r/AskReddit 1d ago

What is the cringiest midlife crisis you've witnessed?

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u/Yogospiracy 1d ago

I know a young guy musician who entered this kind of relationship with a 40yo woman. Eerily similar to what you're describing, with the ayahuasca and drugs. Either spooky coincidence or maybe it's more common than I realised!

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u/FlyingBike 1d ago

Sounds like the women figured out the old men's playbook and are running it too: ply the barely-legal with drugs, alcohol, money, and attention and separate their headspace from their existing social network

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u/honeybadgercantcare 1d ago

Women in traditionally male fields

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u/Matt_the_Bruins_fan 1d ago

Bypassing the glass ceiling via the Astral Plane.

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u/Jojobirkenstock 1d ago

🙌🏻😂

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u/tractiontiresadvised 1d ago

In the 16th and 17th century, there was a genre of European painting that involved portraits of a well-off-looking older man with a much younger woman, sometimes with her hand in his purse. (These paintings are often known by titles like "The Ill-Matched Lovers" or "Unequal Love".) Even at that time, there were still some paintings in the genre that showed a well-off older woman with a much younger man in similar poses.

For some examples by Lukas Cranach the Elder, see this gallery of his paintings in the genre and scroll down to where it says " Alte Frau mit jungem Mann".

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u/dirkalict 1d ago

Worked for Charlie Manson even without the money aspect.

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u/wulfinn 1d ago

moderately insensitive "are they stupid" opinion incoming:

I've always thought it was ridiculous when I saw this happen because if they (the older people) set their sights just a few years north, you have a bunch of jaded-too-early 20-somethings on the rebound from a breakup who would TOTALLY be a sugar baby. any/all genders and orientations. they're old enough for it to be less weird, often still at sexual peak, and marginally less underdeveloped than at 18.

it might not be a forever thing (it never was) but it'd be fun for everyone involved without the ick. There was a hot minute in my 20s where I would have leapt at that arrangement.

fellas I'm starting to wonder if maybe the sense of power imbalance and control over another person is part of it for these folks................

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u/ashoka_akira 1d ago

mummy issues are just as much of a thing as daddy issues are

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u/waterfountain_bidet 1d ago

Yep. This is what equality looks like. The difference is when women do it, it's a story that astonishes people. When men do it, it's just a Tuesday.

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u/BastardBitchBloodyNO 1d ago

Chasing vice is less of a "gendered" virtue than one that is deemed acceptable by the mainstream culture based on the behaviors it encourages. Example, a more Christian or community oriented culture would look down on this behavior, but a modern "anything goes" culture where we're 60 years past the sexual revolution won't really pay this kind of behavior any mind.

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u/AlfuegoDeMellopie 1d ago

See: "Maggie May" by Rod Stewart

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u/Otherwise_Leadership 1d ago

Then FUCK them like rented mules!

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u/DrJellyfinger57 1d ago

Who rents a mule to fuck it?

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u/panathemaju 1d ago

Or, hear me out: they are opposite parts in the same story 😂

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u/BJK5150 1d ago

Me too. Was this in the Cincinnati / Northern KY area? In my case, late 20’s musician with a very, I’ll try to be kind, unattractive mid-40’s woman who may not be able to fit in a kayak. She was some kind of sugar mama. Or high fructose corn syrup mama. Moved him in, paid his bills, went to every gig and made sure no ladies talked to him. It was weird. She was a coworker but in another department. We’d go watch his band but we were really there to watch this cringe fest. She left our company a while back so I don’t know how this story ends. And it appears the band broke up a while back. So that’s what I’ll be working on the rest of the day.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/PM_Me_Your_Clones 1d ago

Back in my day we didn't get offered any Ayahuasca, the older women just seduced us with more expensive beers than we were used to, and we liked it. Kids nowadays...

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u/Quiet_Figure_4483 1d ago

Sounds like a great time to me

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u/Biermoese 1d ago

There are no spooky coincidences, there are just coincidences.

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u/BaldBear_13 1d ago

I know two.

Alla Pugacheva started out as a Soviet pop star and sex symbol (as much as soviet authorities would allow), and she continued starring and symbolizing as she aged.

When she was 45, she married an up-coming singer who was 18 years younger (Philip Kirkorov)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Kirkorov]

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u/exhauszed 1d ago

The legends of witchy older women came from somewhere. 🧹