Writer's Block: First love
Apr. 22nd, 2010 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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I mean, the lame but true answer is "when they're ready." However, kids are really bad at knowing when they themselves are ready; at age 5 most of them are convinced they could in fact drive a car, raise 8 children, and run the country by themselves. (I mean, no problem Mom, why would you even imply otherwise?). And it doesn't stop with kids; look at all the teens and young twentysomethings who think they are so ready to be getting married and having kids (and not necessarily in that order) but who clearly aren't? Yes, for every immature one there's someone who's precociously competent (and we can all cite examples of Well I Know This One Girl Who Had A Baby At 14 And Everything Was Fine), but I think those are the exception, not the rule.
And you can't tell which one you'll be until it's too late, so I recommend erring on the side of caution: When In Doubt, Wait. Waiting will not hurt you. At the very, very worst, you will die in a tragic accident before you get to do what you're waiting for-- but then you're dead, so it's not like you care. But jumping the gun can hurt you, and badly, so waiting is the much better option.
And as a chronic waiter, I can vouch for that. I was a pretty mature kid, but while I probably could have dated young it didn't hurt me to wait until I was 19. I was a sophomore in college for my first official date in which he asked me ahead of time and we dressed up and met at a specific time to go somewhere special as a couple. (Of course, before then I'd had a romance, including my first kiss and him flying out to visit me . . . but it wasn't a *date* date, you know? Lol, I'm bad at following traditional scripts). 19 is pretty old, and at 19 I really wished I had gotten starter sooner. But did it matter in the long run? Apparently not.
The date itself was not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of my existence-- and maybe it was my age that caused me to recognize that even at the time. It was my first date ever, and I was excited about it because it was a milestone, but it was still just a date-- and since I had a fully-developed forebrain, I didn't romanticize it to excess. I didn't assume that every other person and every other date would go down the same way. I recognized the experience was shaped by our choices and perspectives and was more than just the sum of events-- and that our attitudes, rather than the events of the date itself, were what defined it. Consequently, I don't (and didn't) have any desire to change how it went down. In fact, it's funny because my date himself apologized the next day for the date not being as fun as it *should have been* and I specifically told him I had had fun and there was nothing to worry about-- and that was all that mattered. (But it turned out he was trying to use "Let me make it up to you" as an excuse for another date, lol).
I guess I learned the important things about dating before I even started dating myself. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, it might have only made my dating experiences better and less scary, because I have always recognized that I'm in control, both in my actions and my attitudes.
I mean, the lame but true answer is "when they're ready." However, kids are really bad at knowing when they themselves are ready; at age 5 most of them are convinced they could in fact drive a car, raise 8 children, and run the country by themselves. (I mean, no problem Mom, why would you even imply otherwise?). And it doesn't stop with kids; look at all the teens and young twentysomethings who think they are so ready to be getting married and having kids (and not necessarily in that order) but who clearly aren't? Yes, for every immature one there's someone who's precociously competent (and we can all cite examples of Well I Know This One Girl Who Had A Baby At 14 And Everything Was Fine), but I think those are the exception, not the rule.
And you can't tell which one you'll be until it's too late, so I recommend erring on the side of caution: When In Doubt, Wait. Waiting will not hurt you. At the very, very worst, you will die in a tragic accident before you get to do what you're waiting for-- but then you're dead, so it's not like you care. But jumping the gun can hurt you, and badly, so waiting is the much better option.
And as a chronic waiter, I can vouch for that. I was a pretty mature kid, but while I probably could have dated young it didn't hurt me to wait until I was 19. I was a sophomore in college for my first official date in which he asked me ahead of time and we dressed up and met at a specific time to go somewhere special as a couple. (Of course, before then I'd had a romance, including my first kiss and him flying out to visit me . . . but it wasn't a *date* date, you know? Lol, I'm bad at following traditional scripts). 19 is pretty old, and at 19 I really wished I had gotten starter sooner. But did it matter in the long run? Apparently not.
The date itself was not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of my existence-- and maybe it was my age that caused me to recognize that even at the time. It was my first date ever, and I was excited about it because it was a milestone, but it was still just a date-- and since I had a fully-developed forebrain, I didn't romanticize it to excess. I didn't assume that every other person and every other date would go down the same way. I recognized the experience was shaped by our choices and perspectives and was more than just the sum of events-- and that our attitudes, rather than the events of the date itself, were what defined it. Consequently, I don't (and didn't) have any desire to change how it went down. In fact, it's funny because my date himself apologized the next day for the date not being as fun as it *should have been* and I specifically told him I had had fun and there was nothing to worry about-- and that was all that mattered. (But it turned out he was trying to use "Let me make it up to you" as an excuse for another date, lol).
I guess I learned the important things about dating before I even started dating myself. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, it might have only made my dating experiences better and less scary, because I have always recognized that I'm in control, both in my actions and my attitudes.
