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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3064 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 26, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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More of vent/advise post rather than a small question.

Background: I run a board game meetup, formally around the social deduction game Blood on the Clocktower (Think very involved werewolf/mafia but with a DM). Some of the regulars have become addicted to the game and spun off a separate discord to play more often, which is fine, because I joinws it and play I just don't want to have to run the game every weekend which is the occurrence they seem to want to play at.

The Problem: Somehow a minor infiltrated our group. The main group is public and meets a local game hall so its whatever, but this person seemingly got invited to the separate discord full of all the addicts. We just played at someone's house last night. This minor is now 18, an autistic woman. The average age of this group is early 30s, quantitatively 32. We do have some mid 20s and occasionally some folks in their 23-24 range show up and several folks in their 40s that come play but 18 is extremely young. Consequently (thankfully) everyone is very uncomfortable with this development.

Extra Tea: She needed a ride to our event last night, she doesn't really advertise her age, so a male member of the group picked her up because it was on his way and he's a helpful person. He immediately regretted offering to help when he saw her. People where discretely playing hot potato with who was going to drive her home. Her parents apparently don't care that she is attempting to hang out with a bunch of 30 year olds. They seem to be living out of a hotel for some reason (likely poverty), but it's unclear if this is a recent thing or not. She's very clearly autistic with a severely awkward demeanor and lacking the ability to at all process anything not spoken directly to her in the environment.

The Question: Is there any advice on how to boot this person from the group. Obviously it's going to happen but the question is how to handle it in such a way as to not scar this already likely friendless young adult. I currently lean on just ripping the band aid off, but technically since this is an offshoot group I am pushing towards making the moronic discord head who added her do it as penance for being a fucking retard and adding her in the first place.

If she can shoot My Third Gandband Orgy (anal edition) legally, she can totally hang out with you if she feels comfortable. If she was 50 years old cougar will you kick her out? It is still 20 years age gap.

This is not tea. This is progressive Kool Aid. If someone hits on her too hard - tell him to cool it off. If she hits on someone - ah whatever - envy and pity the poor bastard.

envy

Would you envy a person stepping on rakes in the rake factory. Shockingly, mentally unstable young women are a proverbial landmine in progressive social milieus. Vulnerable victims whose voice yet rings the loudest, judging all and held to no epistemic standards of evidence. A repudiation it seems from the good conservative milieu where young women are seen, not heard. We ever move in cycles, rejecting that which scarred our generation in its formative years

I can attest: (short version) a spergy self-identified-autistic 30something woman once flirted with me, we kissed several times with no objection from her, then she accepted a ride home from me, whereon I gave her a final kiss and hug before leaving. The next day she was "very upset" with me, being "So Tired of Straight Guys Assuming I'm not Asexual". A year later this had become Sexual Assault.

Now change her age to 18, talk about nightmare fuel as now there are thinly veiled pedo accusations and insinuations that you manipulated this fragile young mind with your degenerate cis-normative white heterosexuality.

Mentally unstable women with no outside social experience are prone to misinterpreting things. I have no desire to include landmines within a group of nerdy autistic adults.

As I said envy and pity.

Conservative venues may not have the same paranoia and fingerpointing, but this is not because young women are seen and not heard(they aren’t)- it’s because casual sex is frowned upon.

I guess I’ll be the weird one and say I understand your objection. I don’t think there’s inherently anything wrong with an 18 year old spending time with 30+ year olds, but it seems like the combination of gender, age, and general situation makes it uncomfortable to have her around.

Some of your other comments seem to suggest that women aren’t frequent attendees of this private group. The gay guy… going to the bathroom to talk about abilities? (Is this a common tabletop RPG thing?) with the sexual humor is an element I suspect would be difficult to sustain if you had a lot of female participants, it’s just not their kind of scene. For the record, I think it is entirely fair to be a male-only group, or “we only invite women if they’re chill with our vibe.”

It strikes me that you have a middle ground. There’s a public group and a private group. Tell her that this is a small public gathering of old friends, and while you enjoyed her company the transportation situation and private nature of the group means that you’d prefer she not join you in the future, and that you apologize but she wasn’t supposed to be invited to the private discord. You can make clear that she’s welcome at the public group and this isn’t a judgment of her character.

Anything that you say might be hurtful. But there’s no Konami cheat code out of saying hurtful, but true, things sometimes. Tact, and compassion, are important attributes, but ultimately you’re not responsible for how people feel about a situation if you’re honest and polite with them.

(Is this a common tabletop RPG thing?)

Yes. If the DM needs to communicate information to exactly one player, stepping into another room is the easiest way. We sometimes DM on Discord instead, if it's just a quick note.

I agree with @4bpp. The specifics kinda don't matter; kicking someone out of a group is always going to be painful and awkward. If you must kick her out (and for the record, I don't think you should, there's nothing wrong with an 18 year old hanging out with other adults if she wants), then best thing is to be kind but direct. "Hey $name, the group doesn't think that you fit in with the rest of us, we noticed that you don't always enjoy our sense of humor and because we are at a very different life stage than you are it's a bit hard to find common ground when we chat about stuff. I'm sorry, but I think it would be best if we went our separate ways". Something like that. It's really hard to not be mean while also being firm that no, we really are asking you to leave.

You asked how to do this without scarring this girl for life, and to be blunt I don't think you can. You are going to hurt her, no matter how hard you try, because it is intrinsically painful to be asked to not hang out with a group of friends any more. And if she really is lonely and doesn't have other friends, it's going to hurt even more. Them's the breaks.

Probably the most relevant response, thanks.

I don't think I have much to add to the "you are being weird for making it an age thing" near-consensus emerging in the responses, so perhaps instead a question to throw back at you: do you have a script in mind for solving the same problem ("most of the group wants this person out but we can't find a good socially acceptable excuse to kick them") if it were not an autistic 18-year-old woman newcomer, but, say, an autistic 30-year-old guy? If you do have one, what is stopping you from applying that script here? If not, think of one, because that's a problem you will probably have to deal with earlier or later either way.

an autistic 30-year-old guy?

There's plenty of them in the group, and I have a general rule around including them as long as they take advice on when they are being anti-social spergs that people don't want to hang out with. The script to kick anyone out these days is pretty much: "You are making people uncomfortable about some concrete things, and we've talked about about it and you seem pretty unrepentant and unwilling to change so I think the majority of other people don't want to hang out with you." Unfortunately thats hard to apply here because the things that are making people uncomfortable, ie being an awkward 18 year old in a group of 32 year olds isn't something they can change.

Realising I missed a nuance on first readthrough, you seem to assume that the 30-year-old guy script has to involve concrete things that you can confront them over, which they could fix to get accepted into the group. The more interesting question there, though, is what you would do with a 30-year-old guy where there is no such thing. I've seen plenty of instances where some guy is just unlikeable, through no fault of their own; nobody can do anything about it, but having to be around him actively causes the other members negative utility, to the point that if they are not forced to stay they would sooner just leave the group. How would you deal with that situation?

I suppose I have a hard time believing someone is just unlikeable for no reason. It's almost always a personality quirk and the overriding question is how much is that quirk load-bearing on their identity such that if it caused problems, and they were asked if they could change it or at least hide it, would they? After some thought I don't think I've never met someone that was just unlikeable for no reason at all.

Yeah, I think I have nothing much to say apart from +1ing @SubstantialFrivolity's comment. If you have a group consensus to make the policy essentially "no under-21s allowed", then it seems to be your job as the leader to own up to it and tell her. I should also say, though, that it seems possible to me that the consensus may not be as strong as you make it out to be, because you may have created social pressure to agree ("Are there any creeps in our midst who think it's not weird for us to hang out with this 18 year old child? No? Good").

Perhaps, if you need to justify it to yourself, you could think of it as a useful life lesson - a somewhat autistic girl I am friends with, though much older, does sometimes need to be persuaded (over her own stubborn objections) that 50 year old guys showering her with gifts and inviting her to go on vacation on them within hours of first meeting are not in fact just being unusually kind. Frame it as a lecture about social expectations in your circles and how all men are wolves; if you really want to drive it home, sacrifice some of your own and your group's good reputation and tell her that the boys can't control themselves around her and you don't like what it does to the group dynamic.

We're reaching a new frontier with age-gap discourse: board games.

She's young enough to be your younger sister or cousin, you sick fucks!

occasionally some folks in their 23-24 range show up

Scandalous! Their brains haven't even fully developed yet; how can they consent to playing the board game?

Her parents apparently don't care that she is attempting to hang out with a bunch of 30 year olds.

I mean... being amongst the company of boardgamers is probably one of the least likely environments for an 18-year-old daughter to engage in fatherless behavior when she goes out. Given her... different ableness... her parents might be glad someone's taking her off their hands for a few hours.

If she's not a good fit for the squad, you guys can just stop inviting her or picking her up. Freedom of association; you don't need to justify it via some age-gap related reason. Your meetup; your choice.

Scandalous! Their brains haven't even fully developed yet.

Bruh nobody thinks this. Absolute brainrot thought, touch grass already. 23-24 year olds are fine. They have a job/gradschool, can drink, pretty much not different than a proper adult of 30 years.

She's young enough to be your younger sister or cousin, you sick fucks!

Literally a month ago she was 17... So yes I guess if you like barely legal "age is just a number" mentalities then go off queen!

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23-24 year olds are fine. They [...] can drink, pretty much not different than a proper adult of 30 years.

So can 18 year olds?

Not in America

Which is a deficiency specific to American governing, not any sort of attribute of 18 year olds.

Regardless, it is a rite of passage in the traditional anthropological sense. Not having passed through the tribe’s rituals denotes one as unable to participate in groups with post ritual behavior. The divergence between when a tribe administers its rites is left to the tribe.

Eaglecrowing Schoolshooting Freespeechia notably doesn't legally allow drinking until 21, and many seem to obey.

Since when has that really stopped anyone much?

Many moons ago when I was 19 I visited an older friend I knew from IRC who lived in the Midwest. I ended up hanging out with a bunch of local 17-19 year olds there and while my friend's wife forbade him from buying us booze, the only thing limiting (but certainly not stopping) us getting alcohol was how much we could tolerate the company one rather annoying girl who was 21. I don't think I've ever drunk as much alcohol while traveling as on that trip.

The same way some of my friends here in Finland had no problem getting drunk when they were 15-16 even though the legal age is 18.

There's a big difference between "can't" and "many don't much want to".

That's the legal age to purchase, which is not the same as a ban on minors consuming alcohol - I am not familiar with any state with such a ban (although some states ban possession by minors), and many US states specifically permit minors to consume alcohol with parental sign-off.

I am not familiar with any state with such a ban

Welcome to Texas!

(I actually love some of the carve-outs there - immunity for the first minor to request medical assistance for another person's possible alcohol overdose is a level of considering-second-order-effects you don't see enough of in legal codes)

many US states specifically permit minors to consume alcohol with parental sign-off.

I first looked up the exact rules a few years ago, and thereby ended up being the kill-joy for my niece's (IIRC 20th?) birthday, where the plan was "parental sign-off for all her friends" but the legal exemption turned out to be something like "each kid's parent has to be the one to provide that kid's alcohol and be physically present when they drink it". I wasn't going to rat them out or anything - "sign-off" seems morally sufficient to me - but her mother wanted to know the law and didn't want to break it.

I try to make it up to her these days by mixing fancy cocktails at get-togethers, and the funny thing in hindsight is that her alcohol tolerance turns out to be roughly "split a drink, nothing too strong, with her boyfriend taking more than half". Just the bottle-of-soju-each they'd had planned for that birthday would have blindsided her.

Texas law is Like That, because the dominant party is dominated by Germans trying to regulate Mexicans and Scots-Irish, and has been for a long time.

Aha! I knew that Texas had the parental sign-off waiver, so I didn't realize that they latched on consumption rather than possession.

IIRC 20th

Yeah I do think that the age should be lowered to 18 (at least). Such a rule might make sense for minors, but it's a bit farcical for someone who may have graduated high school two or three years ago living halfway across the state with his own car and job to have to drink within arms-reach of his parents. With the trend of appellate courts killing under-21 handgun bans, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a future development.

In practice it's a ban on consumption, since it is also illegal to purchase alcohol for minors (outside of parents letting their kids drink).

I think practically speaking it's a ban on consumption outside the home.

True. I guess in the specific case of a gaming group, they could meet up at someone's house if they want everyone to be able to get their drink on (and not everyone is 21).

You may need to learn Slootspeak. I would bet he was being sarcastic in most of his comment until the last bits there.

So yes I guess if you like barely legal "age is just a number" mentalities

But that's the thing, though, right?

18 is 18. Uncle Sam has no problem getting her to sign papers that might lead to death in one direction or another. She can take out enough debt via auto-loans, college loans, and credit cards to destroy her life permanently. She can marry anyone in any state.

Either the age of majority has real, meaningful weight or it doesn't. "Yes, you're 18 now, but don't do 18 year old things for, you know, a little while longer" destroys the whole concept.

But this is all besides the point. If you're not comfortable with her being in the group, I would say something along the liens of "We're not comfortable with you being in our group."

I am a little lost as to why this is a problem. If it is her age... why is that a problem? She's an adult!

I suspect the real reason is you guys don't like her. Don't make me tap the sign (The Five Geek Social Fallacies). Just tell her it's not a good fit and cut her out, she'll survive

If it is her age

I guess I just find it weird. The age difference is just too wide. Something about pre-21 year olds when you are in your 30s. It's interesting what a bubble I exist in. My local friends also find it odd but here everyone thinks the reverse is odd.

While you’re definitely in a bubble, I don’t think it’s an uncommon one. I’m going to guess—and please correct me if I’m wrong—that the group members are (almost) all secular, college-educated urbanites, who spent their childhoods in age-segregated classrooms and extracurriculars, left home at 18, spent the next 4–6 years in the exclusive company of fellow 18–24 year olds, and continued to spend time exclusively with friends and coworkers their own age over the next decade. If I’m right about that, I think your discomfort with age-gap social groups is understandable, but only because you all have spent your lives in artificially constrained social circles.

In contrast, rural people, churchgoers, and those with thick multi-generational communities are pretty used to enjoying the company of people of all ages. It’s inevitable and expected for teenagers to spend time with people who are significantly older than them, and as you get older, it’s unremarkable for teenagers to want to spend time with you. Consider too that most churches’ young adult groups go from 18 to 30 or 35, since people those ages are usually in more or less the same stage of life. But again, if your life has always kept you in pretty narrowly age-segregated spaces, your discomfort shouldn’t be surprising.

In contrast, rural people, churchgoers, and those with thick multi-generational communities are pretty used to enjoying the company of people of all ages.

You don't even need to live in any sort of "conservative" environment. Just have some interests that aren't strictly age segregated or a part time job and you'll end up meeting and socially interacting with a bunch of people of different ages. Back in the 90s I attended a couple of BBS meetups when I was 16 and had no problem whatsoever having discussions with people ranging from my age to those in their 40s (all of who I only knew from online). By the age of 18 I had a summer and then part time job and ended up getting drunk with people ranging from 20s to their 40s. It really isn't awkward if you have enough social intelligence to find some commonality with people who aren't exactly like you.

Sure, teens don't usually want to hang out much with adults but that's because they think adults are "boring" or "out of touch", not because people are being weird about it.

Teens don’t want to hang out with their parents most of the time, but they’re usually pretty happy to hang out with 30 year olds and talk sports or whatever. There’s lots of thirty year old conversations they have no part in, obviously.

that the group members are (almost) all secular, college-educated urbanites, who spent their childhoods in age-segregated classrooms and extracurriculars, left home at 18, spent the next 4–6 years in the exclusive company of fellow 18–24 year olds, and continued to spend time exclusively with friends and coworkers their own age over the next decade.

90% correct, I think once you hit 26-30+ it starts being more common to interact and hangout with 40 and 50 year olds in your extended friend groups if they are at all based around hobbies. It notably never goes the other way as it has in this case.

The flipside also tracks with me as an understanding of the other bubble, one that might be more common among the conservative leaning folks here and why they find my bubble so weird.

How much heavy lifting is the autism doing? If she is just too lacking in social awareness to fit in with group dynamics, that is your problem and not "she's twelve or more years younger than the youngest of us".

But this is my point about age differences in the discussion about marriage etc. on the Culture War thread, where I've been assured that ten or more years age difference between men and women is fine and not a problem. Gotta get the gals at peak fertility and attractiveness to men (sixteen to twenty) before they age out into wizened hags of thirty, while the guys are only hitting their prime at thirty-five! 😁

on the Culture War thread, where I've been assured that ten or more years age difference between men and women is fine and not a problem

I think it's important to disambiguate "not a problem" here. I think a 30 year old should be allowed to date an 18 year old if he or she wishes. Not only in terms of legality, but also not ostracizing those 30 year olds purely due to the age gap (though we should still disapprove of people who are manipulating 18 year olds or pressuring them into a relationship they don't want, etc). I strongly believe that if an 18 year old is to be an adult, then that means we should treat them like an adult in all respects, including having a sexual relationship with another adult if they so choose. But would I have wanted to date an 18 year old when I was 30 (much less now)? Hell no. Young girls are pretty and all, but the gap in life experience is so wide that I would hate being in such a relationship. So in one sense (what we should allow in society) I think it's fine, but in another sense (what would actually be good to pursue) I don't think it's fine.

How much heavy lifting is the autism doing?

Not a ton, I'm on the spectrum, my GFs on the spectrum(it was her house) there are a couple of others on the spectrum there. Obviously there is a thing as too much autism, but if it plays any role its that it's cofounded with age in a way to makes it so that time and interaction with neurotypicals hasn't sanded off the worst tism impulses.

Gotta get the gals at peak fertility and attractiveness to men (sixteen to twenty) before they age out into wizened hags of thirty, while the guys are only hitting their prime at thirty-five!

I personally find this weird AF. Some age differences are fine, like 2-5 years but I'd draw the line there. People in different stages of their lives lead to risk and potentially tumultuous relationsips.

I was in a 20 - 60 book club at around that age. It seemed fine? This is the demographics of community college art classes as well, or even more: 16 - 70, because the 16 year olds go for high school, and the elders for entertainment. Also fine. Just don't have sex with her.

A book club just feels like a different sort of community that lends itself to cross generational community. Private game groups meeting at someone's house just feels closer to a local friend group.

Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the scene, but it seems pretty mean, that she can't even play games with people. Kind of the prototypical young person activity? Hence why Among Us got taken over by eight year old kids?

I think the response is that she absolutely can play games with people, but should probably keep doing so in public places in public groups. Hopefully with people her own age.

I guess. I do agree with others that since it's private you certainly can boot her out. Just realize that it's for your own preferences, not for her. It would be convenient you and negative for her.

Edit: to be clear, I think the stance that 18 year olds are basically children is bad. This is a much worse stance than to just say that you dislike her as a person. because she's annoying, because it's like trying to pretend that there's a moral stance there, and you're on the right side of it when it's not, you're absolutely just kicking her out because you don't like her being there. (I think there's a much stronger case for a policy of No Women, than "no women under 30")

Well, if they'd also kick out guys who were 18, then it's about age and bad culture fit, as it were. If it's only women under 30, okay a bit discriminatory. Mostly it sounds like a combination of younger than the youngest there, private friends group, and the 'tism is causing the problems.

(Maybe the parents are happy to have her go out and play social deduction game because it's like therapy to help her improve social awareness, as well as letting her do normal activities like "hang out with friends" and "engage in normal social interactions"? But you're a games group not group therapy so you didn't sign up for that).

More comments

I'll lean in with the other posters: why must you boot her? I do not believe it is such a harmful experience for her to spend time with (gasp!) 30 year olds in a controlled environment. If you just don't want to be responsible for keeping the environment controlled then own it and boot her yourself. But I disagreee that it's "disturbing" in any way. Society should get over this "18 years old isn't a real adult" bullshit, evidently all it does is keep people from maturing.

I think the implication OP's worried about is: if she's 18 and hanging with the group now, then external people (including future potential players) will infer that she was intentionally courted to join the group before she turned 18. Or, that aside, given that she's so awkward, there's an element of "why can't she find friends her own age?" (a question that has many legitimate answers, I'm sure) and "are these older people taking advantage of a young woman who can't find friends her own age?". It's like the 40-year-old who never moved on from hanging around the college anime club: didn't you make friends while you were a student and shouldn't you be in a different phase of life?

You could build the group out to a less lopsided age distribution, which would make it feel better (and give her friends her own age to carpool with) but it seems like you're not interested in doing that. You're not morally required to do so, obviously, but if she's autistic and awkward you at least owe here an explanation. Especially since her situation doesn't seem the best.

Also: what is it about Blood on the Clocktower that seems to really suck in a certain kind of nerd? I see a fair amount of it these days.

Also: what is it about Blood on the Clocktower that seems to really suck in a certain kind of nerd? I see a fair amount of it these days.

Honestly the wider BotC community is pretty toxic and ass. Super oriented around parasocial relationships with streamers and minor celebrities. Half the people you see at Cons are the sort of weird af people who should be solved into lockers. I disagreed with that thread in the culture war section about stopping your kids from being weird, but then I remembered the other BotC people I meet at cons and I shuddered.

Why should we moderate our natural humor for an 18 year old? The storyteller(DM) last night was gay, he kept going into the bathroom for private chats with players for their abilities. We joked that we were all running train on him. Everyone laughed. 18 year old was uncomfortable. I don't feel like it is on us to change our group dynamic because of them. It's not a managed environment and I don't think anyone wants to step up and manage it that heavy handedly

Never got a formal diagnosis, but speaking as a former 18 year old young woman who was sheltered, probably on the spectrum, and very lacking in social skills - I too would have been uncomfortable because I wasn't accustomed to that kind of humour and didn't find it funny. Autistic people are very rules-oriented and "jokes about group sex/gay sex" don't fit into "this is the model of social behaviour as I understand it, also morals". Can you imagine a situation where making a joke about running a train on a gay guy would not be well-received in a particular group? And if she copies that behaviour learned from you elsewhere, it could get her into trouble?

I agree it's not your problem or responsibility, but for people who don't get subtle social mores, "wait I thought this wasn't allowed?" is very confusing.

How much of that was because you were "woman who was sheltered, probably on the spectrum and very lacking in social skills" and how much because you were "18 year old" hanging out with people older than you?

To me it seems that the problems complained about are specific to the individual and have next to nothing to do with being 18 in a group of older people.

If she's uncomfortable she can leave. I attended a nude drawing class at 17. Walked out the first time, then finished the class. it was fine, actually, just a bunch of nude 30 year old models.

Edit: to be clear, I was an extremely sheltered Christian homeschool girl 17 year old. It was still fine.

This is more of a woman thing than a 18-year-old thing; after all, teenaged boys are probably peak when it comes to crude humor. I assure you 30-year-old women are, on average, no more fond of crude, edgy humor than 18-year-old women—if anything, less so, as overtime they've spent increasing time in HR/Karen-approved spaces and less time with teenaged boys and young men in unmanaged settings.

Don't? being uncomfortable with edgy humor is not a function of her age, because there are plenty of teenagers who are very, very comfortable with edgy humor. Continue as you are and if she doesn't like it she can choose to leave. But she is an adult so it's nothing to do with that.

If she dislikes crude jokes, she can leave on her own, without needing others to remove her.

What's likely going to happen is that nobody wants to pick her up for events. I suppose that's a natural solution.

If you just don't want to be responsible for keeping the environment controlled then own it and boot her yourself.

Why should the environment even have to be controlled if all the participants want it to be uncontrolled? That is, more than with any other recent addition from a different background.

I do not understand what is wrong with an(I assume) high school senior participating in niche hobbies with full on adults? Let her go if someone's willing to drive her, it's just being nice. Doesn't seem like your group is going to take advantage of her or anything.

I just think that a high school senior wanting to hang out with 30 year olds and vice versa is disturbing. It adds a lot of risk to the group. Now newcomers need to be vetted to see if they are creeps around this 18 year old. It creates a vector for people to private message this vulnerable young adult and we are the ecosystem to let that happen. Non-adults hanging out with adults is just odd.

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I just think that a high school senior wanting to hang out with 30 year olds and vice versa is disturbing.

She doesn't want to hang out with 30 year olds. She wants to hang out with people playing this niche nerd game. Once when I was fifteen, I got into a car with a much older man that I had just met and allowed him to take me to a second location because the local game shop was closing and he offered us more D&D. I don't even remember the guy's name, but I remember the cleric I played.

Wouldn't you tell any creepy new comers to knock it off? Why should it matter if they're creepy towards person A vs person B?

I'm not running a group to police other people. But I imagine we'll cross that bridge when it comes up.

No young people could join Ham radio clubs if they adhered to your standards. Or become masons. I hear VFW halls also run really old. And DAR meetings!

Not my problem and not one I am trying to solve. Those groups can run their own standards and solve their own problems.

I don’t think this is as odd as you’re making it out to be. I regularly participate in multiple social groups whose members range in age from 18 to 35. Eighteen year olds are adults, so what you’re describing isn’t a case of non-adults hanging out with adults. Now, from what you’ve said, this young woman might be a bad fit for other reasons, but age doesn’t seem like it should be a factor.

It seems like a perfectly normal part of maturation? She's going to start hanging around thirty year olds at some point.

hopefully when she's 25-29 not at 18.

  • -14

Why? It's healthy for teenagers to hang around adults and see how they behave instead of going off of movies about frathouses. I remember when I was a teen and ran the grill when my dad's friends were watching football; nobody asked who drank the one mormon's share of the beer if it didn't get more than that.

You do know teenagers are supposed to become adults, right? Like that's the whole point.

It's healthy for teenagers to hang around adults

Is it? It sounds like a recipe for disaster and abuse.

see how they behave instead of going off of movies about frathouses.

I don't care how they learn to behave and frathouses that have 32 year olds in them are creepy. If a 17 year old wants to hang out with 21 years olds I think that is significantly less creepy than hanging out with 32 year olds.

I was a teen and ran the grill when my dad's friends were watching football

You were related to your father and it was his friends. Very different dynamic.

Is it? It sounds like a recipe for disaster and abuse.

Because all you hear about (especially in leftier circles with all their sexual disfunctions and neuroses) are the horror stories. Friendships and meaningful platonic relationships across much wider age gaps are normal and healthy. The thing where everyone spends their first 22 years dealing with peers within 10 months of their own age is an extreme historical oddity.

My best friend is five years older. The relationship has a certain parity now, but we met when I was fourteen and other friends used to joke that he was basically my dad. But it was really helpful to have someone a life stage ahead around to offer advice and buy booze. Two of my other friends had similar relationships with guys from his friend group. It was almost a bootleg Big Brothers program.

Half my actual dad's golf buddies are my age. He's mentored a double handful of men even younger through AA.

I'm not saying your concerns are baseless, but having the group collectively treat her as a kid sister is reasonable and healthy for everyone. And if you just don't want to deal with that, that's fine too. I refuse to let my similarly aged daughter come to D&D because I want to crack jokes with my friends without being in Dad Mode.

Yes, not everyone has a dad, I get it. Try to take care of bastards, learning how to be an adult from normie adults is the way to learn. Should she learn things from retarded woke ideology, instead?

Should she learn things from retarded woke ideology, instead?

She already has considering she goes by They/Them, uses a male name, has blue hair, dresses like a woman, and has two lesbian mothers as parents.

There's no saving that, and I'm not inclined to try.

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You could always hand her a stack of printed booklets warning her about the dangers of technically-legal-but-practically-danger-fraught romances with large age gaps. (This is approximately one-third a joke.)

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