fingerlickinbutch-deactivated20:
reminder to all 14-19 year olds girls. that grown man does not like you. you are a victim
He doesn’t like you, he likes your naivety and willingness to put up with shit most women his age probably won’t
“you’re mature for your age” “you’re so special” “you’re so different from other girls” pls run in the other direction!
I don’t actually care if someone thinks this is derailing because it’s important.
This applies to all genders on both sides. Teen boys often get left out of these posts, but they are also preyed upon like this, by men and women and also people who are neither because no one is incapable of being a predator. This post shouldn’t be gendered. You can say it happens to girls more, and it could be true. But it happens to boys and they are less likely to talk about it when they get hurt. Less likely to get support if they do, especially if the older person was a woman. I don’t think we have an accurate statistic on how often it happens to boys because of this.
But regardless. Don’t you think they should be told how to stay safe too?
One of my coworkers told me about a good friend of his, a guy that ‘had a thing’ with an older woman in her mid-twenties that started when he was about fifteen. He talked about how their friend group thought it was cool, how they were a little jealous of him. She was pretty and interested, which is any fifteen year old boy’s dream.
The older they got, though, the weirder it got. She got pregnant by this kid when he was still seventeen. Thankfully he went to the authorities and got custody of the baby when he was an adult, but my coworker kind of laughed it off as kids being stupid. I think he thought I would just dismiss it, which is heartbreaking.
I asked him if it would have been okay if it was a fifteen year old female friend and a twenty five year old guy. He immediately replied that it would NOT have been okay, he and his friends would have beaten the guy up.
The dissonance is real, guys. There’s a kid who was groomed at fifteen and a single dad at nineteen because his friends and family only gave this message to girls. This message matters to everyone- no matter your gender, no matter the gender of the other person- if you are a child and an adult is ‘interested’ in you, RUN AWAY. They don’t have your best interests at heart, and that’s not love at all.
And while we’re at this:
It is good to have trusted intergenerational friends who’ve been around the block and can see and warn you of this shit from a mile away. When I was young I thought the adults in my friend group were laughably cautious, but I followed their advice because I respected them. As an adult, I say “Jesus Christ I’m glad they were around because I probably would have died without them.” Not me exaggerating, by the way. I can think of at least two times I was in situations that, to an adult, had more red flags than The Running of the Bulls, and to teenage me seemed comforting and flattering and like a great idea.
Please develop healthy intergenerational friendships so you can recognize the unhealthy bullshit. I don’t want yours to be the next face I see on a billboard.
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