A woman in her early twenties has revealed why she's choosing to date a man who is old enough to be her father.
Hannah Dickson, from South Carolina, US, explained that the 34-year age gap between her and her partner Chris Willianham may cause heads to turn, but she has a good reason for it.
The couple, who met at a gym after she noticed him around for a couple of years before hiring him as her personal trainer, quickly fell for each other after having long chats during workouts, which they compared to 'therapy sessions'.
Just weeks after they started working out together in February this year, the couple officially started dating, and while they didn't share much of it on social media at first, they didn't hide it in the gym.
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Hannah, 23, would soon post videos focused on their age-gap relationship on TikTok, claiming that as they looked like father and daughter, people would stare at them in social settings.
Speaking more about the gap, she said her parents weren't surprised as she had dated someone 32 years older than her for two years in the past.
The Lexington-native said that while 'judgemental' people have a lot to say, she told others to 'not knock it until you've tried it'.
"I knew he did personal training and I wanted to find someone that knew what they were doing. He was more on the fit side," she said.
The fitness nut remembered texting him early on about missing their therapy sessions while she was on a beach trip, with sessions after that becoming more flirty.
"Age difference was discussed one time in the sense that, would you rather have 20 good years with somebody versus 60 bad years with someone else," Hannah pointed out.
She said that 'people just love to hate us', explaining that her father met him at her cousin's wedding in a 'good and positive' interaction.
She admitted: "We were definitely being eyeballed at the wedding. But as long as I'm happy and the person takes care of me it doesn't matter to my parents, they're not really judgemental about it."
Chris described his girlfriend as a 'free spirit', saying that they realised they had 'a lot in common' after all of their conversations, as he admitted that things progressed to the next level when he initated their first kiss while in a park.
He recalled inviting Hannah to his cardio sessions, which he would wake up at 3am for, with no expectation that she would show up - though she did, and they would 'walk and talk for 45 minutes'.
"We are the topic of conversation. We live in the south and it's very judgmental, very opinionated," he admitted.
The couple have been together for eight months now, but have already spoken about sperm-freezing in case they want to start a family in the future.
Chris is already a dad to a 14-year-old boy, but Hannah has 'shown him how to live' again due to her free-spirited nature.
"As of right now, my mind might change, I don't really want kids, we have talked about freezing sperm," Hannah explained.
She added: "I think the best thing about dating an older man is that he doesn't stick his nose in games all day, he's got goals and aspirations, he wants to go somewhere and he has a life,
"Boys my age don't really know what they want to do with their lives, they're kind of childish."
Chris said that a recent trip to a nightclub in Nashville was the first time he danced in 20 years, while Hannah highlighted: "Regardless of how old somebody is, you can have two people your age come together and not be compatible.
Topics: Sex and Relationships, US News, Community
Joshua Nair