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 many social events are held on the assumption that girls 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 fellow 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 recognized, is that public opinion tends to favour your dating someone of approximately your own age. Let a girl date a much older fellow and her parents protest, her friends wonder, her neighbours gossip. If she dates a fellow 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 Fellow
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 baseball, model planes, and other “kid stuff.” Then they see seventeen- and eighteen-year-old seniors 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 college level; freshman girls pine for the attentions of the sophisticated upperclassmen. The senior man strides across the campus apparently self-assured; he belongs to the charmed inner circle of those who date. Pity the pool self-conscious freshman lad who has to compete with this older man-about-campus in getting dates! 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 skilful in avoiding potentially hazardous situations and in warding off invitations that they don’t wish to accept.
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. She fears that she will get a reputation as a “prude” or “chicken” if she refuses to go along with her date’s suggestions. She doesn’t want to offend this superior male—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 she can’t handle.
“Sweet talk” flatters the young girl. She really believes that he has never seen eyes like hers, nor smelled hair so sweet. She 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 realizing 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 recognized the step-by-step process and so is unprepared for the end result.
A fellow 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 what is obvious to him as a male is not at all clear to a young, inexperienced girl. 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.
Not all older fellows 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 fellow 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 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 either married or 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 persons 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 college man. 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 boy gives a girl real prestige among other girls. It introduces her to college functions and to other college 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.
The other side of the argument recognizes that 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, in whose interests and conversation she cannot participate fully. And she may also find that the college man who takes out a high school girl expects to be rewarded by favours that the college girls do not generally permit.
In the last analysis, what really must be considered are the personalities of the college 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; if he enjoys 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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