Dear Prue,
I love my girlfriend of six months very deeply, but there’s a 10-year age gap between us and I keep coming across things she just doesn’t know about, whether it’s historical events or cultural references. I would like her to discover some great TV shows and so on that meant a lot to me, but I don’t want to impose them on her or seem patronising.
Conversely, I have tried to share in her cultural life, but I have tended to find the books, films and TV she likes obsessed with celebrity, mired in tiny irrelevant details about identity, full of weird quirks from the internet and somehow devoid of style. What’s our best bet to build a shared “library” together?
– Anon, London W14
Dear Anon,
If there is to be any chance of a relationship graduating from infatuation to a lasting partnership, then shared interests, or at least some interest in each other’s obsessions, is vital. Of course, it doesn’t matter if she likes soaps and you like travel docs, but you should at least give the soaps a try and she should watch a few of your favourite documentaries – and both of you should approach the matter with an upbeat expectation of enjoying them.
I don’t think you should concern yourself overmuch about the age gap. I was 20 years younger than my first husband. He was a history buff, a writer and very well read. But he never made me feel the ignoramus I was; I loved his Pygmalion role, and he taught me a lot, and – more importantly – sparked interest in subjects I’d not cared about before.
Perhaps there are things that neither of you have tried but might undertake together? It doesn’t matter what, it could be ballooning or researching your ancestry or breeding spaniels – or anything else. But there is something wonderful about building memories together. My husband and I are making a new garden, and we are about to embark on turning our farm organic. I’d no idea how interesting heritage fruit trees, beekeeping and learning about wild flowers could be. And it’s all the better because we are learning together.
But if you know in your bones that your girlfriend is never going to be interested in what gives you intellectual stimulation and satisfaction, or, hand on heart, you are never going to be interested in the sort of things she enjoys, well, my perhaps brutal advice would be: quit now. We’ve all seen those middle-aged couples, out to dinner together, sitting in total silence, nothing to say to each other. Or young couples, both on their phones, finding more enjoyment in browsing Twitter or playing games than in each other’s company. How sad. You don’t want to end up like that.
