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?!!!

I think there was less stratification of age groups.

You left school at 15/16 and went to work, probably wearing a uniform of some sort, or you stayed in education.

People worked, went to the pub/clubs. That was it.
You either wore ‘young’ clothes, or middle aged clothes.
Youngsters might be punks, alternatives, new age. Everyone else was middle aged. You didn’t club when you had kids. You didn’t do girls’ nights.
Either you were at school, young, or married, in many ways.

You were young and single, and therefore available, or married.

I've name changed for this, it's outing and feels so wrong when I talk about it.
I was 14 when I met a 'boy' who i thought was the bees knees. He was 6 years older than me. You do the maths.
I felt very mature for my age, especially stepping out with him (as my old nan would have said) he seemed wonderful and i didn't feel those 6 years at all.
At 15, we were living together. 17, I had a baby. 18, another. After that a miscarriage then a third baby at 21.

That man nearly broke me, he was the most controlling and toxic person. A complete narcissist. He made me feel like nothing and the trauma has stayed with me. He left me in the end after cheating with somebody younger than me. Didn't see his children ever again. He kept me in a box until I finally fought him back and then it was my fault I was a nobody with 3 kids that nobody wanted. Damaged goods.

It's had a huge impact on my life. Feeling like I've lacked childhood, young adult experiences etc because I was being so controlled, I wasn't allowed to do anything. Even failed school and college.
I've had to fight for everything.
I didn't have supportive family either.

He moved on and had another daughter with someone else. He has 5 children (he had a 2 year old when i met him) who don't know eachother and have no idea that their father is a man who grooms young girls. I sometimes wonder if he ever thinks about what he's done and feels any remorse or anything.

In the 90s/00s as per the thread title/OP?!

I don't recall this at all. At my school we all stayed on to 6th Form, only one person in my year left school at 16 and leaving at 15 wasn't possible. Almost all of us went to university.

Amongst my peers it's been unusual to marry before 30.

Look at Elvis
Then paul walkers relationship etc

Late 80s, 90s. And among our uni peers we were unusual to be married at 23/4 and have kids 26. But one girl at uni was married at 19 and living out with a 35yr old dentist.

Students very much dated each other. It was outside uni that people were having wider age gaps, I think.

I’m pretty sure it was regional as well, South Wales and the North were on a slightly different timescale maybe.

Ever occurred to you you may have had the privilege to go to a good school in a good area?

or do you really think it’s strange that dh’s inner London school on a council estate- he only knows one person that went to uni. And that person never actually went to school- he did better at home with letts revise- of of those naturally super bright kids.

in my peer group those that went to private school all went to uni. Out of 250 that took GCSE’s at my mixed ability state about 40 did a’levels. From the top of my head the ones that stayed on had parents that had been to uni, were dr’s, teachers or similarly middle class.

many kids were put off uni by their parents. Better to get a job and a trade. Lots were enocouraged to stay at home, get a job and wait for marriage and family.

some of us have a very different experience.

I think a lot depends on where you lived and what school you went to. At my inner city secondary school (I left in 94), we didn't have a 6th form facility and very, very few people from my year went on to college; even less to university. Several had older boyfriends, a couple were pregnant and at least 2 girls had been shipped off to Pakistan on "holiday" and come back married before they were 15 (and that was just in my form group)!

Most of us left school and went straight into full time work where we made older friends, so I suppose that does force you to mature faster than if you stay in the education system.

Similar situation here @Ohnonotmeagain. I went to a good state school in a nice area, and about a third of us stayed on for A levels. Most of the people who stayed on for A levels went to university, but it really wasn’t common to stay on if you weren’t aiming for that. Some did go to college for vocational training but a lot just went to work.

The point I was making was that what the PP was referring to was not the case in 2001...which was the time period the OP was talking about. You couldn't legally leave school and get a job at 15 in the late 90s/early 00s.

Thanks for the unnecessary lecture and your ridiculous assumptions though🙄

You couldn't legally leave school and get a job at 15 in the late 90s/early 00s

Depends when your birthday was. If your birthday was July or August it’s very feasible you could have been working at 15 after your GCSEs had finished.

Very true. I was a July baby and was working full time by the June after my GCSEs so would've only been 15 when I started. I'm sure there must've been a law against a 15yo doing 12 hour night shifts in a care home when I think about it!

I knew a lot of girls from a really rough northern town through a hobby.

it wasn’t unusual for a girl to intentionally get pregnant at 15. Then when she finished gcses’s she would move into a council flat with the baby.

many of them thought it was a good choice. Set up in your own place on benefits. They had no way of moving from the family home otherwise.

Yep I worked with someone who wasn’t 16 until the end of August. I was 19, I thought she was older than me and was gobsmacked when she told me it was her 16th birthday coming up.

Kids left the Easter of their last year, and didn’t bother turning up to sit exams. Working full time at 15.

I think if you look at late 90s/early 00s the focus of teen girls was also much different. It was the "age" of idolising male stars. From boybands, to male music artists, soapstars, movie stars, the focus was all on 20 something year old men. It was backstreet boys, nsync, Robbie Williams, Leonardo DiCaprio, all the young soapstars like adam ricketts etc. TV shows had a huge focus on will they wont they have sex and the "boys" were always 20 something year old men. Sunday morning TV shows aimed at teenagers was Dawsons creek etc, all focussed on sex. Young girls at the time, wanted what they saw on screen and music vidoes. Magazines were a huge market and obssessed with which young 20 something male star was the next big thing. Most of our idols were 20 something year old men. This in turn made the 20 something year old boyfriend something that a lot of teenager girls aspired too, a boyfriend who was more mature and had a car and money, not the 15 year old boy from school who played football at break went home and watched wrestling and pokemon.

Now, having teenagers myself and nieces etc, their idols are different. Music its all female stars, taylor swift, gracie abrams, sabrina carpenter, olivia rodrigro etc are who my daughter her friends and my beices are into, TV they watch far less of, and then they focus on the female stars (in my experience, for example they all love stranger things, but their favs are eleven and max). There still the male stars they listen to watch and like, but their main focus has shifted massively.

I think alongside it being socially not acceptable to be a 20 something male with a teenage girl, i think culturally teenage girls dont idolise them as much as they used to. I think back when i was a teenager in the late 90s all i wanted was a boyfriend and that was what validated me, these days, its less important to a lot of girls and validation comes from "girl bossing" and female peers.

1989- at 16 I left school in the may. Went back to do GCSE’s and that was that Started a full time job one week after the last exam
my then boyfriend was 19, drove a car and used to wait for me after school - in front of the school where the teachers were

no one batted an eyelid. It was different times then

Maybe things changed in the second half, but in the first half of the 90s leaving school at 16 was very normal. As was leaving at 15 without taking any exams because your NI number had come through, so you were able to go get a job. Lots of people who were destined to do badly in GCSE exams just didn't bother taking them.

The thread was titled to be about the 90s/00s. Most 16 year olds stayed at school/college in some form. Although did have jobs. Nobody in the 90s was thinking 15 year olds were grown up except creeps. And if anything 14-16 year olds stayed girls look older now with all the contouring etc.

Yes, you were groomed.

yes, he was shitty to you.

You were very let down by him, and your family/support network

I hope you can find a good therapist to talk to about this, you deserve to be free of it x

The OP wasn't asking about the first half of the 90s though. She specifically asked about what was normal 20 years ago and what did we experience 20ish years ago. She refers to 2001. I left in 2002. 90s is in the thread title but I think it's pretty clear that she's referring to quite a specific period of time in the late 90s early 00s.

I had a really icky one on a family tree I was doing recently. A teacher of 27 married a 16 year old. They had three children very quickly. She died at 23 from cancer. Ten months later Mr Teacher, by then 34, married a 17 year old. He married a third time at 54 to a 22 year old.

At my high school they employed a lifeguard after an incident in the pool. He was 23/24 and got into a relationship with a third year girl (14/15) and when it became public knowledge she wasn't allowed to do PE anymore as it wasn't appropriate for them to mix while he was working.
That was the extend of the issue for the school 🙄

At 13 years old I met someone on a weekend away to butlins with a group of family and friends.
I ended up in a "relationship" with a 22 year old. My mum screamed and shouted at me and called me a prostitute. Nothing was ever done to him and it's too late now. (Pre the sexual offences act 2003 a prosecution would need to be brought within 12 months).
I now get told what a "naughty" teenager I was. Actually I was neglected, which is how I ended up in that situation in the first place.
I'm not sure if times are different as there have always been and always will be bad parents.

'Everyone said it was a fairytale love match' The PRESS said it was a fairytale love match. It was repeated so many times it became a sort of truth. She wanted to marry him because he was a catch. The need for the virgin bride was to protect the Royal Family from ex-lovers selling stories, which would have made a LOT of money, and gone round the world. 'I shagged the future Queen of England!' The 80s were a time when publicity and social rules changed. Princess Di's (lack of or possession of) virginity was discussed in the Press. Imagine! In the 50s, no-one discussed the virginity of Princess Elizabeth or Prince Philip. It would have been unthinkable.

Really? Where did you meet guys like that?

I have to agree. When I first went up North, I was surprised to see the amount of young girls pushing young kids in pushchairs. Young girls earning a bit of money taking out other mums' kids I thought ......no, these young girls were the mums!