Without looking up any actually statistics, I’d guess the average age gap in adult straight relationships and marriages is the woman being ~8-10 years younger than the man.
Are your parents pretty far apart age wise? Were they older when they had you?
Seems pretty typical with most couples I meet.
A lot of people also meet in college. In my semi-large circle of friends everyone is roughly the same age or a year or two older than each other. My parents' friends are all roughly the same age give or take a year or two as well. Same with my cousins on both sides and also my wife's cousins now that I think about it.
Hasn't it felt kinda weird that you're getting older but you gravitate toward the same age range regardless? It just seems like a lot of effort.
My parents are within a few years.
Given your background, I don't think you're super familiar with the online dating landscape, which is fine, you met earlier and got to avoid the online dating hellhole. Most women in online dating are seeking guys that start a few years old - 10-15 years older. Very few people are ok with guys the same age.
I think people either meet their eventual marriage partner in grade school->HS or in college and are within a few years of each other or if not they meet elsewhere irl and are often about 5-10 years apart.
There's no effort in meeting people younger? When I online date I message women from 10-15 years younger through my age through women ~5 years older than me. Women older than me are just not interested and I've never gotten a single date with an older woman. The most was someone like 3 weeks older than me. I've had a few dates with women around my age, but most of my dates from online dating in the last two decades have been with younger women because that is who responds.
I've noticed in general that you get hung up on the age thing a lot whenever I post dating stuff and I'm always dating younger people. It's really not a big deal unless it's over 10 years. I feel uncomfortable dating women more than 10 years younger because it looks not appropriate in society's eyes, but 10 years or less never bothers me. My GF who is 8 years younger has nostalgia for Nirvana, Masters of the Universe, 90s movies and pretty much all the same stuff I grew up on. I don't quite understand how that works given the years growing up, but it does and she's no different in personality and interests than my friends in their early 40s.