Keep it real out there

lhcm_ · 2021-01-13T13:17:50+00:00

I recently found an old conversation from when I was 17 with this 28 year old man I worked with. He asked me multiple times to hang out, see his apartment, go on hikes. So gross. I didn't know I could be rude/block someone. I felt like I had to be polite to him since he was polite to me. I would be the rude one if I ignored him - this doesn't make sense to me now but I thought it at the time.

Normalize teaching girls (and boys!) that is it okay to ignore someone who makes you uncomfortable - even if they are polite and don't give any overt red flags. Reading the Gift of Fear really made me realize that women are more likely to be nice to men because they don't want to "hurt their feelings".

dancedance_83 · 2021-01-13T15:21:33+00:00

Same if you’re 17 and he is 25. Walk away, walk away...

meowmix-meowmeow · 2021-01-13T11:51:58+00:00

My parents really let me down on this one. They let me date and enabled a relationship with an 18 year old, when I was 13. The relationship led me to believe that sex = love and messed me up in so many ways. Now that I have daughters of my own, the fact my parents let this happen and drove me the 1 hour it took to get to his place seems even more insane.

weekend111 · 2021-01-13T11:03:25+00:00

It’s not about maturity. Older guys prey on younger girls because they have weaker personal boundaries. You don’t really learn to assert yourself in this society until about 25 (aka, the wall).

Truthland · 2021-01-13T12:48:36+00:00

it breaks my heart to see 14 yr old girls with relationship issues adult women have!! 14 yr old has no business dating. Society needs to stop normalizing these teeny bopper relationships.

metaphoricalrose · 2021-01-13T20:08:01+00:00

When I was 15/16, I took some summer classes at a community college to get some extra credit while I was still in high school. I took a class about jazz music and a guy who was 21 (who openly knew I was 15) would not stop flirting with me. At the time, I thought it wasn't a big age gap and I thought he was cool. He even invited to drive me to his apartment so we could hang out. The professor, who I thought was a mean, bitchy woman at the time, literally pulled him aside after class one time and told him that she'd call the cops on him if he ever did something to me. He left me alone after that (thank god). Looking back, I'm extremely thankful for her interference! She saved me for so much trauma that could have happened.

cyborgbunny01 · 2021-01-13T17:33:05+00:00

i wish someone told me this when i was younger. :(

when i was 15, this 22 year old guy pressured me into a relationship with him and i was scared to say no. still traumatized by that experience.

Betty_Bottle · 2021-01-13T14:33:49+00:00

I lost my virginity at 16 to a 19 year old.

My best friend at the time lost hers at 15 on holiday to the 25 year old coach driver.

When I was 17 I was groomed by a 28 year old. He was a teacher (not mine)

One guy I was casually seeing broke it off with me and started dating a 16 year old when he was 27.

Another ex took the virginity of a barely 18 year old when he was 32.

They are not men, they are predators.

2021-01-13T16:02:46+00:00

Wish someone slapped some sense into me when I was 15 with a 21 year old 🤦🏾‍♀️

HaveNoIdeaWhatToPick · 2021-01-13T14:27:44+00:00

When I was 14 I got seduced by a 17 year old dude who thought female sexuality was sinful and also blamed victims of rape for what happened to them. I was stupid enough to forgive him all of this. If I found him by accident now I would feel like punching him in the face.

JaneD-oh · 2021-01-13T19:34:05+00:00

Years ago a girl I had used to babysit got involved with a 21 year old drug addict when she was a teenager. She was beautiful, young and naive and easily preyed on by this man. He just sucked her right into his fucked up little life and not long after she was also on drugs. (I'm talking heroin, not weed.) I tried talking to her so many times and in so many ways and so did her mother but she wasn't hearing it, he had his claws in her. So I went to the police, one particular officer I knew well enough. I went to him at least 6 times over the course of that summer and told him everything I could about their whereabouts and what they were doing. I got the guy in trouble, he ended up charged with risk of injury to a minor, some drug charges and distribution of alcohol to minors and violation of probation, if I recall correctly. He went away to jail and she got sober with the help of her family.

No_Kitchen4411 · 2021-01-14T02:51:10+00:00

When I was 14, I went to volleyball camp. I will always remember that first day, when I got to go to lunch with the "cool kids".

This "cool" pretty girl complained about the soda and explained to us that her throat tasted like cum because she gave her 18 yr old boyfriend a blow job. I hadn't even known what a blow job was, and was awed when she described in detail the flavor of it, and all the "tricks" her older bf had taught her.

I remember feeling envy, and although I thought this "cum" was gross, I listened attentively so I'd know how to do the cool stuff when I got a boyfriend. Girls are taught so young to always be the pleasers, thank you FDS for teaching me better.

popsthrowsup · 2021-01-14T15:02:57+00:00

Skai Jackson an 18yr old actress who has been in the spotlight since she was a child; pretty sure on Disney or Nick, replied to a tweet of a 30yr old man who was confused why he can’t find her “a model body” 18yr old attractive, even saying he’d “knock the adolescence out her pussy”

Her response was “what could you... an 30yr old... have in common with an 18yr old?”

People are in there defending him to her like “I mean I don’t think it’s an age thing .. attractive is attractive, you are of consenting age” blah blah blah

Like why do men feel the need to fight for their right to sexualize teenagers

anna_6658 · 2021-01-13T13:56:42+00:00

When I was 15 I went to summer camp and there was this 19 year old guy preying on the girls ages 13-15. I thought that he wanted to be friends but turns out he was having sex with one of the girls as a CAMP COUNSELLOR. So gross. That same year a guy who was 20 started texting me and again I assumed that he wanted to be friends. We never hung out or did anything. But I don’t know what he wanted. Now I realized that I could have been groomed. It makes me so mad when people say “but girls mature faster”. Notice how it only applies when creepy old men want access to under age girls? It doesn’t apply when they want positions of leadership. I can’t believe that this is normalized in our society.

elilove1 · 2021-01-13T21:18:50+00:00

When I was 16 I used to think that the 24 year old guys dating my 16 year old friends were pretty weird but thought maybe I just wasn’t mature enough to get it. Nope! They were just creeps...

gibgerbabymummy · 2021-01-14T13:37:40+00:00

I used to bunk off school to go see my 25 year old boyfriend..at 15. He was a investment banker in London, I wrote his name all over my school planner. So gross. My eldest child is almost 14 and that makes me feel ill.

GabbaG0ul · 2021-01-13T13:22:35+00:00

I had similar experiences in 17/21 and 19/22 relationships. Super predatory/abusive. Anything over 2 years age difference until you’re closer to your mid-twenties, is a red flag. 3-4 years is a huge difference in life experience when you’re younger.

_fuyumi · 2021-01-13T20:52:02+00:00

My next door neighbor was 12 dating a 17 year old. They broke up two years later when he went to the Army and accused her of cheating on him while he was in basic. She assured me they didn't have sex (strict parents, Christian upbringing) but I never could quite believe it.

Meanwhile he went to my school, bc she was in middle school, and he was a huge immature fucking loser.

sunstar176 · 2021-01-13T23:30:29+00:00

Yes!!! And 14 year old girls should never HAVE to be mature for their age. They should be having fun in those precious years between childhood and adulthood. The pressure to be grown up is wild! I've noticed my neices (and nephews too actually) trying to shuck their tweendom before they barely hit double digits to emulate people they see on YouTube and TikTok. It's a bummer.

GladRaccoon · 2021-01-13T19:20:15+00:00

Started dating an 18 year old at the end of grade 9. I was 14 at the time, he graduated and turned 19 that summer. I was with him for 4 years, took my virginity after I barely turned 15. It took a small group of friends I had just made when I started University to help me realize the relationship I was in was toxic af.

Left him, which was a horror show (did the classic threats to hurt himself if I left,he moved out of our shared lease apartment, failed to tell the landlord and left me on the hook for the massive rent payment and having to figure all that out)

Its been 4+ years since all that happened, but I still have awful dreams and some panic attacks related to the shit he put me through. At the time, everything seemed so nomal, and the age gap didn't seem that big to me. Now I look back and I'm disgusted he was ever remotely interested in me. My parents did their best to protect me, but they can only do so much when they don't have the full story.

Glad to be rid of that. Don't date older men as a young teen. You are not ready for that no matter how adult you feel. They should not be interested in you. It is wrong.

Risoa · 2021-01-13T17:38:53+00:00

Damn this is messed up. At 15 I thought I was so cool dating a 18 year old. Now I cringe thinking about it. He was fucked.

CompetitionMedical70 · 2021-01-13T15:28:47+00:00

The fact that Highschool has 18 year old legal adults going to school with 14 year olds enables this. I honestly don’t think these age groups should be going to school together.

Mcccy · 2021-01-13T11:56:44+00:00

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slayeroftruth · 2021-01-13T18:21:06+00:00

When people say girls are more mature its because society expects more out of us. That does not mean teenagers are mature enough to date adult male or older young man. That's why overprotective moms is good thing. I'm not saying go crazy with it and don't let teens have life. My mom was overprotective. To be honest I'm grateful for it. She taught me stuff that helped me long term.

cupittycakes · 2021-01-13T18:14:22+00:00

I had to explain this to my cousin bc her actual parents didn't care (bc they had an even wider age gap and thought they shouldn't judge)

She was 15, he was 19- he took her virginity (this they didn't know and she told me in confidence but I encouraged her to share with her mother and opened up her mother to being open to communicate her children's sex lives so they weren't out here navigating it alone... So she and her mother did eventually talk and share)

I'd have love to taken legal avenues against him but I did what I could

I explained to her that she was incredibly special to many people who loved her, she lit up our lives, but that she was not special to him, not 'mature' to him, nothing was significant about her to him except that she was young and easily manipulated and his second choice because he was incapable of attracting a woman his own age, and that this made him a predator

Happy to report it worked and she hasn't went for older guys like that since

Seamstress2 · 2021-01-13T14:48:20+00:00

You can be mature for your age, great! You're the most mature you have ever been - that doesn't make him not a predator.

Waste-Win · 2021-01-13T12:58:32+00:00

This is why I think the younger an 18 yo should date is a 16 yo, but +18s dating 12 and 13 yo, is so gross the only reason they go after those kids is because girls their age wants nothing to do with them.

muse539 · 2021-01-13T16:47:11+00:00

Ugh, seriously though. My "first kiss" was when I was 13, with a guy who was 18. I use the quotes because I barely count it as my first. He didn't tell me he was going to do it, instead he told me to close my eyes cause he had a surprise for me. I almost threw up on him.

That whole relationship was a huge mistake

Joohoneybee_002 · 2021-01-13T17:06:27+00:00

I wish I could’ve seen this when I was 14. He wasn’t 18 though, he was 21.

a-humanoid-from-1987 · 2021-01-13T18:45:16+00:00

This happened to me and when my moms family found out they got mad and grounded (isolated) me for months only because I was caught out past curfew with him. My uncle even made some snarky bitchy comment to me like “so you like dating older buys huh?” Augh. My dads side had anger for the boy and left me alone. I’m pretty sure I’m closed off to the world and somewhat traumatized because of my moms side reaction. Ten years later and I still don’t like how they blamed me for it. I was failed.

Imaginary_Bed_2572 · 2021-01-14T01:46:46+00:00

Honestly, i feel at the age of 15, the boyfriend should be maximally 2.5 years older. And I can also understand your point of view if you even think this is too much.

Connect_Chipmunk_691 · 2021-04-27T02:54:15+00:00

I got hit on by a 17 year old when I was 13. And the worst part was that my female friend who was the same age as me set me up. She and I were at an RV show because her father sold them so we were hanging out at his company's booth. And one of the guys who was working there with him was attracted to me--like I just met this dude! He had expressed his interest in me to her at some point and she let me know and was kind of pressuring me to hang out with him. I wouldn't & felt completely uncomfortable around him, especially knowing that!

The three of us went and hung out in one of the RVs to check it out and I felt safe because my friend was with us. But next thing I knew she was turning around and leaving and I was all the way up at the front with this guy--she had been directly behind us by the door & she left me alone with him on purpose--so it wasn't easy for me to get up and leave myself. And I don't remember how the conversation started but at some point this dude said to me, 'So, how do 8th grade girls kiss?' Wtf?! Totally freaked me out! I don't remember what I said in response but it was something evasive to brush him off & get out of there as quick as possible!

I'm still in touch with this friend and if something like this were to happen today there's no way she'd do something like that. I don't know what it is when you're that age but there's something about those older guys liking you that makes you feel really special or something or seems cool. If it would have been a different guy that same age who knows what would have happened but this dude creeped me out. Not that it would have been okay if he were cuter or more appealing, just referencing the naivety of that particular age & why conversations like that meme are so important!

Mcccy · 2021-01-13T13:32:24+00:00

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Theawakengamer · 2022-07-15T01:46:04+00:00

What if the genders reversed. Lol

GargoArgo · 2022-07-19T02:34:39+00:00

LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOO but yeah let’s let 14 year olds change their gender

MR_DERP_YT · 2022-08-08T20:25:42+00:00

One question tbh, may be irrelevant to this post idk: how yall gonna reproduce w/o men 💀💀

Title	Keep it real out there
Author	supremelyparanoid
Upvotes	14009
Comments	107
Date	January 13, 2021 10:54 AM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/comments/kwe52m/keep_it_real_out_there/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/FemaleDatingStrategy/keep-it-real-out-there.737695 https://theredarchive.com/post/737695

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