Attitudes to underage/borderline relationship in the 90’s/noughties…wtf?!

[spinningbirds]

In about 2001 when I was 16, I was training pretty seriously in a sport, helped a lot by a successful older girl in the sport (17/18). This older girl appeared to be in a relationship with her female ex-coach’s ex-boyfriend, (she’d met him when being trained by her ex-coach, a several years earlier.)

The boyfriend was by this time 35. She was just 18. I was 16.

Her very nice parents somehow (?!) came around to the relationship, which I now know had started when she was 14. The girl an d the boyfriend invited me and another girl (also 16, also heavily involved in the sport) to go on holiday with 2 of them; I’d never been abroad without my parents before. The 4 of us went to Lanzarote.

I think that by me and the other 16 year old being there too (we all shared a self catering flat) it made it their holiday somehow “ok’?!

I don’t have anything specifically bad about the guy to say, other than that he always treated me coldly, perhaps he knew I didn’t like him. On the first night of the holiday the other three agreed to have some drinks when we arrived. I declined, and asked for just coke… he put vodka in it anyway. I soon felt weird, and freaked out, not knowing I’d had alcohol; I hadn’t been drunk before. The three of them laughed their socks off at me, sat on the bathroom floor of the flat in confusion, feeling sick. Only a long time later that evening did they confess the trick. Haha.

Anyway the holiday was fine, the couple had separate bedrooms but engineered plenty of alone time…

24 years later, this whole thing makes me feel creeped out. What was my mum thinking sending me on holiday with a bloke nearly 20 years older than us? Were times so very different in 2001?

For the record, the couple are still together. My mum said today she think they actually started dating when the girl was 13. But they’ve built a life together now, so that’s ok, isn’t it..

Anyway the whole thing makes me feel creepy AF, does anyone else have crazy shit like this from 20 years ago/could you give me some therapy to feel less weird about it?!!!

New Name for this as identifying.
When I was 15 in 1999 I met a 23 year old electrician. He was working at our school, we started dating we sat together and had lunch at school, he took me home from school.
All the teachers, my parents, my friends parents were all aware of this. We were in a relationship until I was 17 when he left me pregnant (I had an abortion) and he started going out with my friend who was 3 months younger than me.
I don’t know how it was allowed to happen.

Fuuuuuuuuuck

That is, for the avoidance of doubt, not ok!

Do you ever talk to adults from that time about it? Do they admit how much in the wrong they were?!

I can't imagine doing work in a school and going home with a gf that's all sorts of wrong.

My mum says she wasn’t happy about it but felt that if she had tried to stop me I’d have gone behind her back as I was so besotted with him.
She’s probably got a point.
I have a 15 year old daughter now - she’s just a baby it makes me feel sick to be honest.

Views on this were certainly different.

I'm around the same age as you and wonder exactly when the attitude to this changed.

9/10 it was older male with younger female.

I remember at least 3/4 girls I'm my year going out with 20s men. It was odd, everyone knew but it was never really questionned by anyone.

Myself when I was 16 went out with someone that was 21. Gives me the ick now I have my own daughter but at the time it just was what it was.

I have so many examples of this from me and my friends. When I was 15 I was dating a 24 year old chef and everyone was fine with it. He would pick me up from school when I was still in my uniform 🤢
it was standard for girls my age who were even vaguely “attractive” to have a much older boyfriend. Everyone’s parents seemed fine and the only ones who weren’t were the ones who were against boyfriends in general even if they were the same age as us. Our mums were even weirdly quite proud that we always turned the heads of “older boys” (they meant men, clearly) 🤷‍♀️

I've remembered I had a crush on a girl at school she was 14 we were same age I asked her out I got a knock back as she had a boyfriend with a car .
This would have been about 78.
Always been creepy guys around.

And yes I’m a similar age born in 1986

I know - and why did school keep him on? Why was I allowed to walk out holding his hand past the teachers?
I honestly thought I was so grown up - I was going to his friends weddings and visiting their houses and I thought it made me so much better than all my school friends.
It took a long time to come to terms with the fact I was groomed and he wasn’t my first love.
The twat asked me to marry him as well and I said yes proudly wearing my diamond to school. Because I’d told him I only wanted to be with one man ever (the naivety of youth) and he promised that would be him.

You only have to look at Mandy Smith to know what the attitudes were like then.

a 13 year old in London clubs facilitated by men, having sex with a much older rolling stone, and it was all her fault for being a “wild child”.

that and the hype surrounding Sam fox, Charlotte church etc turning 16 and “legal”- they had countdowns ffs.

In the 80's a girl in the fourth year in my school was going out with the music teacher, he was in his late 30's. When I was 17 a girl at tech with me started to babysit for our drama teacher, who was also late 30's, he left his wife for her.

You should have been protected and we're failed.
Sorry you went through that.

I’m so sorry. Your mum let you down here; even if you’d ‘gone behind her back’
as she now says, she absolutely shouldn’t have openly condoned it. I hope she (unlike my mother!) can admit the mistake now…

It must have been be so confusing for you; it must have felt so ‘real’ and meaningful.

And yes, 15 is just a baby, just like you were x

Were not we're.

That’s how it was. And it annoys me actually, when people judge those times with today’s eyes. Not that it was ok, but it wasn’t seen as the issue we now understand it to be. No one batted an eyelid about much younger girls. If anything, it was romantic, they were mature, lucky to find the right one so soon.

This was really common when I was a teenager and into my 20s. I remember a friend of a relative was 32 and in a relationship with a 16 year old. He had quite the penchant for just legal girls.

Men used to brag about how young their girlfriends were. Page 3 had topless 16 year olds regularly. Then there was Bill Wyman and Mandy Smith. Pop stars would take advantage of their young fans.

I can remember being 15 and my friend had a BF in his early 20s. All I can remember is us laughing because he had a moustache. It didn’t occur to us it was an issue.
She went to a different 6th form but I heard she didn’t want go to uni and leave him.

I had a colleague who said she was dating a fireman when she was in school and even in my 20s I didn’t think much about it.

When I was a teen in an all girls' school, it was standard to date the boys from the boys' school who were two years ahead of ours. That's how the groups of friends were matched up.

My first boyfriend when I was 12 was 15, we stayed together until he turned 18 and left school. My next boyfriend when I was 15 was 20.

It would have been considered weird to go out with someone your own age because 'girls mature faster'.

I feel sorry for my first boyfriend, he clearly needed someone closer in age to him, I was just so young and oblivious of his emotional needs. I just saw him as someone handy to have around, because he kept away other boys.

Ugh...it was a pretty gross time.

I remember my mother and aunt both berating me and acting disgusted when "nice men" showed interest in me.

I was 15/16. The "nice men" were always around 40. I was told to "be nice. Don't be such a prude! You're a pretty girl, of course the man will be interested in you!"

A distinct memory was being 15, doing GCSE coursework for Geography in a local market (counting footfall across the day).

I weighed about 7 stone, was pretty "child like". The Security Guard was huge, well over 6 foot and about 38-45 and he kept coming up to me, standing in my personal space and asking me questions.

I was scared and explained I was doing my homework and wouldn't cause any trouble. As the day went on, he was basically my shadow and seemed quite angry at me for not engaging with him. He kept peering over my shoulder and trying to get me to give him my folder. When I moved away he'd stand and stare at me.
I got really scared and tearful and said,
"I'm just doing my homework for school,
please can you leave me alone? My Mum will be coming to collect me soon and then I'll go. I won't be any bother."

She arrived and found me in tears. I told her about the security guard and that I was scared I was in trouble and he might report me to the police for loitering. He approached her and asked for a word in private. I could see them chatting and her initially being angry then laughing and being all chatty and flirty even.

She told me she'd started by assuring him that I was a good girl and there was no reason to accuse me of anything as I wasn't a troublemaker.

Then she said he'd asked how old I was. She'd replied 15. He asked when I was turning 16 as he was hoping to take me for a date as he found me "very charming and beautiful" (bearing in mind, I was shit scared of him the whole time). He expressed that he hoped he could be my "first man friend", with my mother's permission and handed her his name and number to arrange all of this as soon as I was legal. Then expressed he wanted to take me out for dinner and wine, and to treat me properly, of course,
"my intentions are not to just merely seduce her. I will show her a good time and teach her about life. You don't want a pretty young woman like her in the hands of silly teenage boys, do you?"

She thought I should be overjoyed and happy about this. Flattered by the sexual interest from a man more than double my age who thought a nervous, shy teenager was his ideal mate. And she led him to believe it was all fine and she'd ensure I agreed to it as soon as I'd turned 16. It was my Dad that put a stop to it and tore up his number and threw it in the bin.

This was the year 2000. Vile.

I remember saying, "He's a slimy creep!!!"

and her saying "Don't be ridiculous! He's a charming Frenchman who wants to wine and dine you. You could do a lot worse for a first boyfriend. You're so up yourself and picky, there's only one place you are headed and that's the shelf!"

Oh yeah, I remember the charlotte church countdown 🤮

I'm trying to pinpoint when attitudes changed and I'm not sure I can.

I'm thinking once social media came about and gave people a voice. Majority of people said what they thought when really you couldn't say it to the people you knew.

Maybe, once the Jimmy saville stories and the grooming scandal. It really shined a light on what it actually was

You’re right that I was seen as lucky.
I didn’t have to get the bus.
He could buy alcohol.
I always got in to wherever I wanted because I was part of a group of adults.

I wasn’t lucky though - I missed out on a lot of teenage rights of passage because he’d done them all and by the time we broke up my friends had done them all too.

So while I understand that times really were different and it was seen as an achievement it’s had a long lasting impact on my life.

I don’t even have friends I can reminisce those teenage years with because I spent those years pretending to be a grown up and my school friends drifted away.

This is fascinating. (Can I ask how old you are, to have that perspective? I’m 41)

Totally separate issue, but I remember my mum nudging me towards wealthy older guys when I was still a teenager. Two separate guys in fact, who were family friends.

thankfully neither appealed to me, and I remember giving them short shrift. It’s not until years later that I’ve joined the dots and realised my mum would actually have loved it, been proud even, if I’d dated them. Ick

Different times…..!

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!!!!!

this is awful!

Have you spoken to her about this since? What round she say about it now?

That is terrible- as if your mum tried to facilitate it.

"He wasn't that much older. He seemed like a very nice man."

Then berates me about every other old creep I turned down throughout my life.