It HAS been a long time since I was 17, so perhaps the average 17 year old in 2003 has a different feeling about age than the average 17 year old did in 1962. I will try not to make sweeping generalities in the future. I didn't have that same bias myself, but most of my friends did ---- and especially if it concerned a romantic relationship. We had a girl in our class who was born in Germany. Her parents had arranged for her to marry the son of the family who brought them to the US. He was in his mid-or-late 30s and she was 18 when they got married. We all knew she didn't want to marry him, but was doing so out of a sense of obligation. He seemed old to us, in possibly the same way that Brandon seemed old to Marianne at the time she met him: he was quiet, someone who listened rather than talked, and he was not very handsome. Certainly not dashing, any more than Brandon was dashing. It could be an attitude more than an age that caused Marianne to initially slight Brandon, but she does make it clear that age is an issue for her as far as he is concerned.