Thread: Slow Age

I think a part of the problem is that other social media (Facebook, Instigram, Twitter, YouTube) have largely replaced traditional forms as the main source of social outreach, interaction and meeting people. Traditional social forums in general I think are dying or at least slowing down.

I don't know if age gap relationships, like interracial, same-sex, etc., are becoming more or less accepted in society. I do notice that comments in news stories are becoming less hostile, or at least more varied in their approval of age gaps and other relationships. It could be that with more people meeting online through match, dating sites and other online venues, that the disapproval of age gaps that used to be so strong in local communities has lessened from the time when the only option was to meet at church, work or local events. With people meeting people from everywhere, the diversity in types of relationships has also broadened, which serves to diffuse social disapproval. With less need to vent or seek approval, there is also less activity on forums.

Of course, one could also theorize that these relationships are becoming less approved of, which leads to fewer people engaging in them. However, I don't think there's much evidence to support that view. If anything, I think social approval of these relationships has remained much the same, but people now have more options than they used to because of technology.

The important thing is we're there for those who need us.

remember, alot of us got tired of the moderators and some really snarky members and formed our own FB page....around the time that azureth reached his peak of obnoxiousness. for me, i'm not doing age gap any more. plus, i'm not in a relationship with a VYM anymore. thank goddess.

Originally Posted by gorillagirl

remember, alot of us got tired of the moderators and some really snarky members and formed our own FB page....around the time that azureth reached his peak of obnoxiousness. for me, i'm not doing age gap any more. plus, i'm not in a relationship with a VYM anymore. thank goddess.

Yet you still come here? How come? I would imagine your FB group is more active.

it's slow there now also. i just like to check in every once in a while. :-) hope you're doing very well.

I've got my new thing now --- "Marriage in Heaven". I have my favorite list of YouTube commentators on that topic, and I like to go to boards and refute the "traditional" church view on Matthew 22:30.

If you think you've seen obnoxiousness and snarkiness in age-gap circles, you should try some of those religious fanatics!

I am doing great. Working on transfering my business to my son and he is catching up. I do not get involved in relationship topics anymore. Following US and Panama politics closely though.

I think there are so many other things going on in life for me. I do often wonder about some of the people that used to be here and active.

Miss Muffins has posted a bit, but I haven't seen Faith post in a long time. I wonder how both of them are doing among others.

I think it may also be due to the term "age gap", it's not in wide use in the US, at least I didn't know it when I first started looking for information so it was a while before I found this site. Even though it didn't fit, the term that I did hear was "cougar".

And for me personally, after years of being long distance he moved in with me just a bit over a month ago. So I'm busy with spending time with him and things are great..... which is a bit boring to talk about.

On other sites I've heard it called "younger-older" love, some people call it "May-December" relationships. I think some people avoid some terms for fear that it is an antagonistic branding of their relationship (particularly "May-December").

Some people have just gotten tired of the Internet in general and all the game playing that goes on there.

Hey everyone!

Well suffice it to say, my age gap relationship is the least of my worries. Chris and I are still going strong, coming up on our nine year anniversary, thirteen years together. I come here seldomly, mostly because I dont need the support.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Tam

I'm a new member and the first thing I look at when I go to a forum for the first time, is how active it is. If there's hardly any activity, then it seems kind of pointless to register. Unfortunately there's very little activity on this forum - it seems pretty much dead. And then when you look down at how many members are logged in at any given time, it often says 0. That doesn't help much either.

But, the interesting thing is, several times this week I've looked to see how many currently active users there are showing on the homepage, and every time I've looked there were more than 60 guests. Right now there are 102 guests. So there are definitely people coming here all the time. Maybe if there were more member activity they'd stick around and register.

This site seemed to rank pretty good in google, and I only found like one other forum like it, the goCougar Forum, and they are apparently closing their site after 10 years due to a lack of activity. But even though there's a lack of activity on both of these forums, it seems to me from the high guest numbers that you see here, that this could be turned around. If people really want to turn it around that is. Maybe nobody's really interested in bringing it back from the dead, I don't know.

But if so, we could always start a thread on how to bring it back from the dead - where everybody could share their ideas on what could be done to make it happen.

I've been on this forum for 11 years and I come back from time to time to post, not so much for support but because I believe in the cause. My wife and I are 15 years apart, but we've been married long enough that our age gap is a non-age gap anymore.

However, I've had a long history of being affected by the social stigma of age-gap relationships and it had a profound effect on me in my younger years. It was for that reason that I sought to find a forum to air my ideas and provide support to others who are going through the same things.

I would love for this forum to come back to life, but I'm not sure if anything can be done to make that happen. These things have a life of their own. If you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them.

It amazes me the number of people who have 0 posts. Every now and then I click on someone in the "today's birthday" list just to see who they are, and they're members with no activity. If the lurkers would participate more, it would spruce up activity.

Originally Posted by SummerBob

It amazes me the number of people who have 0 posts. Every now and then I click on someone in the "today's birthday" list just to see who they are, and they're members with no activity. If the lurkers would participate more, it would spruce up activity.

I do remember having some trouble signing up here. There were some technical issues with doing the actual sign up then having it approved took a couple of days. That really is a problem.

Maybe have a friend go through the process and see if they can point out the issues. Not sure some of those issues could be fixed but approvals happening faster I'm sure would help. Those folks I think with 0 posts had that problem, they signed up, then didn't get approved right away. Maybe for a while have automatic approvals so they can post instantly?