How Young (and Old) can you Date? The Question is Finally Answered...Using Math?

This question has been asked by cougars, manthers (apparently the man equivalent to cougars), adult of all ages, rebellious teenagers, and curious University/College students. What's the acceptable age for dating younger? Well after being bored in class, I answer that question, and even answer two other philosophical questions: What's the oldest you can date and when should you start dating? And I validate my answers to these questions using math. Ready to get your mind blown? Here we go!

Now everyone knows the standard rule. It's been established in Barney Stinson's 'Bro Code' (How I Met Your Mother) and a variety of other sources. To know how young you can date, you divide your age by 2 and add 7. It's an easy rule. And the genius of it is, as you get older, the gap between your age and your young dater increases. For example if you're 20, the youngest you can date is 17 (3 year gap). But if you're 30, the youngest you can date is 22 (8 year gap). This doesn't excuse Hugh Hefner's choices though.

So to put this in simple math form, here's the formula version of that Golden Rule, which I call the 'Young Formula':

It might look complicated to some, but it's pretty easy to follow. 'X' represents your age. Once you input that number, you can figure out 'Y', which is the youngest age you can date.  So if you're 40, replace 'X' with 40, divide by 2 (20), and add 7 to get 'Y', which in this case is 27 (20+7). Easy to follow.

Now I took this an unnecessary step further. I wondered if it was possible to use the same rule/formula to find out the OLDEST you can date. If I used the Young Formula, my theory is that the same convenient properties would follow for this new formula.

So I used a little technique in math called inverse functions (shout-out to my Math peeps!). All that means is that I try to isolate 'X' by itself using math functions, until I get 'X' by itself and then I switch 'X' and 'Y' to get the new formula. Let me magically show you how it's done.

First I start with the 'Young' Formula:

My goal is to get 'X' by itself. To do this, I need to use the opposite functions while following BEDMAS rules. In basic terms, I must add 7 to both sides of the equation

so that this happens:

Notice how the ' + 7' on the right side is gone, since 7-7=0.

Now to get rid of the 2, we multiply both sides by 2 to go from this:

to this:

Now we got 'X' by itself. Once we switch them around, you get the final 'Older' Formula:

Now 'X' again is your age, while 'Y' is the age that is the oldest you can date. If you're 20, the oldest you can date is 26 (20-7=13. 13x2=26). And just like the 'Young' Formula, the gap increases as you get older. With both formula, you now have a dating range. For 20 year-olds, the range is 17-26. And as you age, the range also grows. For those who are lucky to make it to 100, your range becomes 57-186 (but in all honesty, if you can get it up at 100 years-old, I'm sure a 50 year-old might be impressed enough to sleep with you).

Now here's the icing on the cake. My masterpiece. My magnum opus.

When you graph both equations on a graph (use a simple graphing calculator if you have one), this is what it looks like:

The Red Line represents the Young Formula and the Blue Line represents the Old Formula. The bottom numbers (the X-axis) represents your age, as it does in the formula, and the numbers on the side (the Y-axis) represent the age you can date. Try it out; find your age on the bottom, and see what numbers you get when you follow the Red or Blue line to the side. What a coincidence! They match the ages you get from the formula.

Here's the last, and probably the most important point on why I got into the Dating Formula Industry. I would like to point out both lines cross at one point. This point is (14,14).

This has great significance. If you use both formula for the ages of 14, the oldest AND youngest you can date is 14. This makes sense since we know that the older you get, the biggest the range; therefore the younger you are, the smaller the range. If you go any younger than 14, something weird happens to the formula. Let's use the age of 10 as an example. If we input the age of 10 into the Young Formula, the youngest a 10 year old can date is 12 (10/2=5. 5+7-12). And the Old Formula shows that the oldest a 10-year old can date is 6 (10-7=3. 3x2=6). For those who are sober right now, you can see that there's a paradox. All of a sudden, the Young Formula produces ages higher than your age and vice-versa for the Old Formula. This paradox happens for ages 14 and below. So the universe has established this undeniable truth:

The EARLIEST a person can date is at least the age of 14.

When your child asks why they cannot date until after Grade 8, tell them that if they do, the Formula won't work and the universe will implode on itself due to the paradox. I'm sure they'll understand.

If you read all that, I thank you for reading my post.