Anne-Marie Duff is nine years older than James McAvoy

So the official line on age gaps is in: four years and four months is the ideal difference, no more no less. It must be true, 2,000 people took the survey sent out by insurance company Confused.com and they mostly agreed. The unnerving thing, the thing that really irks me, is that the assumption is that this age gap works when the guy is older and the woman is younger. Because that’s the general consensus, right?

Plenty of people buck the trend. Even a few celebs although their relationship is generally the subject of probing, even mired in brouhaha by certain rags. Anne-Marie Duff and James McAvoy, for example, have had to weather a fair amount of drama given that he’s younger than her.

So why is that the case? Why is it assumed that an age gap will be way round. Of course the pragmatic among us will point out that it’s easy for men to be older when women are younger. Men age well, lines work, their bottoms drop more slowly. And biological clocks give up. Try disputing that. I did and it’s really hard. Or maybe that’s rather unsisterly. My best friend is currently dating someone two years younger than her and it sounds like a lot of fun. She does, however, refer to it quite regularly as a phase. I maintain their issues are an age thing, rather than an age gap. He’s 26, she’s 28 so the gap feels profound. If you’re both in your late 30s, it isn’t.

What makes you an authority, I’m sure you’re asking. Well I have an age gapped relationship. My partner is older but I would slap anyone who suggested a financial/biological clocked motivation. We don’t talk about biological clocks, plus he looks good on his age and, as I always tell him, ‘you’re only as old as the woman you feel’. So the hypothetical notion that it works in a certain way, that the man must be older and the woman younger, is wrong. Age gaps do work when the gap isn’t a thing.

But what say you? Is 4 years 4 months REALLY the perfect age gap?'

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