I came to the comments for an explanation because I completely missed the age labels, so thank you.

Honestly I've unironically missed the entirety of the image at first, I went directly to the text. And probably a lot of internet-savvy people would, this kind of image is useless decoration 90% of the time and people are trained to not look at it. Same concept as in that research where they asked people to find the current population number on a webpage and they had a very hard time, despite the value being in big red digits or something equally distinctive.

xkcd readers remembering 8 billion comic id numbers:

Amazing, there really is an xkcd for everything

Wow my dating pool is at maximum, while i have been single for last 4 years

That is a "meth as a career" 36.

This is the second time this week I’ve ever heard this phrase in my entire life. I feel like I know what it means but I’m afraid to ask

It's a 36 year old as seen by an 8 year old, which appears to be, as I suspected, the age of wikihow authors.

LOL. Yeah. That dude in the picture took her age, added 7 years, doubled that and then lied about his own age.

Idk I'm 36 and this checks out

If he's 65 then she's looking good for 39...

That's after 25 years down the coal mine

Thank god for that "/S"

They will not say “what does ring mean?” They’ll look you in the eye and shout “I don’t understand your dated cultural references old man!!”

"you know, dial me up..."

"...dial?"

Legally, yes. You can't and shouldn't prevent them from dating.

But, it's still creepy, it's usually still predatory, and there can be a huge power imbalance. Basically, the main thing is whether either person can easily leave at any time - often the younger one can't.

Nope. If your age minimum for a partner y is determined by your age x with the function:

y = 1/2 x + 7

then the point where y = x is at y - 7 = 1/2 x. Setting y to x leads us to x - 7 = x / 2, which happens at x = 14.

At x = 18, y = 18/2 + 7 = 9 + 7 = 16.

Relatedly, if we invert the function, y - 7 = 1/2 x, thus 2y - 14 = x, which gives us the theoretical maximum for a possible partner. If a possible partner is older than that, you'd be understood to call them a cougar, or whatever the male equivalent is.

I believe now if you are 18 you need to consult with a lawyer before dating.