THE RELATIONSHIP THAT MEN AND WOMEN ARE DEPRIVED OF

My little sister was being babysat at our neighbors’ house, which was owned by an elderly couple. In one instance, the wife was out and left her husband and my sister alone for a few hours – and my sister would come home to me later, saddened by what happened at our neighborsʼ.

The day my sister returned with a sad look on her face will always be a day for me to remember. When my little sister was left alone with the neighbor, he said that even though he cared about her and that he looked at her as he would his own granddaughter, he didnʼt feel comfortable being around a little girl.

My little sister was always fond of him and really enjoyed his stories about himself when he was young. But most of all, she loved to listen to the wisdom that he would give her.

When I asked the man about what he told her, he explained to me that he would only talk to my sister when his wife is around and that if his wife should die before him, he would never have my sister come to his house again. He insisted that he loved my sister, but society does not approve of young women and elderly men being mixed together – plain and simple.

I didnʼt think much about it at the time, and called B.S. However, it would come to my mind many years later when a young white female friend of mine visited Thailand and befriended a much older male professor. “Call me dad,” is what he told my friend to call him. She confessed to me that, at first, she thought it was a sexual invitation but quickly realized that his comment was actually a sign of friendship and mentorship, which was the first sheʼd ever had with a man.

It was at that moment I realized that young women and old men face a horrible tragedy that shouldnʼt be, at least in our American culture. As a man myself, I have had the fortune to have had both male and female mentors, but my sisters and female friends had no such thing outside their families. Chances are that you, the reader, upon reading the first paragraph here, anticipated a sexual tragedy – but no such thing occurred.

The reality is, young women and older men seen alone together is socially dangerous. That instead of seeing platonic mentorships between young women and older men, we perceive relationships of a sexual nature, is proof of a devastating tragedy that ultimately deprives young women and old men from creating healthy, and often, vitally important relationships.

The intentional distance kept between young women and older men was created to combat the horrible tragedies of pedophilia and sexual crimes, but we have killed the healthy relationships in the process. The mentorship that formed between my friend and her professor in Thailand is a rare instance that is not common among young women and older men today. The sad reality is, women will suffer for it because women will not have a robust relationship with older men and such negative views will continue to be the obstacle of what could lead to healthier relationships for women and men.

While I’ve always rejected the idea of looking at other countries to say what should be the “norm,” I think that if there were something that the U.S. could adopt, it is the healthy relationships across the genders, where we could encourage a healthier way of thinking.