It can. Or it can be full of games, insecurities and complications, much like childhood.
The trick is to be the person who is straightforward. If the people around you truly can’t handle it, then you need to make a choice of appeasing those specific people, or accepting that you just may not mesh.
There is nothing preventing you from being that person who is honest and forthright.
Doesn’t that depend on the conditions? If I get to keep the experienced brain I have now, and not have it pumped up with a bunch of mind-altering teenage hormones, I’d be willing to give another crack at my teen years. I was fairly close to getting it right the first time.
I’d hate to have another go at my teen years. Even if I got to hold onto knowing everything I know now, the catch is that I’d have to spend my time with other teens.
Ack.
Know what’s different now, though? When you’re a teen you’re really not thinking about any “future.” Your pool of possible dates pretty much revolves around your school, town or if you’re lucky, some sort of other social group (summer camp, etc).
So you had this small group of people to choose from and the “future” sort of ended with the end of high school and there was a good chance that you wouldn’t be sleeping together (if you were a young teen) and if you went to school together they were forced to interact with you at least 5 days a week, 9 months a year…so it was just easier to be very superficial when it came to choosing someone to be with. You knew that it wasn’t going to last and you would both be changing from within as it went along.
Granted, some of those situations seemed to make things WORSE (like having to see someone 5 days a week, after you broke up) but it was a totally different “scene” when you were in school.
Now as an adult it’s like you’re in your own little world, have to go make your own “pool” of people to choose from, there’s probably no one you know who knows the person you’re interested in, there’s no guarantee of schedules matching up, there’s sex and “settling down,” there’s possibly kids and exes and baggage and jobs and homes and all sorts of stuff that makes grown-up dating both exhausting and exciting…and more meaningful.
But don’t discount some of the tactics from when you were a kid - they can still be charming 
I gave her your note, she said she didn’t like you. But she will go out with me…
Personally, I find the protocol surrounding the initial flirtation right up to and including the first date pretty straightforward. If the other person says yes, they like you. All they have to do is talk and be nice and not drool their dinner down their shirt/blouse. Trying to make a good impression can be a bit stressful sometimes, but it seems to me that first dates are easy to read. If they kiss you goodbye, they like you. If they want to go to your house, they want to sleep with you (even if they don’t right then and there). If they fall asleep during dinner or give the maitre’d their cell number, looks like they’re not interested.
Where the Protocols of the Elders of Dating get all fuzzy for me is that period between the first date and The Talk (wherein the sensible or neurotic person in the duo staples the other party’s garments to the couch and makes them state in actual concrete nouns what they’re after, and whether their Internet dating profile is “hidden” or not). It in this period that you have relationships where one person is picking out china patterns and wondering where the kids will go to school and the other person is still seeing and possibly sleeping with other people. I have known cases where this philosophical split goes on for months – if nobody in the relationship wants to initiate The Talk, in rare cases, years.
The Protocol conundrum for me being: when do you have to have The Talk? After you kiss, have sex, spend all your time at the other person’s apartment? After date number 3, 5, 12? There are people who want to have The Talk in the middle of the second date, there are people who never want to have The Talk until the threat of waterboarding arises. Someone needs to write up a checklist or something, so we know when we’re supposed to have The Talk.
Teenagers don’t have The Talk. As an adult, there’s no way around it.
We are all too busy now. (Perceived and real. Mostly, real.)
My theory is it is all based on GUILT and Perceived Obligations to Family. yanno, those people that yank yer nuts. You can’t hang out with your pals that get your jokes, don’t criticize your outfits and don’t get a bee up their nose when you say ‘fuck’ alot when kids are not around. because you have to attend another family get together that is Groundhog’s Day All over again for the nth time.
When your schedule frees up, your pals cannot come out to play ( or sit on the couch and veg, more likely) because they have family obligations in their own Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell.
This theory is incomplete and based on superfluous evidence and loads of hours on both sides of my family wondering WHEN WILL IT ALL END!!!1111!!!
I haven’t had any friends like I did when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?*
*Stand by me.
I’m in my late 30’s, and I think this is absolutely the best time in my life. Absolutely, hands down the most fun I’ve ever had doing what I want to do. I’m currently bitching about my PITA job in another thread, but at the same time I know that it’s actually quite fun on the good days, and I’ll miss it more than a little when I decide to take off for greener pastures. There’s not enough money on the planet to make me go back to being a teenager.
As far as relationships? I got married when I was in my late 20’s, so I really can’t say for sure, but as others have pointed out, all you’ve gotta do is ask. Not to make this too personal, Lobsang, but you’ve linked to your picture on the board, and I’ve read your posts. You strike me as a smart, funny, genuinely cool person, and–judging by your picture and speaking as a straight guy–you’re handsome to boot. You get bonus points for an interesting hobby in photography. If you were to settle up where I’ve lived, I’m quite sure you would be able to just walk up to someone you’ve gotten to know somewhat and just ask her to a movie, and that would work. Something tells me that you’re a lot better than you give yourself credit for.
As far as your question about why you just can’t walk up to strange women and ask them out, welllll, probably because there are a lot of bad people out there, and women are going to want to make sure you’re OK before just going out with you. In fact, I’d be a bit wary of any woman who took you up on an invitation like that cold. A good woman isn’t going to take you up on an offer without verifying you as a person any sooner than a good company will take you on as an employee without verifying your resume’. They’re just being cautious, and as one gets older, caution becomes second nature-and not without reason. IMHO, the protocol is good for the both of you. It’s nothing personal. Once you learn the protocol, I bet you’ll get a lot more attention than you think.
Speak for yourself, I’m still trying to figure out how to do this at 24.
Yes. And I’m almost 45. So far, it hasn’t gotten better…
Shirley–I’m with you. I get so tired of the rerun that is my life. I think it was Josephine Tey who said a full life is usually full of other people’s obligations.
It sure would be nice to not have to spend X holiday or weekend making someone else happy. (yes, you can cue the violins now)
It’s not something you do. It’s something that happens to you, or not.
As an awkward teenager I often wondered how I managed to aquire friends becuase surely such a pittiful urchin as me isn’t fun to be around.
Apparently a lot of people considered me fun to be around, and for that I retrospectively love them, and deeply regret never showing my appreciation to them.
For the vast majority of people I know dating now is exactly like dating then except as they get older they get more clever in rationalizing their BS.
Your OP makes me laugh pretty hard when you mention how simple it was to date back then. Clearly you need to be reminded how full of bullshit dating could be at that age.
“I love you but I don’t love love you”
“I like you but you dated Jane and since Jane and I went to camp 3 years ago we pinkie swore never to date a man the other had dated”
“Well I do have a crush on you but I think Jack is going to ask me out next week but if he doesn’t then I’ll totally go out with you”
“Samantha said you were talking to Sarah at the party! Well were you! And she said you were like totally giving each other a ‘look’!?!? Don’t you dare give me a sarcastic answer that you usually look at the people you are talking to and that you’re just friends with Sarah!”
“You’re a great guy that’s always there for me you’re sweet and kind and dependable. But I think I’ll dump you for the guy that used to slap me around.”
“I didn’t cheat on you! I don’t care at all about the guy I sucked off it wasn’t even ‘real’ sex! I love you.”
“I’ve decided to remain a virgin until I’m married but in the meantime I’m more then happy to be a cocktease who’ll be on drugs by the time I’m 19 and go through my rebellious stage at that point I’ll be a destructive force that attempts to draw in and destroy everyone I come into contact with”
“Oh I’m so edgy and creative and so persecuted because I’m a wiccan/goth/emo but really I’m just a drama whore that’ll suck your lifeforce out”
“Are we going to the movies as friends or more then friends? Because I like you but I’m not sure if I like like you. I do think it’d be great to be more then friends because you are like my best friend in the world right now but I’d hate to lose that friendship if you know we start dating and then we break up because that would just break my heart!”
shudder and that’s just a few I’m sure I could think of much much more. Maybe I just sucked at dating when I was younger. Thank og I’m happily married now and I wouldn’t go back to dating (especially drama infested teen dating) for the world.
*Why can’t adult friendship and courtship be more like when we were kids/teenagers? *
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, why in God’s name would I want to go through that again? The first really good relationship I had was when I decided to totally throw away all that teenager bullshit of trying to play any games or be anyone other than who I am. And we’ve been married 13 years!
Well, there’s a defeatist attitude if I’ve ever heard one. You’re doomed before you start if that’s how you’re thinking.
Look, I was a tremendous nerd back in the day (before it was cool to be a geek! I’m authentic, yes indeedy!). Like many Dopers, I was the bottom of the heap, socially speaking. I had all my friendliness stomped right out of me. But that was years ago, I had a better time in late high school and college, and now I’m a grown-up, and I have a lot more control over my life. I can go out and make friends. It doesn’t ‘just happen’ to anyone anymore–we all have to get out there and try. Or we can stay home, eat and drink too much, and talk to others only through the anonymity of these message boards while wondering why we don’t have any friends IRL. And while I like my boards, they’re no substitute for real friends.
Well, I for one miss the romance of teens-who is more romantic than a teenage boy being sincere? Gah-I’m a sucker for that. It may be rare, but when it happens, it’s sweet as hell.
I miss necking. Sure, sex, whatever, but I miss making out. I miss having the time to devote to a relationship-most days I am running just to keep up with life. I MISS romance, dammit.
And I’m married to guy who no longer even sees me. Self-pity yaddayaddayadda. Never mind, we won’t go there.
That is all I miss about teen relationships. I dont’ miss the mind games, the Kim told John to tell Sus that Jamie saw you hugging Ben at the game stuff. I also don’t miss the reneging on formal dates (my daughter was stood up for Homecoming). Teens can be real shitty to one another (so can adults).