Women Who Have "Dated" Older Men As Teenagers And Realized They Were Predators, What Are You Stories?
Despite many women having stories about this, it's not often acknowledged as "a thing," but it's important to address.
I was 15 the first time a friend told me about an older guy she was talking to. At that point, a college-aged boy would have been considered older enough to us — except this guy was in his late 20s.
While it was something to be kept secret then (God forbid a parent found out), as I got older, it became less uncommon to hear about older men – in theirs 20s, 30s, and 40s — interested in dating teenage girls.
Despite many women having stories about this, it's not often acknowledged as "a thing." But recently, Redditor u/pizzaroll94 asked, "Women who 'dated' older men as teenagers that now realize they were predators, what’s your story?" In response, they received over 13k comments.
So many women shared their experiences with older men while they themselves were in middle or high school.
All of their stories share nuance and complexity: the way society teaches young girls that male attention is desirable and reflective of their own worth; a simultaneous sense of shame and maturity; doing things they were uncomfortable with to appease him; feeling special; reflections on how the relationship affected them longterm.
While the power imbalance may be obvious to adults, it's harder to intuit or acknowledge as a child being preyed upon by an adult.
Because this is so insidious, it's important to address it. So if you're comfortable sharing, I'd like to know your story if you were a woman who "dated" an older man, only to realize sometime thereafter that he was a predator. (If you prefer to remain anonymous, please submit your story here.)
In fact, the two separate instances when I asked women in the BuzzFeed Community to share lessons they wish they'd learned earlier, not dating older men as teenagers came up both times (it's number 11 here, and number 30 here).