To think a 22 year old dating a 16 year old is dodgy?

I'm not really offering an opinion here (I was one of the prissy teenagers who looked down my nose at the girls with older boyfriends, and my parents started going out when they were 16 and 23...) but I have to take issue with people saying they couldn't possibly meet socially.

I'm in three different hobby groups which theoretically are open to all ages (the particular choir and tower don't have any under-18s at the moment, but both have had in the past, of both sexes). Anyone could start any of the hobbies at almost any age or stage of life, so skill/seniority could go either way (the third group has adult beginners and an assistant leader who's still in 6th form, for example).

Ouch!

Exactly this. I had a “boyfriend” of 18 when I was 16. I thought it made me look grown up and attractive to have pulled an older guy.

In reality he was just immature and scared of women his own age so he wanted someone less threatening, but I couldn’t see that at the time. And that was only a two year difference. This is exactly what these creeps are trading on: a young girl’s excitement about an older boyfriend.

Its pretty cynical and it disgusts me that we have passed it off as normal for so long.

I had a 23 year old boyfriend at 15. At the time I thought it was cool that someone older was interested in me. He turned out to be an absolute prick.

When I reached 23 I fully realised how absolutely weird it was to be interested in someone 15 years old at that age.

Legal and right are not the same thing. Shouting a man can legally date a child is not the win you think it is. Saying he can have sec with child as it is legal is again not the win you claim.

and where are they socialising that is legal and not grubby?

@Zov

How do you know the 22 y.o. man has purposely sought out a 16 year old female partner? He probably just knows her/met her, and they got on well, and fell for each other. You're making it sound sinister and grubby.

Lets be honest. 22 year old men and 16 year old girls are not in the same orbit. They wouldn’t come into contact with one another outside of a few very limited circumstances. Its a massive loss of face for someone of 22 to hang out with someone that much younger, let alone date them: their peers would mock them. If a 22 year old man is hitting on a teenage girl its almost certainly for one of two reasons:

a) he’s unable to socialise with or attract mates among women his age, which likely means he’s immature or has poor social skills
b) he is deliberately seeking out younger women because he finds them more attractive.

In both scenarios his motives are highly questionable.

I was 24 and DW 18 when we met 20+ years ago. At the time the ages weren’t really a thing. Would they be nowadays I wonder?

Age of consent is 16, and in the eyes of the law the 22 year old is doing nothing wrong. You keep on claiming it's grubby and sinister and illegal as much as you like. Doesn't mean it is.

You dont have an issue with an adult man dating a child. The outcry to that you consider pearl clutching.

But an adult women dating an adult man, that is dodgy.

How do you know the 22 y.o. man has purposely sought out a 16 year old female partner? He probably just knows her/met her, and they got on well, and fell for each other. You're making it sound sinister and grubby.

@RubySquid

Why should she be ," knocked up," though. Contraception is available for free in this country you know.

Of course. But its the fact that the man/boy has sought out someone as a partner who he knows to be much more vulnerable, less experienced, less wise and for whom there is so much more at stake.

Of course it works out OK for some people but I would never trust the motives or character of someone who deliberately chose a partner knowing they had far less power in the relationship.

Emmanuel was 16 when he got involved with his 40+ years teacher Brigitte... not saying it's normal..

I agree. I can see how as a teenager you might have found this flattering and maybe you muddled along OK but I think if this had happened to me I would be progressively more unsettled by this the older I got.

Has it never crossed your mind to wonder why your husband, aged nearly 30, sought out a child?

This is outdated bullcrap. It isnt just a stand-alone ‚well known fact’ that girls mature faster. There are multiple other factors at play. Including the main one that men like to date female children or significantly younger women. It is a fact that expectations on girls behaviour is higher than boys. You can say this is true at 10, 11 early teens as it is due to onset of puberty but boys typically catch up by 16. The frontal part of the brain fully matures around age 24-25 for both sexes, so again men should not be dating children. And one British study found that while ‚emotional maturity’ for men was around 43, it was 32 for women so men still should not be dating children.

This idea that men need to date children, as female children are mature enough is just patriarchal nonsense.

@Corall

Going against the grain here. I would raise my eyebrows a little bit, but 22 and 16 is not a massive age gap, nor is the younger one 'too young.' 16 is the age of consent, and 22 is hardly an old man is it?! (Or old woman!!!)

I know plenty of older people (70+) who got married when she was 19-20, and he was 24-26, (the woman being younger was more common many years ago,) and they started dating at around 16/17, and 20/21. No-one batted an eyelid then, and there's no need to now. No need for all the pearl clutching!

I know a woman right now, who is 35, and she's dating a 19 y.o. 'man.' In fact he's living with her (been living with her since February, and she's only been dating him since last December!) So he moved in almost immediately.

She has been getting her 2 y.o. and 4 y.o. DC to call him 'daddy.' No idea where the 'daddies' are but I have never seen them. But yeah, this 19 y.o. playing daddy, being called daddy, and posting on Facebook about how he worships his little family - with photos of him with the 2 DC (and her too,) all over facebook: now THAT is 'dodgy.' When you look through his facebook photos, you only need to go back to the year before last, to see photos of him at school! She would have been 33 then! 😖

As I said in my last post though, it's got nothing to do with you @Corall, so I don't know why you're so invested in it that you need to start a thread on Mumsnet about it!

@Corall Yesterday 22:33

6 year gap, is a bit more than 4 though? It’s just useful to hear others views - I can’t talk about it to anyone irl

Why do you need to 'talk about it in real life to anyone?' It's none of your business.

It is a bit weird yeah. Especially considering that a 22yo and a 16yo (should be) in completely different phases of life.
It is less of an issue if both were older, say she was 25, and he was 31, and even less problematic if she's 30 and he's 36.

But there is a definitely imbalance of power when one is still very much a teenager.

But if they're older now, married, and happy, then fair play to them. Not really your concern.

I knew a couple who had a similar age difference at similar ages. They are now married, in their middle-40s, with 3 kids.

Normally wouldn't see a problem. All this 'paedophile' nonsense went too far, seriously. A 22 year old is hardly and old, letchy man and 16 year old is not a tiny child to me, whatever anyone may say. A 22 attarcted to a 16 year old is not attracted to her for the same reasons a paedo would be attracted to a 5 year old.

I dated plenty of 20-somethings in my mid-late teens and still don't see any problem. None of them coerced me, abused me or forced me to do anything, it was mutual.

However, marrying one? Nah. That would be a no. Not because of his age, she'd be 30 and him 36 later, hardly a massive scandal. But 16 and marrying a few years later is too early.

So now you are an adult with life experience do you never think ‘WTF’?

How would you feel if your 16 year old brought an almost 30 year old round for tea?

I would be utterly horrified. Weird that you still think it’s ok.

Where have I said its unacceptable for a 16 year old to have a job. 16 year olds absolutely should have a weekend job

18 is an adult 16 is not

Why should she be ," knocked up," though. Contraception is available for free in this country you know.

It seems to be the expectation these days for teenage girls only to date teenage boys. It really didn't used to be. The general age gap was 4 years, with the man invariably the older one. Most of my friends at 16, including me, were dating 20 year olds. In fact most of us later got married to them. It would've been considered a bit weird to date a 16 year old boy. My mum dated my dad when she was 16 and he was 21 and my brother dated his future wife when she was 17 and he was 21. It was standard practice. Is it really considered inappropriate now?

Not ideal but at 16 you are over the age of consent. I don’t see it as any different to a 35 year old dating a 21 year old (which is also wrong imo)

When I was 16 I, like the majority of my friends, was working full time. Lots of us had older boyfriends. I wasn’t groomed. Some of my friends got married to these boyfriends, are still together 50 years later and have had happy marriages. Just because you think it’s wrong doesn’t mean it’s wrong for everyone.