There's an 'ideal' age gap for couples. And it's this.

It’s a secret as mysterious as the 11 herbs and spices used in KFC chicken.

And we’re going to share it with you now.

Drum roll please… you and your partner should have an ideal age gap of four years and four months.

According to the people at confused.com (who we’re sure are a very, very reliable source *cough*), in an ideal relationship the man should be exactly 52 months older than the female partner. In fact a whopping forty per cent of respondents to this highly scientific study said that three to four years was an ideal gap and 33 per cent of women wanted a gap of five to six years.

And get this – only one per cent of women think the ideal relationship is with a younger man.

This from The Huffington Post:

More people still think that a romantic relationship is ideal when it’s between an older man and a younger woman. Specifically, four years and four months older, which was the average “ideal” age gap as reported by a survey of 2,000 adults.

While slightly less than half of people said there was no ideal age gap (good call, sensible people), 33% of women wanted a guy up to seven years older than them, while only one out of a hundred women preferred a younger man.

OK, so it’s a stupid survey and we would much rather know what’s in  KFC BUT still. It did get the Mamamia office talking about age gaps and whether there is, in fact, an ideal.

But the bad news is that a quick straw poll of the women in the office at the time of said survey’s release found that while most of us are dating up in age, we’re not going high enough. We are doomed to lives of desperate unhappiness because our partner’s parents didn’t take to procreating just that little bit earlier.

Jamila comes in the closest; her boyfriend is three years and seven month’s older than her. Nicky is in close second place; her husband is three years and two months older. The age gap between Lucy and her boyfriend is two years and 10 months older and Nat’s partner was walking and talking for one year and nine months before she came along. Mia has a gap of 20 months.

Interestingly almost everyone in the office had an older partner (which according to the survey is the thing to desire) with the exception of Melissa, whose toy boy boyfriend is six months her junior. (Hey, Melissa’s new and we’re still hazing…)

Does it make a difference? For the record, our take is that so long as your partner isn’t playing bingo while you’re playing with dolls, we think you’re going to be fine.

Over to you. What’s the age difference between you and your current or past partner? Did it impact on your relationship?

Click through this gallery of celebrity couples and their age differences.