When Should Teenagers Start Dating?
So When Should Teenagers Start Dating? There’s no one age at which anyone is old enough to have dates. In general, young people today date at an earlier age than did their own parents. Girls usually begin to have dates at an earlier age than do boys.
Some young people of both sexes start dating when they first enter high school, or even earlier, while others are out of senior high school before they really begin to have dates. Some parents urge their sons and daughters to mingle with others of their age and to go out with mixed groups from the time they’re children. Other parents reluctantly permit their young people to have dates even when they are well into their teens. These and many other factors make a difference in the age at which any particular person begins to date.
Taking Responsibility
You’re old enough to have dates when you’re mature enough to assume responsibility for your dating behaviour. That’s when you have learned enough social poise to get and keep a date. It’s also when you have convinced your parents and others interested in you of your readiness for these special boy-girl experiences.
The age at which you start to date is not as important as is how you behave when you do begin. Popularity as a goal in itself is empty, and dating at any cost is self-defeating. The boy or girl who starts out with an exploitive, cheap, sexy, blind-alley kind of approach may be seriously hurt and handicapped in the long run. The young person who starts with real interest in others and with eagerness to cultivate sincere friendships is on the happy road to satisfying relationships with boys and girls, men and women, through the years ahead.
What About Your Date’s Age?
Parents and other adults tend to prefer that young people date within their own age group. It’s usual for high school students to be encouraged to date within their own class, where there is little age difference between boy and girl. Even in college or Uni many social events are held on the assumption that coeds will attend with boys from their own class.
Older Than His Girl
When you get down to cases, you find that more often than not the boy is a little older than the girl he takes out. There are several very good reasons for this trend. First is the fact that girls tend to mature before boys of their own age and are ready for dates a couple of years earlier. Secondly, because of the difference in the rate of their development, a girl often has more in common with a slightly older boy than with a lad of her own age. Thirdly, a boy often feels more secure with a younger girl than with one who is superior in status and experience. Then again, some parents prefer their daughters to date somewhat older boys who are supposed to be more mature and responsible.
This early difference in dating age between boys and girls continues throughout life generally. The tendency is for girls to date boys a couple of years older than they, and for women to marry men who are their elders by a year or two or more. This doesn’t mean that a man ought to be older; it just means that he usually is.
Differences – Within Reason
The usual difference in age between a girl and the guy she dates is one to two years. Dating someone fairly close to your own age has several advantages. You’re both at about the same stage of life and generally interested in the same things. You both know the same people and move in a social group with other people of your own age. Also important, although not as generally recognised, is that public opinion tends to favour your dating someone of approximately your own age. Let a girl date a much older guy and her parents protest, her friends wonder, her neighbours gossip. If she dates a guy of about her own age, friends and family usually approve.
Just how much difference in age is acceptable is hard to determine definitely, because individual cases differ so much. A girl of fourteen or sixteen may be quite mature for her age and have more in common with a senior boy than with someone in her own grade. A boy may be relatively inexperienced socially and therefore feel more comfortable with a girl two or three years younger than himself. But usually, one, two, or three years difference in age is accepted. When greater differences occur, further questions are relevant.
The Much Older guy
Often very young girls, who are just beginning to think about dates, yearn to go out with “older men.” Looking around, they see most of the boys in their own grade absorbed in basketball, model planes, and other “kid stuff.” Then they see seventeen- and eighteen-year-old teens driving cars, taking girls out gallantly, providing all the excitement they yearn for. They themselves are shy and self-conscious in social situations, but the senior boy is poised, sure of himself. He’s also in the midst of a social swing, while they’re on the lonely fringes. So it’s understandable that many a younger girl longs for a chance to date with a poised, popular, older boy.
The same thing occurs at the after school education level; First year Uni girls pine for the attentions of the sophisticated 4th year students. The senior man strides across the campus apparently self-assured; he belongs to the charmed inner circle of those who rate. Pity the poor self-conscious first year lad who has to compete with this older 4th year student in getting dates!
The Wrong Reasons
Sometimes, though rarely, a much younger girl does get that coveted date with an older boy. When it does happen, there are hazards. The older boy who “robs’ the cradle” may not be as popular among his own age group as he appears to be. He may really feel so insecure that he has to date a considerably younger girl to cover his uneasiness. Sometimes he asks a younger girl out because she appears to be more easily exploited.
Hook, Line, and Sinker
There is some evidence to support the fear that when an older male seeks the company of a young girl, it’s just because she’s innocent and easily exploited. Girls of his own age and social experience have, by this time, learned to protect themselves from unwelcome advances. They have become skillful in avoiding potentially hazardous situations and in warding off invitations that they don’t wish to accept.
Easily Exploited
The young, unaware girl lacks these techniques which come with social experience, and so appears to be “easy” to the older, exploitive male. She has not been around enough yet to know what is and what is not expected of her. Then, she fears that she will get a reputation as a “prude” or “chicken” if she refuses to go along with her date’s suggestions. The young girl doesn’t want to offend this superior male who is so much older, smoother, and supposedly wiser. She can’t differentiate sincerity from “a line,” and fails to perceive or stop the sequence of events that leads into situations that she can’t handle.
Grooming for Intimacy
“Sweet talk” flatters the young girl. She really believes that he has never seen eyes like hers, nor smelled hair so sweet. The young girl wants so much to be loved that she accepts at face value his declaration of love at first sight. She delights in his excessive attentions, not realising that they’re the age-old ways in which a man paves the way for intimacies. But then, when he begins to be urgent in his demands, she is offended, bewildered, and frightened. This happens, of course, because she has not recognised the step-by-step process and so is unprepared for the end result.
Naivety
A guy is often baffled by such behaviour in a girl. He asks quite bluntly, “Why is it that a nice girl will lead you on and then not be willing to go through with it?” What he fails to see is that a young, inexperienced girl doesn’t know how to interpret his behaviour. He knows the meaning of a sex-toned situation. He is aware of sexual excitation from its beginning. But the young female has no such clear-cut sensations. She reacts to the earlier stages of love play with relaxation and enjoyment at being cuddled. It’s not until the man becomes “fresh” that she’s aware of what is happening.
Exceptions to the Rule
Not all older guys date young girls with the purpose of seduction. Sometimes an older boy may have been preoccupied with work or studies while others of his age were dating. When he does start going out with girls he finds that he’s more comfortable with younger girls who are at his own level of social poise. Also many an older guy is genuinely interested in and charmed by a young girl; he would be shocked to learn that adults are assuming that he wants only to exploit her.
Lester
Lester is a case in point. He was a studious lad all through high school, entering into few activities outside his studies and basketball. In college he made the basketball team and got straight A’s in his courses. He loved to read and devoted a lot of time to that. From college he went on to a seminary where his studies and student preaching took up all his time.
By the time he was ordained he was twenty-six and ready to get married. But now he found that the young women his own age were mostly married. Or they were so socially aggressive that they frightened him. As a result he started going out with a junior in college who shared his intellectual interests and encouraged him into the social life he had missed. The relationship was hardly exploitive – but mutually helpful – and ended, upon the girl’s graduation, in a happy marriage.
It’s clear, then, that age is only one factor. While there are some boys and men who date much younger girls for the advantage it gives them in “the battle of the sexes,” this is not always the case by any means. One has to know the people involved to predict the dangers and rewards that their relationship may reap.
It All Depends . . .
A point frequently discussed in high school is whether it’s advisable for a high school girl to date a man who is older than high school age. In general, high school boys tend to oppose the practice vigorously as unfair and unwise. The girls are not quite so positive. They argue that dating a college or Uni boy gives a girl real prestige among other girls. It introduces her to college and Uni functions and to other older students of both sexes. It makes her feel grown-up, and not infrequently leads to her getting pinned and engaged much sooner than if she had restricted her dates to high school boys.
On the Other Hand…
There is another side to this argument. A girl who dates college boys may be cutting off her chances to date the boys in her own school. She may miss out on the normal social life of the school. She may not find a real sense of belonging with the college set. Their interests and conversation she cannot participate in fully. And usually the college or Uni man who takes out a high school girl expects to be rewarded with favours. Most that the college or Uni girls do not generally permit.
In the final analysis, two things really must be considered. They are the personalities of the college or Uni boy and the high school girl involved. If they have a great deal in common and find delight in sharing a multitude of similar interests. He may enjoy the hospitality of her home, while she thrills to occasional campus affairs. They may both feel that these advantages outweigh those of being cut off from their own classmates.
Whether a girl dates a college boy or not, she should be aware of the gains and losses incurred by her actions. This will make a choice easier and safeguard both her and the boy from unrewarding situations.
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