Schneekugel wrote:
I dont see any probs with 19 and 16, beside of visiting certain clubs or whatever, that might have age limits of 18.
About the stuff of "people can change". That will always be the same and if the girl was 16 or 19, would make no difference at all. If you think, that you yourself have already matured "to your finally personality in life", I´ll need to go laughing in the cellar, to prevent waking all neighbors out of the noise, that I will produce. ^^ Dont make anything special about the age differency, simply meet her the way she is, and if you both fit, then you fit. And if not, then not.
It might be hard to believe, but some people do tend to get things figured out sooner than others. My experience was that I figured out what I was going to be when I grew up at an early age, so everything I did was intently focussed on that by about 5th grade or 6th grade. The only thing that changed was I learned more about what that meant and gradually acquired the intellectual and material tools to make those kinds of things happen. I guess it would be kinda like if you had a bunch of kids who enjoy playing with Legos, but then you have that ONE kid who is fanatically obsessed with them, or at least appears to be, and then you figure out it's because he's determined to be an architect one day and playing with Legos is more than a passing interest. I was THAT kid really since I started grade school. I was determined to be a metal god. My parents and grandparents were always buying these dinky guitars strung with monofilament (fishing line) that would break if you so much as breathed on them, or these cheap drum sets that would break under the least amount of pressure from a stick. All those toys ended up in the attic or the garbage, and it was distressing. Once I was into something that wasn't a toy and had some mentorship on how to go from there, my childhood was pretty much over. Of course, that led me more towards classical music as a field of actual study, and aside from cranking out the occasional power chord on my customized tele, I've pretty much let my dreams of 80s stardom rest. "Growing up" past that point just meant refining my vision and sharpening my skills. I could stop at any time and teach myself how to shred guitar…I just no longer care to now that I've got a good thing going on elsewhere.
I also observed that MAYBE one or two other kids my age had that kind of clear sense of direction and determination. I might add I also knew college kids with NO sense of educational or career direction. Everyone else was in some kind of weird in-between place…college kids who were flighty and predisposed to immature, high school drama, high school kids mature beyond their years who came from a wrecked home life and just wanted some relief.
I agree that 16 or 19 won't change the fact that people can/do change. But I also don't know this girl, either. What I DO know is a 16 year old has more time left in the educational and career system than a 19 year old does, and certainly more time to change her mind. Keep things light and fun and you'll do fine. If something romantic happens, great. I'm just saying you'll want to be a little more prepared to let go if she decides this isn't what she wants, whereas more mature people can say, "Hey, are you sure we can't work something out?" SOME people you can hold on to. It seldom works that way the younger you are, and more often if you try to hang on, it just ends in more disaster than it should have.
My wife and I are really "just friends." It's just that we've been "friends" long enough to know we don't want to share that area of our lives with anyone else. I believe the younger you are the more difficult it is to build relationships that way…the exception being if you are allowed to marry at relatively young ages, and I mean as young as 14-18, you can kind of grow INTO the relationship together and really make it a lifelong gig. This assumes, of course, that both sets of parents are actively involved and supportive in the young couple's lives. We don't live in an era that promotes that kind of thing or insists on making couples stay together when things get rough. Which is why young relationships need to be kept relatively open and casual until both parties are free to make decisions about growing relationships to more than simply, "Hey, you're kinda cute and I like you. Wanna have coffee?" You can still be "go together" (as we used to say, or as the previous generation would say "go steady," meaning you go out exclusively), but it doesn't necessarily follow that there's anything more than that.
Good relationships HURT when they end. Heck, most relationships hurt when they end, even when they're not good. I just don't want to see someone get burned over an age/maturity gap. And I think this situation is one of those that has more potential for failure. I can't say that this relationship WILL fail, but I can say it doesn't have as good a potential for success as something with a smaller gap in age/education level. I think there's just too much we DON'T know, which is why I'm making the generalizations. I'm not assuming any of this to be absolute--however, the opposite isn't absolute either, and I'd more recommend a course of action that involves less hurt and a better predictable outcome than something like this with so many more variables.
19 Feb 2014, 10:23 pm
