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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that 24 year old men do not be friends with 15 year old girls?

99 replies

Coldhands · 22/04/2010 20:15

Just been on facebook. My cousin who is 15 is talking about some bloke she has met up with who is 24. She knows him from some club thing that her dad goes to.

He mum apparently knows all about it and doesn't mind if they end up going out together. My cousin has admitted that she fancies this bloke. All her friends on FB are telling her not to do it etc but she is boy mad and obsessed with boys to the point where it seems beyond normal and it is all encouraged by her idiotic mother (my aunt).

AIBU to think that 24 year old men are not interested in just being friends with 15 year old girls? I have asked my cousin why a 24 year old would be hanging around with a 15 year old but she hasn't answered yet and nothing I say will make a blind bit of difference anyway.

OP posts:
MadameOvary · 23/04/2010 14:18

My first boyfriend was 31. I was 16.
He was an adult and admitted he felt guilty and disturbed about being my first. The first time I stayed over at his we were in seperate rooms and it was me who get into his bed. Obviously I was too young to make an informed decision. We slept together but didn't have sex. It didn't last because although I looked and acted quite mature, I was a child.

I dont blame him. It didn't last, he knew I was too young and couldn't cope.

DP was 30 when he met his ex-wife, who was 16 when they married. She pursued him, got pregnant, he married her. They were married for 18 years. Not to go into too much detail, but I think she was way too young, She wanted to escape an overbearing mother. He gets antsy when I tell she was just a kid but that was after a v. painful divorce, ho hum...

I would NOT be happy for my DD to be chasing 24yr olds, or vice versa, obv.

HettiesMum · 23/04/2010 14:21

When I was 18, I met a 24 yr old who only went out with very young girls. I must have been his oldest girl friend thus far. I think the reason he liked v. young girls was because there were no ex-boyfriends to be jealous of and the girl could be moulded into someone of his own image with no ideas of her own to get in the way. He was extremely possessive, in fact insanely jealous and often violent when crossed. He always wanted to marry the girl of the moment after just a few dates (including me).
He spoke of my staying at home all day and not going anywhere without him once we were married. He was also afraid of going to adult areas like pubs and restaurants and just wanted to hang around coffee bars with younger people.

Coldhands, your cousin's friend may be perfectly normal and nice but then again.... Do you know anything of his personality ?

crumpette · 23/04/2010 14:26

Heties mum that's very true, when I was 20 (it gets worse) I went out with a 56 year old and he was exactly those attributes, jealous, possessive, controlling, and aside from when he himself was young he had always chosen much younger partners

crumpette · 23/04/2010 14:27

*Hetties

giveitago · 23/04/2010 14:31

Britfish

My mil had a child at 15 with a 24 year old - that's my dh.

They don't find it odd.

However I wouldn't want this for my dd.

HettiesMum · 23/04/2010 14:37

Crumpette - I think men like the one I spoke of and your 56 yr old are misfits and only young impressionable girls will tolerate them (for a time anyway).

Tortington · 23/04/2010 14:40

well the last time this question came up i said something along the lines of it being akin to paedophilia, then a poster said that her mum and dad were about teh same age and were together.

over a year later after a bemusing turn of events re: her posting style toward me i asked what her problem was and she said @ you said my father was a paedophile@ !

i think at 25 whilst one can be sexually aware it doesn't mean that one is emotionally mature.

i think there is something ...um...shall we say "awry" with an emotionally and sexually mature male prefering the advances of an unequally so female. it would make me question their motives.

there is that diplomatic enough?

OtterInaSkoda · 23/04/2010 14:43

I went out with a man 6 years older than me from age 15 to 18. He was with me despite my youth, not because of it. he was attractive, popular and cool (at least in the muso circles I moved in) and there was nothing dodgy in it at all.

Another girl I knew started dating a man of 21 when she was 14 - they are still together nearly 25 years later. It happens.

This situation with the OP's niece is odd though. A friend of her dad's? Her mum expecting her to get herself knocked up by the time she's 15? Hmmm. Not good.

OtterInaSkoda · 23/04/2010 14:45

OK so not niece. Sorry

scurryfunge · 23/04/2010 14:53

I can't see what an adult in their mid twenties gains from a relationship with a child -there can't be any intellectual or emotional equality in the relationship surely.....unless the adult is childlike?? (or gets sexual kicks from exploiting a vulnerable person)...sorry it's not right and the law says it's not right

Guadalupe · 23/04/2010 14:55

Hmm.

There were some men in their early twenties hanging around when we were 14/15 but I would say they were mostly a bit immature.

Obviously it could be more sinister and she should certainly be careful. I would be very wary if it were my dd.

MorrisZapp · 23/04/2010 14:56

I don't understand this whole idea that a 15 year old is still a 'child'. She isn't, is she? Legally yes, until she wakes up on her 16th birthday she is a minor but in any useful sense she is very unlikely to be a child.

I had enjoyable, consensual sex at 15 with my boyfriend. I wasn't a child, and he wasn't creepy to fancy me. I was still very young of course, but my body was fully grown and I was bright and independent.

As for statutory rape, I have no idea how that charge works in practice, but I imagine it's very very rarely used against young men sleeping with their consenting 15 year old girlfriends.

Does anybody on here actually think that at midnight the day before your 16th birthday your brain throws a switch and suddenly you're a different person? How can it possibly be like that.

scurryfunge · 23/04/2010 15:00

You need some cut off point and the law provides it to make it clear.....of course they are not going to magically become grown up overnight and there is nothing wrong with teens of a similar age engaging in consensual activity (you are right that in practice there will rarely be any prosecution if they are both teens). The point is that a significant age gap can't be healthy when one of the parties is not an adult

JaneS · 23/04/2010 15:04

I don't think that Morris. It's not the age 15 bit that bothers me, it's the age gap at that age. If two 15 year olds (or, say, a 15 year old and a 16/17 year old) are having sex, I think in most cases that would be fine - just as most fully adult relationships are fine.

But you do such a lot of growing between 15 and 24 - emotionally and mentally, but also physically. I know that at 15 I was simply not an adult woman. I was 2 inches shorter than I am now, my breasts were about 3/4 cups sizes smaller, etc. etc.

The same differences just don't come into play if the age gap is between, say, someone of 30 and someone of 39.

scurryfunge · 23/04/2010 15:06

ditto LRD!

baiyu · 23/04/2010 15:11

My DH is 24, the thought of him (obvs) but the thought of one of his peers with a 15 year old is pretty stomach churning.

1pregheadpumpkin · 23/04/2010 15:22

they dont want to be friends. they want underage girls.

JaneS · 23/04/2010 15:28

preghead, how are you? I was wondering how it was going with your DP and his mum - and the pregnancy of course! Hope you're doing well.

MorrisZapp · 23/04/2010 15:46

I see what you mean about the age gap but I think it's unfair to imagine that the older boy is dodgy or pervy or whatever if he fancies a 15 year old. Maybe he is indeed a bit dodgy, but there's no other info given here is there, so why assume the worst.

What if it was your 24 year old son and people were implying he was a sex offender because a 15 year old girl fancied him on facebook.

Would you think he was creepy and dodgy then.

Surely if a girl is old enough to consent to sex with another 15 year old, she is old enough to consent to sex with a 24 year old? OPs neice may well not be having sex anyway but we seem to be jumping to that conclusion.

mathanxiety · 23/04/2010 15:51

A 15 year old girl is not necessarily old enough to consent to sex with another 15 year old, let alone a 24 year old, MorrisZapp.

And it's the 24 year old fancying the 15 year old that's the problem here, not the other way round.

scurryfunge · 23/04/2010 15:53

I know I am probably jumping to conclusions about intentions - if a 15 year old fancied my 24 year old son,that would be her issue - I would hope he had the sense not to pursue anything so foolish though. The fact is he would be a sex offender if the relationship became sexual - whether it would get past CPS would be another!

JaneS · 23/04/2010 15:59

Morris, I don't think I'd call the 24 year old creepy. I think he could perfectly well be utterly genuine and affectionate - but I still think that sort of relationship has huge potential to be damaging.

And surely there is a difference between sexual behaviour between two 15 year olds, and between a 15-year-old and a 24 year old? I know my body is really quite different from the way it was when I was 15 (I'm 25 now), and so are my attitudes to it.

MorrisZapp · 23/04/2010 16:07

In the OP it says the 15 year old fancies the 24 year old. There's nothing about him fancying her.

Cretaceous · 23/04/2010 16:30

MorrisZap - a very good point. He might be mortified if he knew.

Incidentally, my mum knew a man aged 21 in the 1950s who went to prison for underage sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. When he came out, she'd turned 16, and they married and had children happily together.

However, I'd be horrified if it were my DD, or indeed my DS.

upahill · 23/04/2010 16:39

I've not read all the thread but can I chip in?

I work with young people and we have a rough guide which is during the teenage years an age difference of more than two or three years would be suspect. eg a girl of 15 and a lad of 18 would be questionable. I repeat it is a rough guide but it makes us keep an eye on things.

In the OP case I would be very worried.