myself these indulgences for so many years because I thought I was too "mature". A fool.

He's young, but very manly. And I'm not that old after all. :p He has a temper, he has that weird sense of humor of his peers, sometimes he seems a little addicted to TikTok, and he doesn't know most of my favorite singers, but surprisingly we work! Very well, in fact.

I'm afraid of getting old, I admit it. When I see what, compared to him, could be considered my "flaws", appreciated with the greatest ease by him, I say "Well, let a young man love me, damn it, it's not the end of the world."

I'm not a hopeless romantic, but for the first time I feel like I'm where I need to be. Not in fairy tales, I'm not delirious, I'm in my truth. My friends are surprised when I tell them that with this "lover" 16 years younger, I grew up, I matured. I was very immature. A handsome man, now 25 years old, made me accept love as it comes, without a plan, without logic, without "what people will say".

He tells me "you're everything I want", I say "wait and see how much you'll love me when I get a few more wrinkles". We laugh. Then he kisses me, and all my philosophy goes to waste. It may seem like the rant of a 40-year-old woman, but if this is how this diagnosis that my loved ones express to me, both verbally and in writing, feels, believe me, we need more rabid people in this country. Kisses. <3" - written by an anonymous woman for Anabel, for the "Among Us" column.

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