His friend wants to ask out a girl. The only problem is that he’s 35 and the girl’s only 17! He’s waiting for her to turn 18, but it doesn’t make things less gross!
Seeing Him in a New Light
OP (Original Poster) has a longtime friend he recently learned something new about.
His friend opened up to him and said he was waiting for a 17-year-old colleague to turn 18 to ask her out.
That’s Gross!
When OP heard this, he was “immediately grossed out.” He told his friend that it was “predatory behavior.”
I’m a Gentleman
However, his friend just laughed. Then, he told OP, “A true gentleman waits until they are 18.”
OP wrote, “He genuinely sees nothing weird or wrong with this.”
Can I Have Your Number?
OP explained that his friend had asked for the girl’s number. In turn, the girl said that when she turned 18, she would give it to him.
He shared, “I’m stuck on the fact that he asked a 17-year-old for their number anyway.”
So Many Things Could Go Wrong
So many questions are running around OP’s head. He thought, “What if she wouldn’t have declined?”
Weird Actions
Apart from blatantly asking the girl out for her number, OP shared that his friend also went to Facebook and saved photos of the girl. Then, what made it worse was that he would send it to them!
More Weird Behavior
OP also recently discovered that a girl his friend had been talking to for a few years “was freshly 18.”
He wrote, “I don’t know, bruh. This all grosses me out.”
Am I Overreacting?
His friend’s behavior obviously weirds him out. OP also mentioned not wanting to be his friend anymore.
However, at the same time, he mentioned, “But I also don’t know if I’m overreacting.”
Redditors’ Opinions
Some users reassured OP that he wasn’t wrong in thinking the worst of his friend.
This Redditor wrote, “Not even. She won’t realize how sketchy this is for another five to six years. Whereas OP knows this already.” Another said, “Did we all already forget about that news article about that guy who literally murdered the young girl he was working with?”
Men Are Creepy
There were also some who shared experiences they had with creepy men.
This user said, “I was 11 or 12 when an older male neighbor commented on my breasts to my mother. We were outside unloading groceries, and he felt the need to comment on my b***s getting bigger. I was wearing a loose T-shirt and shorts. My mom freaked out on him and told him to stay away from me, and after that incident, I had to start wearing training bras in public even though I didn’t really have much there yet. It was just creepy that men were noticing and feeling the need to comment. Around that age is also when I was approached the most by strange men in public or had them honk at me from their cars. It didn’t even matter if an adult was with me; they were that brazen about it.” One user agreed and wrote, “Yup, 11 or 12 is when I started getting lewd comments from random strange men, getting honked at by cars. Anyone who grew up female knows there is no shortage of these creeps.”
Traumatizing Events
For some, traumatic things like this started happening way before 17.
One shared, “I was 11—I’m 38 now—when an adult male asked me if I wanted to have s** on a playground. It starts early for some girls and never lets up. It’s super creepy and traumatizing.” Another person said, “I am half-Asian, and it started for me around 8 or 9 and stopped when I was around 20 when I started looking like an adult. I still get normal attention from guys my own age as an adult. But it’s definitely different than the type of attention I was getting when I was the stereotypical child-like Asian. Such a cool world we live in!”
It’s Creepy Behavior
Some Redditors noted how OP’s friend was wrong—on so many levels—to even think about approaching a young girl.
“Have you ever been 35 plus and then spent time around 17 to 18-year-olds? It’s f****** exhausting. I can’t imagine any 35-year-old being able to relate and date a 17 to 18-year-old unless they just wanted to have s*** with young women or because there was something so fundamentally wrong with them that women their age wanted nothing to do with them. Creepshow. They are basically kids, emotionally and otherwise. It doesn’t feel that way when you are 18, and you feel super adult and mature until you turn 35 to 40 and realize how wrong you were,” wrote one user.
They’re Just Kids!
The community is appalled by OP’s friend’s behavior, emphasizing the fact that the girl is young—even still considered a kid!
This woman said, “17 to 18-year-olds are kids. They are humans growing into being adults, but they are still kids. Sometimes they can be grown-ups, and sometimes they can be baby goofs. It’s not bad, but I definitely judge an actual adult for being interested in them romantically.”
He’s a Predator!
There are also some Redidtors who agreed with OP and said his friend was displaying predatory actions.
“People who only date 18-year-olds are like companies that only pay minimum wage. They’d be going lower if it were legal. Creepy and predatory as f***. I think it would even classify as grooming since he’s approached her as a minor and made advances. He either wants to date a teenager because they are typically easier to manipulate and exploit, or he actually just likes minors based on his ‘gentlemen wait until they’re 18’ comment. That comment is an extra red flag because it showed he wasn’t even trying to imply that she would be an adult and mature enough to be in a relationship. He was just praising himself for not committing statutory rape.”
Any other insights on OP’s story? What would you do if you had a friend like his?
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This post first appeared as A 35-Year-Old Man Is Waiting for a 17-Year-Old to Turn 18 to Ask Her Out. He Says He’s Acting “Gentlemanly,” but All We See Is a Predator and a Creep! on Quote Ambition.
