While fans can have a lot to say about celebrity couples’ age gaps, for those in the romance, the concern just doesn’t add up.

Take Kristin Cavallari‘s relationship with Mark Estes, for instance.

“I understand what it looks to the outside world. I really do,” the Laguna Beach star, 37, said on her podcast Let’s Be Honest last month. “I get that. He is not a typical 24-year-old in the same way that I don’t think I was a typical 24-year-old….I really think age is just a number. It’s what you’ve been through in your life, how you were raised. There are just so many factors that go into maturity other than age.”

Others, however, have poked fun at their age disparities—like George Clooney did while looking back at his early crush on now-wife Amal Clooney.

“I liked her, but I didn’t want to jump the shark on it,” the Oscar winner, 62, told Howard Stern about the early days of his relationship with the human rights lawyer, 46. “I couldn’t tell if she liked me. ‘Cause I’m 17 years older than her, so she might’ve thought I was grandpa.”