We talk about sex, current events, reality tv shows, politics, life, money, kids, values, religion...

Just because there's a fifteen year age gap doesn't mean that we can't have a conversation. I mean, that's silly. My view point may be more of my generation and his is more old-school but it doesn't mean we don't learn from each other and appreciate each other's view points.

I'm sorry you find your students so vapid or unreachable.

Would 12 years difference count? Master and I talk of politics, social sciences, books we're reading at the moment, personal memories of events, architecture, history, personal stories from our lives, trivia, work, etc. Not only do we have the age difference, we're also from different cultures (I'm American and he's English), so there's also lots of cultural education going on as well.

I would like to add that my man and I have been together since I was 18 and I'll be 30 in August. Every day we learn something new about each other, every single day.

My man and I have a 14 year age difference, but I have a feeling your kids are probably a bigger gap than that. We will make cultural references that the other won't automatically get every now and then, but that's the fun. Then we go online and research it and talk about it - it's loads of fun and broadens both our knowledge bases. We talk about everything and we never have any issues with conversation - religion, politics, sex, current events, history, science, TV, money, games, family, kids, pets... every single thing under the sun. No matter who you're with you will have differences of opinion and experience, our age gap does not cause any additional problems.

Most of my non-school friends are between 5 and 10 years older than me. Friendships and relationships both.

We just don't really talk about tv or movies ... or anything that's time-sensitive at all, really. Politics, philosophy. New scientific progress. I guess there are some groups of friends I play board games with to fill the gaps where other people talk about tv shows. Among those people, there's a shared culture of sci fi literature we can draw references from. Or we share things from history or psychology we've been learning.

Other groups aren't as cohesive as the sci-fi friends tend to be, though... I've got a few older friends I ride and build bikes with, others I go to concerts with (bluegrass is non-generational!)... anything, really.

You can have intelligent conversations with people, no matter how little you might have in common in terms of context, I think.

I dated a guy who was 6 years older than me. It was weird when he would share high school stories cuz I would have still been in elementary! Or I would ask him when did this happend and he would say oh like 20 yrs ago when he was 16 but I would have been 10. Weird! hee hee We had a lot of sex and watched movies but other than that, didnt have too much in common. Didnt last very long...