I seriously wonder about minors who are like “THERES A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A 16 YEAR OLD AND A 20 YEAR OLD!!!” bc like….. please. please go interact with people outside of your high school
go be a camp counselor or make friends at conventions or join a community theater or – something. literally anything that gets you interacting on an equal level with people more than a year or two older than you. school creates an artificial power imbalance that is highly dependent on age, that’s not how maturity works. You SHOULD be having more and more experiences as you approach adulthood where you’re on equal footing with adults. Having adult friends who aren’t directly responsible for your wellbeing is healthy and it’s insane and concerning to me that that’s so RARE now.
(When I say “responsible for your wellbeing” I mean, like, legally liable in some way. A decent friend shouldn’t endanger you or help you break the law, that’s not what I’m talking about here.)
as someone who has experienced being both older and younger than 16 and 20 years old? The difference is NOT as big as you feel it is, and that feeling is shaped by culture, not actual maturity. make friends outside your immediate age bracket, for god’s sake.
you sound like a fucking pedophile.
without infantilizing teenagers or thinking they’re the same as young kids, any reasonable adult knows that there is still a difference in maturity and experience between a teen and an adult.
teens, please stay away from adults who say shit like “there’s really not such a difference between (mid-teen age) and (early-20s age).” there is. watch out for creeps like this.
I wonder how a blog about shipping and being angry at “antis” suddenly makes the leap to endorsing 16 year olds dating 20 year olds /s
1) the argument was contextual in reference to someone specifically, verbatim, saying “THERES A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A 16 AND A 20 YEAR OLD!!!” Followed by “ADULTS HAVE NO REASON TO BE FRIENDS WITH TEENS EXCEPT PREYING ON THEM” which is. not true and a terrifying thing to say to teens.
2) how many times do I have to say “friends” and “don’t do anything illegal” in one post before someone jumps wholesale to calling me a pedophile for…. saying that young adults and late teens can and should be friends?
3) given the number of people calling 16 year olds “literal children”, I’m not at all sure that infantilizing teens isn’t what’s happening here
4) the post wasn’t about romantic relationships, the comments weren’t about romantic relationships, romantic relationships are different from friendships and even small power imbalances should be approached more carefully except that I said the word friendship in EVERY PARAGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL POST
In my experience, most 16-year-olds are morons. In fact, most 18-year-olds are morons. But a very few won’t be. And those non-moronic teenagers might be aware that almost everyone else their age is a moron and they might want to spend time with someone who isn’t a moron. They can and should MAKE FRIENDS with people older than them.
Most undergrads are morons. But a few aren’t. Some of them might get their heads out of their asses for long enough to realize that grad students are not strange gremlins who live in caves and only come out to lead discussion sections before returning to their caves to grade papers and cackle over all the points they’re taking off. (I don’t cackle. I drink.) Some of those undergrads are my friends. I have an undergrad friend who is 10 years younger than me. We are both music nerds. We both sing in choirs. We both have a snarky, slightly bitchy sense of humor, as do the rest of our group of mutual friends (who are between us in age). She doesn’t understand my references to early 2000s internet culture and I don’t understand her preoccupation with Snapchat, but other than that we have a fair amount in common.
If you think I sound like a pedophile for saying that, you are, like most people your age, a moron.
Loki is the Philosopher King 