A pensioner, 77, and a Burmese student, 20, who fell madly in love online are now planning to get married.
David and Jo have been together for 18 months and say they are not only lovers but best friends and soul mates.
Sadly they haven’t been able to meet in person yet, as music producer David, who has no children, is in Bath and Jo, a student, is 5000 miles away in Myanmar, a war zone where travel is heavily restricted.
But the pair hope to soon be able to travel to meet and get married once Jo is able to get a visa and passport.
“I am not a conventional guy and I have always followed my heart,” David told Jam Press.
“When there is strong love and affection between two people, why analyse it?”
They met on dating site OK Cupid 18 months ago, with Jo, looking to find a mentor and someone to help her financially so she could study, and David looking for a bit of online flirting.
David said: “I was only looking at profiles of younger ladies in the UK, and on those sites you’d be lucky to get a reply at my age.
“I have always been young at heart and have always had younger partners. I can’t imagine being with someone in my own age bracket, or even in their 50s.”
Although Jo’s location said she was a London-based student, she was actually living in Myanmar, but wanted her profile to appeal to men from the UK, hence her cheeky tactic.
Jo who still lives in Myanmar and is training to be a coffee barista, says she lied about her location to find a man in the UK.
Jo says: “If I am being honest I initially went on the dating site to look for someone to help me financially with my studies as I was a broke student and didn’t live with my parents.
“I changed my location from Myanmar to the UK to only attract men who lived there.”
Once they had connected and started chatting, they flirted with each other but it soon became more serious.
Jo added: “I found myself being able to confide in David about everything.
“We started talking for hours about everything. I found myself falling in love with him because he was so emotionally supportive to me, so kind and affectionate.
“Even his voice was comforting. He also made me laugh with his comedy impressions and I called him all the time, even though the time difference meant being six and a half hours ahead.”
David who has been married once in the 1980s and been single for over a decade had only contacted two other girls on the site after joining 18 months ago.
David said: “Jo seemed a lot more special because she was warm and affectionate and somebody I thought I could help as she was a student.
“Although I don’t have the means to help much financially, the thought of being a mentor and emotionally supportive to a younger lady really appealed to me.”
It was after a few weeks of chatting that David, after pressing Jo about her life in London, got her to eventually confess that she was actually 5000 miles away in Myanmar.
By then, they had been chatting every day and he felt they had formed a great bond so her distance didn’t matter.
David says: “Even though in the first few days our chat had been more sexual, we had gone on to talk every day about our lives, our love for cats, music and arts.
“Jo’s Burmese culture and her Buddhism was very interesting to me so when she told me she was not actually in the UK, it didn’t make a difference to me.”
And now, 18 months on, David and Jo talk every day, sometimes for hours, and even though he hasn’t officially proposed, David refers to her as his fiancé.
He said: “Being on my own, she does fill a certain void but I am also realistic and realise that Jo sees me as a way of escape from her life Myanmar.”
The country is under military rule and is still embroiled in civil war, that has spanned more than 70 years.
Jo has been actively trying to get a visa and passport to leave the country even though passports cost a minimum of £200 in Myanmar and there is a lot of bribery involved in getting a visa.
Although David and Jo have a deep connection, they know that people will make judgements about their relationship.
Jo said: “Every person who knows about our relationship or is reading this will 100% see this as a sugar daddy situation.
“I initially did go online to find someone like that but there has hardly been any financial element to this relationship, except David sending me little gifts like chocolates or sometimes money to help pay my phone bill as all couples naturally do.
“Talking to him every day, his kindness, love and emotional support is so much more valuable to me.
“David is more than my fiancé; he is my mentor, best friend and family all rolled into one. I can tell him everything.
“Even though our time zone is very different we talk for hours every day. I don’t mind his age. He cares about me and that’s what is important.”
Jo has told her friends about her relationship, but her family are “strict and religious” and she believes they would not be so supportive or approve.
David adds that his friends and acquaintances probably see him as a silly old man.
He said: “They have told me I am probably being taken for a ride but despite people thinking I am a dim geriatric and she is a devious young girl, there is hardly any financial element to our relationship, lavish gifts, sex chat, sexting or explicit video calls.
“Our relationship has gone deeper than that.
“In the past, I have met other younger women in the UK but what makes Jo special is how funny, caring and affectionate she is, how mature beyond her years compared to a lot of girls her age.”
But David says he is realistic about the 57 year age gap and understands that Jo might want to have fun with guys around her own age – but she insists it’s not something she wants at the minute.
Jo said: “I love David in such a unique way because he is so much older. If I wanted to have sex with a guy here I could as David is fine with it, but there is no one that gives me the love, the chats, and laughter that David does.
“If David wanted me to be physically intimate with him, then I would be happy to give him that.
“I know David is happy with me seeking other sexual partners for fun but I also love him enough to give him the physical intimacy he wants.”
Although they haven’t got any plans in place at the minute due to the uncertainty of the travel situation, David hopes Jo will be able to come to the UK eventually, and they can spend their life together.
He said: “Either for a visit or maybe even permanently so she can study here.
“As Myanmar was taken over by the military a year ago, the future is uncertain.
“I would want to marry her just because it would give her some security. As for kids, I have never wanted any, but if Jo wants them, who knows?”
