How old were you when you had your 1st boyfriend/girlfriend?

Ill drink to that .. Drunk

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though I think I would probably scare the poor dear.. Wink

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@GracieGirl,

Quote:

I feel strongly that you'll come out of this issue a wiser and stronger person. AFTER you have Colin over for dinner let's see what happens. I would hope and think that he will back off, too ... but if not, I'd be pushing for a 3rd adult to help HIM moderate his stand. God knows how you two will work that scenario out...

Think you missed that bit Gracie Wink

That's a good idea too Ragman, a third party, an Adult, Aunt or someone "female"...

I know you are a teen now Gracie , but um, only "just", so it's hard for your Dad to see you as an Adult yet..

Be mature with your actions....this is what Dad will see clearer if you are understanding his side, as well as yours, logical and mature in your answers....... I also agree never, ever, ever, use the hate word

Embarrassed

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@GracieGirl,

GracieGirl wrote:

I dont know, maybe because you were bigger it was easy for you to fit in. I mean, you weren't noticeably smaller or younger. Plus you were a boy. I dont think parents give boys as many rules as girls. It's soo sexist. You could do all the things your friends could, right?

I do think because I wasn't smaller it was easier. I honestly hardly ever thought about the fact that I was younger, and mostly forgot about it.

Yeah, I do suppose boys are treated differently than girls. Us dads feel an obligation to protect girls to a greater degree than boys.

And, no, I could not do all the things my friends could do.

My 13 year old son doesn't get to do all the things his friends do, either. And he doesn't have a cell phone yet ... he may be the only kid in his grade (8th) without a cell phone (which he reminds me of often), but that's fine. He doesn't need a cell phone. I managed to survive my childhood without a cell phone. "But Dad, all my friends have a cell phone," has not yet been an effective argument for him.

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@FOUND SOUL,

Yeh, but that could flummox stuff if the third person was a fool.

I strongly think Gracie and her father need to walk and talk. Have to look back, what did I say, open a channel... by which I meant, whatever I said, channel of communication.

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@ossobuco,

Very wise thought....

I remember actually having my boyfriend's Mother try to talk to my Mother, I was 16... My Mother just got angrier that I dared to pull someone into the picture that involved "her life" with me...

Having said that , I did, have my Grandmother to have a chat, "her Mother" my Grandmother was wise, but alas, Mum didn't listen to her either:)

Point taken.

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@ossobuco,

Being who Gracie is, what do you think the odds are she'd ask someone who was not a good pick?

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Well, I've had my share of ".....but the others can do it, why not me?" when Jane was around that age, I am not about to start this here. Bottom line is,
Gracie has to obey her father's wishes, if she sees logic in them or not, is secondary here. Yes, she's a mature 13 year old, but we also have seen her naivety come through many times, so I uphold my reason to side with her Dad.

I still have these arguments of "why can't I do that?"....but with proper reasoning and explanation, Jane eventually comes around and understands. She actually questions her friends parents who allow them
to do things she was prohibited to do. Now she thinks they don't care enough about their kids.....that's how fast the table turns Smile

-----

Gracie, you're a sweet sweet girl and definitely smarter beyond your years, but there is also an emotional intelligence everyone has to grow into and
don't fault your dad for trying to protect his "little" girl. You mean the world to him and he just wants to protect you. Walk in his shoes for a few minutes....

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@Ragman,

We both like who Gracie is. I'm reactive to bringing someone else in, Gracie and her father - I so hope will connect over time.

Not to go on and on, but my father, alway an interesting man, started with his own troubles around when I was eleven or ten or nine. Or maybe that is when I noticed. My mother, so loved by me as a child, seemed later a shrew reciting platitudes, and I wasn't far wrong, to my dismay, as she was always pretty rule thinking and then delved into dementia slowly. Plus, I was a teen. A quiet teen, but a seether. Which I've worked to overcome, later, getting to know people who talked - thus my present straightforwardness.

As time went by, my father talked to me about the world - what was happening re different countries and also in the u.s. - but not about boy girl stuff. He showed me a bit about construction and fishing and architecture and religion (he was what I now think of as an atheistic believer) and writers and movies. Told me I could do anything. I now know how much they both loved me.

Gracie, get to know your father. Father, get to know Gracie. Privacy matters, but be there for each other.

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@GracieGirl,

GracieGirl wrote:

Well, everyone knows what 'boyfriend' means. How does it depends?
A boyfriend is like a guy you really like and they like you back and you text and talk all the time and you always hang out and you go places alone on dates and you kiss and stuff. That's what I mean when I say 'boyfriend'.

How do 'you' define boyfriend?
How old were you when you had your first one?
Do you think 13 or 14 is too young?

Well, which of these would you say was my first boyfriend?

- In kindergarten, a boy kissed me under a table and remembered it vividly 20+ years later (I had only the vaguest memory of it). He called me his "first girlfriend."

- In 7th grade, an 8th-grade boy asked me to "go with" him. That was a big deal -- 8th graders didn't ask out 7th graders. I said yes. Thing is, I didn't actually like him very much. As a friend, yeah, but... So we "went out" for a few weeks, which consisted of writing notes to each other and making googly eyes at each other and him trying to pin me down on a time for a date, which I kept wriggling out of. Then he broke up with me. Or I broke up with him. Not sure.

- In 8th grade, a boy I had one of those intense, from-afar, no-way-he'd-ever-like-me-'cause-he's-so-gorgeous-and-popular crushes on turned out to like me back. I was shocked. We went on a class camping trip and he led me on a walk into the woods with all of his pals elbowing each other. We sat down on a log and he said "boy... girl... alone in the woods..." and put his arm around me. I rolled my eyes at the complete cliche-d ness of his line and got up and kept walking and trying to talk to him about, you know, interesting stuff. Didn't work. I decided he was gorgeous but not that interesting. (Sigh, I was still in 8th grade. Later gorgeous would be enough, short-term.)

- In 7th grade through ... um... at least through college, I had an incredibly intense crush on one of my best friends who was a boy who was just -sigh- amazing. We spent a lot of time together and gazed deep into each others eyes and were incredibly competitive at school and had the same sense of humor and never, ever admitted that we were madly in love with each other. (Well, it became clear, but too late.)

- In 10th grade an idiot guy who was kind of cute pursued me relentlessly, including sending flowers with the card "Let's get in touch." Ugh, ugh, ugh. I didn't mind the relentless pursuit and the directionless madly-in-love thing I mention above was starting to frustrate me and I still hadn't kissed anyone so I went out with him. He was my first kiss. The kissing was awesome, he wasn't. Didn't last very long.

- 12th grade was busy. First, I became close to yet another guy who was just friends, mm hmm, right, (again the madly-in-love thing was confirmed but again too late). (I was old enough now that gorgeousness had more of a pull, and woo was he gorgeous.) (Still is.) (Anyway.) Also another guy, another crush, another push-pull -- gorgeous in a totally different way, but a stoner and irresponsible, I wasn't sure I wanted to have a relationship with him. Then a third guy was (you guessed it) (I was a lucky girl), younger but actually gorgeous AND smart AND interesting so he was probably my first real boyfriend by my own definition. (Attraction was mutually admitted and consummated, we actually talked, etc.)

- Then I hooked up with a guy my first week of college who turned into a two-year relationship. By then we're past the grey area.

So, what's your call on who was the first?

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@Ticomaya,

Ticomaya wrote:

GracieGirl wrote:
I dont know, maybe because you were bigger it was easy for you to fit in. I mean, you weren't noticeably smaller or younger. Plus you were a boy. I dont think parents give boys as many rules as girls. It's soo sexist. You could do all the things your friends could, right?

I do think because I wasn't smaller it was easier. I honestly hardly ever thought about the fact that I was younger, and mostly forgot about it.

Yeah, I do suppose boys are treated differently than girls. Us dads feel an obligation to protect girls to a greater degree than boys.

And, no, I could not do all the things my friends could do.

My 13 year old son doesn't get to do all the things his friends do, either. And he doesn't have a cell phone yet ... he may be the only kid in his grade (8th) without a cell phone (which he reminds me of often), but that's fine. He doesn't need a cell phone. I managed to survive my childhood without a cell phone. "But Dad, all my friends have a cell phone," has not yet been an effective argument for him.

I think size helps with skipping. There were 3 of us who were top readers in my 1st grade class. I was skipped during 2nd grade (I was tall; I didn't end up tall, though. I'm 5'6"). Lisa moved away. No idea what happened with her. Mark (who decided that he and I would be married. We were I think 6 at the time) was kept from skipping because he was short and the powers that be thought he'd be left out. By the time 4th grade rolled around, he was a behavior problem 'cause he was bored. So they skipped him, despite the fact that he was still shrimpy. He's now a doctor somewhere. He and I did not marry, or even date (I moved away from Penna. when we were both 9).

Anyway - yeah - it's a peer thing, and the peer group is kind of odd. The dynamic does change. And I think for girls it can change move, particularly if a girl is (ahem) an early developer, regardless of her emotional maturity or chronological age. I mean, you know, we've got hormones driving us, and our classmates do as well. Plus parents are walking even more of a tightrope. What's too permissive? What's too strict? What will impart the most/best/most transferable lesson? Egad, it's a minefield.

At nearly 50 years of age I do still recall what it was like to be madly "in love" with someone who did not know I existed.

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@GracieGirl,

GracieGirl wrote:

Eva wrote:

GracieGirl wrote:
...I don't know why I put it on Facebook. I was just excited and happy and I wanted all my friends to know. And I'm friends with my dad on Facebook but we dont talk or play games or anything there. So, sometimes I forget that he's there and he's checking stuff and everything. He shouldn't be checking my stuff anyway. I'm never on his Facebook page looking at all his stuff. That's why I don't even like going to my Facebook page to talk to friends anymore. He's soo annoying.

He wouldn't have to snoop, Gracie. It would have popped up on his News Feed. Whenever you change your relationship status, it's like making an announcement to the whole world. Everyone on your friends list is notified. If your dad changed his relationship status because of a girlfriend, it would pop up on your News Feed as well.

Oh yeah! I forgot about that. But still, he's the one who 'insists' that we be friends on facebook. So, I know it's because he wants to snoop around.
And Facebook is soo stupid. The News Feed is soo pointless and stalkerish. They keep changing stuff for no reason. Facebook was fine the way it was before.

I insisted that my son "friend" me, too. It was a condition of letting him be on FB. Before you accuse me of being unnecessarily snoopy or controlling...let me explain why parents do this.

I don't monitor his phone calls or text messages because those are private. But FB is public. What goes on there can affect you AND YOUR FAMILY's reputation. A parent has a responsibility to know what is being said about their family members in public. What you put on FB might as well be on a billboard. It's not private. Several times I've had to ask my son to remove certain postings because they would harm his ability to get a job (employers always check FB along with references) or his relationships with relatives that are FB friends. He's applying for colleges now, and they check applicants' FB pages, too. When I suggest that he remove something, his reply is always, "Oh, I forgot about that." THAT's why we monitor public stuff.

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@Ragman,

Ragman wrote:

Being who Gracie is, what do you think the odds are she'd ask someone who was not a good pick?

Pretty good, actually. I was a "good girl," and assumed most other people were, too. Bad assumption, as it turned out. But that's what dating is all about. Learning to choose wisely.

Gracie will most likely make some good choices and a few bad ones. But she's smart, and she'll learn from them. By the time she's ready for a serious relationship, I expect she'll have enough experience to recognize a wonderful guy.

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@Eva,

Same here! My daughter had to include me in her friend's list and although she has put several status updates there where she custom designed it so everyone can see it except her mother, I made her change it again. I do monitor her activity almost daily and I also have asked her to remove certain
posts, as well as people she just added because they're friends of friends' friends and she had no clue who they are.

It's not a distrust, it's a precautionary action to make sure our kids are safe
on the internet.

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@CalamityJane,

CalamityJane wrote:

Same here! My daughter had to include me in her friend's list ...

Ditto.

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@GracieGirl,

Oops! The movies called Life is Beautiful. I got it confused. Smile

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@Eva,

You misunderstood me. I was writing about her picking a 3rd party to discuss her Dad's strictness with her Dad and her.

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@GracieGirl,

Ah, yes, I have seen it. Very sad at the end.

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@Ragman,

Ah! Sorry about that, Ragman. Embarrassed

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@FOUND SOUL,

FOUND SOUL wrote:

Quote:
I feel strongly that you'll come out of this issue a wiser and stronger person. AFTER you have Colin over for dinner let's see what happens. I would hope and think that he will back off, too ... but if not, I'd be pushing for a 3rd adult to help HIM moderate his stand. God knows how you two will work that scenario out...

Think you missed that bit Gracie

That's a good idea too Ragman, a third party, an Adult, Aunt or someone "female"...

I know you are a teen now Gracie , but um, only "just", so it's hard for your Dad to see you as an Adult yet..

Be mature with your actions....this is what Dad will see clearer if you are understanding his side, as well as yours, logical and mature in your answers....... I also agree never, ever, ever, use the hate word

Oh yeah! I didn't see that one. I thought I answered all of Ragmans post. Sorry. Embarrassed

I don't really have too many 'female' people to talk to. Its mostly just me, my brother, my sister and my dad. And my dad's new girlfriend Katie is just gonna side with my dad or stay out of it. My aunt Jess is busy with her new baby, plus she lives an hour away. I could ask my aunt Laura. She's cool and she'll understand but she's my dads younger sister and they're not all that close plus she lives in Long Beach, even farther away than my aunt Jess does. I could ask Natalies mom maybe...

I'm mature when I talk to him already I think and I'll be even more mature and logical when we talk about me dating Colin but he's still gonna be a jerk about it I bet.

And sorry about the 'hate' word but everyone hates their parents sometimes. Smile

I don't really hate my dad, obviously. I could never hate him over a fight about a guy. He's just annoying. I don't mean it when I say I hate him. He just makes me mad.

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How old were you when you had your 1st boyfriend/girlfriend?

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