…My hairdresser mentioned to me today that her (very attractive) 14 year old daughter met a guy at Catholic school last year and really hit it off with him. They have become very good friends, he helps her with school projects, they chat on the phone frequently and when she borrowed Mom’s cell phone to take to Summer Camp there were over 200 text messages (she didn’t know Mom’s phone wasn’t text enabled?). What worries her Dad, and I’m inclined to agree, is that this young man was a Senior last year and has gone on to college, which would make him about 18-19. What is his interest her?? She claims he is "like a big brother’ to her.
yes, but not necessarily yours. Your hairdresser and her husband should be worried as hell. It could be innocent. The boy could view her as a sibling that he’s just “watching out for” or somesuch. But statistics say “danger, danger, will robinson”
Thanks. I do realize it isn’t my problem at all, but was just curious if my instints were sound or if I was being a cynical old lady.
She had solicited my opinion, thought her husband was being too judgemental. I told her I thought it was best to error on the safe side and protect her daughter as I couldn’t come up with any reason this guy would be platonically interested in her daughter and her daughter was too young to have to have here judgement tested.
I would be worried if it were my daughter. In fact, I would be watching the situation very carefully if it were my daughter.
I really wonder about parents sometimes. Years ago my husband’s sister (then 15 years old) was allowed to begin dating a 27 year old man. Becky dated this guy completely openly – her parents knew she was dating him and were totally fine with it. I tried (once) to suggest that he was too old for her and she shouldn’t be allowed to see him. “Oh,” they said, “He’s very nice. And Becky is very mature for her age.” Yeah. She was pregnant at age 16 and dropped out of high school to get married. And the man turned out to be violent, controlling and viciously jealous – about what you’d expect from a 27 year old who dates high school girls. They were divorced before Becky was 18.
I don’t know. When I was 14 I was going out with a 17 year old. If anything he was more innocent than I was. And it was his parents who were worried about my corrupting him. (Er, I should mention we were both virgins and remained so.)
I’d say they should sit down with the guy and have a long talk. My 17 year old was very young for his age, who knows how “old” this 18 year old is…
He wants to put his penis in the girl’s vagina. That is his interest in her. Her dad is right on the money, probably from remembering what he wanted to do to teenage girls when he was a teenaged boy. Good grief, what planet is your hairdresser living on that she doesn’t know this?
I beg to differ. See above post. Of course he does. She probably wants it there. The question is will he act on it. And what will he do to act on it. And will he do it if she’s not ready. And is he ready. Not to be assumed.
When I was 15 I was going out with a 19 year old. We lasted well over a year (a lifetime at that age ). It was a pretty innocent relationship - ie. no sex. He must have been a veerrry patient man. Or neutered.
On the otherside… I had a pretty similar relationship to this with a next door neighbor. Her family moved into the neighborhood right before her freshmen year of high school (my senior year). So I was 17 she was 13 when we met.
We were both from Montana and had a similar interest (theater). She did really feel like a little sister. Our relationship was all on the up and up.
All guys want to get laid, that doesn’t mean they want to lay any available piece. She might have equally hot friends he wants to get with.
My parents met when he was 24 and she was 16. They both knew that they were right for each other. However, my father urged my mother to date other guys, saying that since he’d dated other women, and knew that she was right for him, he wanted her to go ahead and make sure he was right for her. They’ve been married for over 50 years now.
Sometimes, it really does happen that way. However, I don’t think that Lil Miss 14 YO should be going out with an 18 YO right now. Let them be friends, sure, but let her grow up a bit. If it’s really love, they’ll have time to date later on.
Well, the question in the OP was what is his interest in her, and that’s what I gave my opinion on. If he would force himself on her if she wasn’t ready is a different question, and I think most of us here would say that she should err on the side of not putting herself in situations that could get out of hand, and her parents should help her with this.
A year ago my freshman daughter was invited to homecoming by the neighbor of her best friend. Our daughter looks older than she is. The neighbor was a senior. A couple of weeks before homecoming we received a phone call at 3:00am on a Saturday night. Daughter had slipped out the basement door and gone for a driving lesson with the senior. The police were calling from a nearby park.
Fast forward to about a month ago. This same guy, long since graduated, but he’s supposedly ‘like a big brother’ to many on the street where he lives, had at least three sophomore girls over and was serving them alcohol–enough that at least one of them went home drunk.
The young man in the OP may be innocent and fabulous, or he may be trouble. Unfortunately, girls that age can be too trusting of cool older guys.
Ya’ know, if this were a hundred years ago this wouldn’t even be an issue.
Sure the 19yo wants to put his penis in her vagine but so does any other 15yo as well.
I’m not sure a 19yo has a superior intellect that would allow him to “trick” her in to doing anything she didn’t want to do.
That’s assuming she’s had proper coaching from her parents.
Well. Ok, it could BECOME the proper word. At this point, I think the parents should take an active role in the relationship. I don’t mean this in a helicopter-covert ops way, but I mean is the daughter willing to introduce this guy to them? More telling, is he willing to meet her parents? What are their impressions of him? What do THEY think of their daughter’s maturity, what do people who KNOW their daughter besides them think of her maturity? Again more telling, what do people think of the guy’s maturity? Is the daughter willing to be open about her relationship? Does she think she needs to hide something (14 year olds aren’t nearly as good at lying as they think, especially not to parents on the lookout for lies)
In any case, questions like these are very basic questions that it’s not unreasonable at all to ask or know the answers to.
Red flags should really only start going up when there aren’t satisfactory answers that can try to establish what exactly is happening. THEN they should start worrying.
I wouldn’t be “worried”, but I would be assuming the relationship is bf/gf unless one of the two is gay. I just don’t find the thought of a 18yo dating a 14yo “worrisome” per se. Many of my HS gf’s did it and are in perfect good health twenty years later, thanks. Some are married to the guys in question. There was a handful of pregnancies (most of them from a specific group), but in general the daddy wasn’t much older than the mommy; most elder guys had seen enough friends be burned to remember about Lt. Rubber. I’ve seen cases where she wanted to go to third base, homerun and, if necessary, the Republic of Congo, and it was him who was sort of pulling back because he saw her as “horny but not ready.”
If the guy felt otherwise scummy, that’s a different animal. But not related to that particular age difference.
I said “assumed”; that’s sort of “until proven otherwise.” One way to prove otherwise is just to see them together. Middlebro was the “knight in shinning armor” to several very attractive “ladies” through High School: anybody who saw them together saw there was no sexual interest from either part. He had eyes, he knew they were attractive in general terms, he liked them as friends; but they weren’t what he was looking for. When he met Her, it took him 30’ to realize it… We joke it was the hair color: SiL is a brunette and those girls were all blonde or light-brown.
Bro reckons that the hours spent saying “there, there” to whichever of his ladies was heartbroken at the time came in handy when it was time to navigate the tricky waters of a girl who had “no interest in getting a boyfriend, at all, until I’m done with college and finished my internship.” That would have been a 10 years wait! They got married between medical school and the internship.
It wouldn’t be an issue, because a hundred years ago no one would dream of letting a young man and a younger girl spend time alone together as “just friends.”
). It was a pretty innocent relationship - ie. no sex. He must have been a veerrry patient man. Or neutered.