Is Age Gap Nowadays Still A Big Factor?

[Guest]

there are a number of things that you must consider, i guess the first one is obvious.
Shared experience must be understood in order to really understand each other. If i talk to a young person, they do not understand the culture and life style before the xanga/myspace/facebook/smartphone era. they do not remember planning road trips by printing out pages and pages of yahoo map destinations and looking at an actual paper map when you really did get lost. they don't remember wondering around looking for your friends "did you check _____ yet? how about ___?" 
these things make you who you are, and if someone doesn't understand enough for who you are how can there be love? 
I know a girl who is 22 and her boyfriend is like 44, however there are people who simply "don't grow up" if you were 44 and still partying the way a 22 year old does, would you not consider your life a failure? some people don't think ahead at that age apparently and thus there can be similar personalities of huge age differences that can get along.
however this brings the next factor. DEATH. a man will live probably 5 years less than a woman of the same race to begin with. if a man is say 20 years older, that means the woman would live for 25 years as a widow. this is quite a long time, to put into persective, the life expectancy in the US is 75, many of you probably have parents who are 50. imagine if your mom suddenly became a widow at her age now, how heart breaking is that for both you and your mom? if the woman is Asian and the man is not, you can probably push the death gap to 10 - 15 years (asians live for a really really long time). I would hate to live up to 35 years of the end of my life alone with children who are still relying on me because they are still in college.... maturity and responsibility is about looking ahead instead of diving into the joys of "right now" 
Then there is the child, to use the example of the girl who is 22 and bf 44, lets say she is not ready to have chidlren until 27 (still early by American standards), and there are 2 children 2 years apart, and thus 1 is born when she is 28 and the next when she is 30. when the 2nd child is born, the husband will be 52, when he or she graduates high school the dad will be 70. Personally, I don't plan on dying before my kid finishes their full education and has a stable life set up for themselves, I don't plan on dying before I can hold my grandchild, or walk my daughter down the isle. 

with big age gap, you run into these types of problems where you cannot have a "traditional family life" of course for the life long immature who never really grow up, this is no problem.
Asian philosophy suggests 4 years is the best age gap, the man should be 4 years older than the woman. The absolute largest age gap i would find acceptable is 10 years (for adults 18 - 35). of course that is if u want to start a family and stuff. if you just want to have fun and do nothing else with your future and grow old with no children, then 10 years between 30 and 40 is not a big deal. but really if you are under 35 years old... 10 years would be the absolute max IMO. and even then... it's pushing it...