Secondary school is not about learning math, but maturity.
Today, I was thinking about ages in terms of teenagers dating. First, I pondered the fact that I am seventeen and my boyfriend is almost nineteen. That is a two year difference, but no-one has really commented much negatively on that. However, a fourteen year old dating a twelve year old is seen as gross. The age difference is the same, but the public opinion is so different. Then, I thought back to myself a few years ago and had a moment of mental clarity.
High school
(where I live) is five years, spanning the majority of the teen years. There are new grade eights who are only twelve years old, walking the same halls as people who can almost legally drink. Keeping this in mind, the five years is a time of immense growth and change. It is marked by good memories and bad experiences, but more so than that, it is an array of various life changing lessons. I am not referring to the trigonometry lessons, but to the life ones. In the future, when I take time to look back at this time in my life, I can guarantee I will never remember the cosine law or the quadratic formula- but I will take a few things with me.
High school is more than simple lessons, tests and homework. It's a learning experience and a time to make mistakes and learn from them. I am a firm believer of the nurture side of classic psychology debate. Our experiences shape us, thus we need a place to experience and decide who and what we want to be. The reason why two years can be a big deal when you're twelve or thirteen is simple. It is not just a time elapse of twenty four months, but a multitude of unlearned lessons and maturity levels not reached.
Personally, I am barely the same person I was two years ago. If I compare what has happened and changed me since then, I can see a huge difference. I could not have had a functional relationship with someone two years older when in grade nine. I had so little life experience and while intellectually mature, emotionally I was still learning. In the last two years, I have experienced a lot of "firsts," some good, some bad, and some simply neutral. These things have matured me to a plateau where I am capable of having a functional relationship with someone older.
Some people regret their mistakes, but I embrace mine.
What was your biggest lesson learned?
At what age is it okay to date someone a few years older?
Did you learn more about life or academics in school?
True 
Comments (18)
I feel like it definitely depends on the situation. Maturity makes a really big difference. I am currently seeing a twenty-seven year old; I'm almost twenty-one. If I had started dating them when I was thirteen and he were nineteen, that would have been waaay too young for me. I feel like it wouldn't have really been acceptable for me to start dating him until I was at least eighteen, for legal reasons and maturity reasons. However, I feel like I difference of two or three years is probably okay starting at about sixteen and up. Any younger, and it really is a question of maturity. A thirteen year old dating a sixteen year old is weird, and kind of gross, but a sixteen year old with a nineteen year old isn't quite as bad. It's still weird but I feel like it's okay.
Amen. Highschool for me was my maturity stage.
I'm in my highschool too but I'll be off to college this June here in the Philippines. My highschool was all about going crazy and doing something what I shouldn't do, but I think that's what it is about, living life... do mistakes... do something crazy, learn from them, just being happy.
That's because at 12 years old, not everyone has started puberty, or finished it. Some do, but not everyone. And it's "too young." It's like a 10 year old dating a 12 year old.
I dated a 24-year-old at 18. I am now 19, and dating a 17-year-old. I'm the girl. And I don't care what people think. He's so much smarter, so much less selfish, and thousands of times more mature than my 24-year-old ex.
I also don't get the whole "Wow, you're dating a senior in high school and you're a college sophomore?" thing. In a few years I'll be 22 and he will be 20. And no one will look at us twice.
School tends to focus on "getting the grades" and "getting the work done" more than having a life or actually living and learning. I didn't have a life until I was out of high school. Go figure.
my high school was a joke and the teachers were subpar in my opinion. I didn't learn any important life lessons from high school. I think I learned more from watching oprah lol I think they shouldn't be in their pre-teens and if they are both teens then it depends because some people mature faster or slower. I didn't date much in high school even though guys were interested in me. I preferred to hang out with friends and check out guys at the mall and flirt without drama of relationships. I think 14 and 12 are too young and dating at 12 is just weird. I remember when I was in 6th grade and some girls had boyfriends, who ditched their friends and revolved their life around the guy and when he dumped her, she just ran back to her friends that she abandoned. I thought that was lame and I didn't want friends like that.
Personally, I feel like you should really only date people more than two years older than you once you hit 20 or so, just because I feel like college (assuming that the individual in question is attending college) changes you just as much, if not more than, high school. I'm not saying it doesn't work for other people, because I'm sure it does, but as far as my opinion goes, I just think it's a large gap to work around for all the potential life changes the individual's on the cusp of.
I mean, I'm 21 and dating a 25 year old. I know that if I had met him 3 years ago, when we were 18 and 22 respectively, things probably wouldn't have worked out. We were both very different people back then.
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I think it really depends on how mature you are, mentally when it comes to dating younger or older people... I personally wouldn't mind dating someone a few years older than me.. Haha. But it just depends on the people, really. The level of maturity and the way things work out or don't work out.
To others, I seem to be completely the same as I have been my entire life, but inside I am changed. I was baptized (I'm SDA) during my freshman year of high school, so I don't cuss anymore and I am a better Christian than I was before. I've become more tolerant of people, and I'm able to see both sides of a situation much more clearly than many people my age.
I think it's okay to date someone a few years older at age sixteen, but honestly it depends on the individual and their maturity.
I'm still in high school, but I'd say I've learned about life and academics equally.
GOOD! i embrace my mistakes too =] though i wish i may have taken a different route, they taught me very good lessons
high school has taught me maturity.
i started realizing my maturity level last year (i'm now a senior in hs) when i was dating an immature self-obsessed boy. then i figured it all out and i think age doesn't matter, but i would never date someone more than 3 years older than me if i were younger. since i'm 18 and my current SO is 20 almost 21, i have definitely seen a difference...more of my true self has come out and i'm not embarrassed to be around him and my friends, cuz the ex is embarrassing still haha.
I agree that it really depends on maturity.
For example, when I was a sophomore in high school, I was fourteen, and dated a freshman for a while. Even though he was fifteen, a year older than me, he was way too immature.
I think that the age you date matters, but WHO you date matters even more, as far as whether or not they match your level of maturity goes.
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I'm 18, almost 19, and my boyfriend is 23. 4/5 years seems like a big difference but it's really not...It depends how the people interact and work on their relationship. 2 years isn't a big age difference in high school, as long as you both work on the relationship. I've learned a lot in high school, but more my freshman year in college.