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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.
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!
Scandalous! Their brains haven't even fully developed yet; how can they consent to playing the board game?
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.
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.
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!
So can 18 year olds?
Eaglecrowing Schoolshooting Freespeechia notably doesn't legally allow drinking until 21, and many seem to obey.
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.
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)
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.
Aha! I knew that Texas had the parental sign-off waiver, so I didn't realize that they latched on consumption rather than possession.
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.
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