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Notes -
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.
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
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.
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.
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