One of my coworkers told me about a good friend of his, a guy that ‘had a thing’ with an older woman in her mid-twenties that started when he was about fifteen. He talked about how their friend group thought it was cool, how they were a little jealous of him. She was pretty and interested, which is any fifteen year old boy’s dream.
The older they got, though, the weirder it got. She got pregnant by this kid when he was still seventeen. Thankfully he went to the authorities and got custody of the baby when he was an adult, but my coworker kind of laughed it off as kids being stupid. I think he thought I would just dismiss it, which is heartbreaking.
I asked him if it would have been okay if it was a fifteen year old female friend and a twenty five year old guy. He immediately replied that it would NOT have been okay, he and his friends would have beaten the guy up.
The dissonance is real, guys. There’s a kid who was groomed at fifteen and a single dad at nineteen because his friends and family only gave this message to girls. This message matters to everyone- no matter your gender, no matter the gender of the other person- if you are a child and an adult is ‘interested’ in you, RUN AWAY. They don’t have your best interests at heart, and that’s not love at all.