The Adult Flirting with You is Actually a Gross Predator

I was fifteen years old when I met Him. Charismatic, dark and handsome, and a badass biker on top of that, he was everything I thought made him too good for me, so when he actually wanted to talk to me, to spend time with me, it was pretty much a dream come true. He was eighteen, listened to The Sex Pistols, and smoked like a chimney. Our first "date" we spent a lot of it sitting on the floor talking, and honestly I don't remember if we kissed, but I know we wanted to see each other again, and it snowballed in to us talking almost 24/7 and hanging out on a pretty regular basis. I felt so cool, so important, being the object of this adult's affection. I showed off about our relationship at school because it made me feel interesting and unique to be the only girl in my entire school year dating an older man. I didn't listen when people told me it was sick or wrong; I told them it didn't feel wrong and that they just didn't understand. As a vulnerable child who had felt invisible for most of her high school career, this kind of attention was new and exciting and I wasn't about to agree with the naysayers.While I'm on the subject, being that invisible girl who only got negative attention from her peers made me an easy target for Him. The age gap went unquestioned and I was eager to please—after all, in my mind, he was the older, worldly, experienced man and I had to keep up with his wants and desires in order to keep him. I wasn't a virgin—but I was far from worldly or experienced.

Just after our relationship became official—Facebook Official, to use a very 2009 term—he revealed to me, as we sat on the beach together, that he was in fact twenty-one years old. He knew I wouldn't believe him and had even brought his passport as proof. I was stunned by the revelation but at this point, as I'm sure was his plan all along, it seemed silly to break up over him being three years older than I'd originally thought, so together we stayed. A fifteen-year-old and a twenty-one-year old.

By the way, did I mention the man who was six years older than me had originally befriended me online? Ooooh yeah.

That's right folks, I met an eighteen (actually twenty-one) year old online and this somehow didn't set off alarm bells. Quite frankly it should have set off alarm bells, sirens, klaxons, and horns, but I was fifteen, what the fuck did I know about what was right and wrong? And at that age, "love" seems like the most important thing in the world, so the very idea that I would have cared about our relationship being illegal when I was "in love" was laughable.

Now you may be reading this as a woman (or man) of twenty-five simply for the escandalo of it all, but if you're reading this as a young person under 18, this next part's for you.

Imagine you're in school, and someone who's seventeen is pursuing or even dating someone who is eleven years old. Disgusting, right? Paedophile, right?

That's what He was, but I couldn't see it, because I felt mature and he was already legally an adult, so we could both make our own decisions in my mind. And sure, at fifteen you're mature enough to make a lot of your own decisions, but whether or not it's safe or healthy to have any kind of non-platonic involvement with someone over eighteen is not a call you can make at that age. Choose your hair colour, choose your style, choose where to go for your birthday celebration, but if you're going to make the choice to date someone, choose between two people who are in your own age group.

Now instead of focussing on my poor life decisions, I want to focus on His life decisions for a moment. Would you think it was cool and sexy to see a man with a beard trying to hang out with a literal child? Would you think he had friends his own age, or would you think he was a desperate loser praying on vulnerable humans for attention?

I can't tell you for sure what made Him think that it was a good idea to be in a relationship with a child, or what made it appealing to him, but I can tell you that I ended up stuck in a three year relationship that involved domestic violence towards me. In the end, it was my mum that made him leave, when I finally gathered enough courage to call her in to the room when I knew he was about to get violent.

Please, don't think my message here is that anyone over eighteen who's interested in a relationship with a younger person is automatically a violent person; that's far from what I'm trying to say. But if an adult is interested in love or sex or even kissing with a child, there is something wrong with them in some way or other, and you should run as far as you can in the opposite direction. You may never be physically hurt by them, but the internal pressure you will feel to keep up with their adult lifestyle will give you some serious emotional damage.

Once you're eighteen, it doesn't matter if you date someone who's five or even ten years older than you, because you're an adult who has enough maturity to make that decision; and the person who's older than you won't be in danger of going to prison because of it.

Just wait until you're eighteen. I don't care how much of an old lady I sound, wait until you're eighteen and then date the fuck out of every hot older man/woman you see. It'll be much less stressful when you're sure they can't be convicted of statutory rape, I promise.