Your Worst Dating Decision Was Probably at 19
5 months ago by Picasso to c/Couplememes
diabetic_porcupine 25 points 5 months ago
CosmicTurtle0 25 points 5 months ago
I'm in my mid 40s and my hard limit is 30. I'm thinking of raising that to 35 after a few bad relationships.
OldChicoAle 15 points 5 months ago
As a 33 year old, I went on a date with a 22 year old and yeah I just couldn't. I felt like I was babysitting. I can date a guy 20 years older but no one younger than me
OldChicoAle 7 points 5 months ago
Standards are standards.
TubularTittyFrog 0 points 5 months ago
age has nothing to do with it.
someone who was immature and selfish at 30, is going to be worse at 40. people dont grow out of who they are, they just become more of what they are.
GiveOver 12 points 5 months ago
Soo you need more energy to party and keep up with them BUT the key is finding a young one that doesn't know what a healthy relationship looks like. That way you save on having to put effort into the relationship and support them and all that other stuff you need to do with a mature partner
testaccount789 7 points 5 months ago
Soo you need more energy to party
Wait, I was supposed to do that?
blockheadjt 4 points 5 months ago
The energy required is more a reflection of their extrovertedness, not young age
rumschlumpel 1 point 5 months ago
Eh. I'm pretty introverted and I still went drinking, dancing etc. regularly in my early 20s. I don't go out at all nowadays due to health issues and generally lower energy levels.
WorldsDumbestMan 2 points 5 months ago
I refused to date people under 25 when I was 29, but got offended that a 40 year old would not date bellow 30.
TubularTittyFrog 0 points 5 months ago
i'm 40 and I have lost all interest in dating anyone of any age... because the return on investment of my time/energy just never happens. It just feels like I'm gambling and hoping I'll get a jackpot, but all I'm doing is throwing away money and time that would be better invested in other things.
and when I made the choice to stop prioritizing dating/relationships/friends... my life vastly improved and it does feel like I hit the jackpot. and now I just end up meeting people who are still addicting to gambling and looking for me to be their 'get out of depression/debt/misery' jackpot.
corsicanguppy 55 points 5 months ago
I dated my wife when she was 19 and so was I. As I was a dick then, this all tracks.
(I'm also a dick now, but I was a dick then too #mitchHedberg)
vic_rattlehead 2 points 5 months ago
Did you used to do drugs?
OldSageRick 51 points 5 months ago
asked my wife about this, she told me to fuck off and that it she still can't talk to her mother about that.
Which is weird because I was the person she dated when she was 19
TheYojimbo 7 points 5 months ago
Same
cobysev 46 points 5 months ago
Can confirm, I was awkward and embarrassing as a 19-yr old. I'm sorry to all my ex-girlfriends back then.
Granted, most of them dated me because I had a "bad boy" look and they were disappointed when they found out I was actually a quiet, introverted nerd. I was almost always the dumpee in my relationships.
cobysev 24 points 5 months ago
I eventually found my soulmate later in life, who is also an introverted nerd. She also pursued me for my looks initially, but stayed because we were intellectual twins.
If there's any advice I can give for relationships, it's to look for someone you can be best friends with. If you're in a relationship just for looks, understand that looks fade.
I'm in my 40s now and gaining weight due to disabilities that prevent me from exercising. Plus I'm starting to bald and growing thick hair literally everywhere else. I'm no longer the "ruggedly handsome young man" I used to be as a teenager. My wife still loves me and cherishes time with me, because we're best friends, not shallow lovers.
Whats_your_reasoning 8 points 5 months ago
A lot of younger people seem to idealize their partners. At 19 I was set on a pedestal by my then-boyfriend, like I was supposed to be some manic pixie dream girl free of any and all flaws. So when I started showing signs of being an actual human instead of the perfect doll he was imagining, he turned from love to resentment quick enough to make my head spin.
thevoidzero 3 points 5 months ago
This is why I think it's important for people to grow up seeing real girls/women. Could be moms, sisters, girls their age in the community. By real I mean people living real life, no makeup,no running somewhere else to fart, or not talking back for themselves.
Less and less the boys grow up seeing that, more and more they start to idolize women, and then have high expectations. Because all they have seen is from movies, TVs, internet.
TubularTittyFrog -2 points 5 months ago
lots of women would never want to be that way around anyone.
i have known women who dressed up w/ full make up to go to the drug story while they had the flu, because the could not bare the though of a random drug store cashier not seeing them at their best. and if you pointed out how miserable and stupid it all was, they would call you a asshole who had no pride in your appearance.
they also refused to admit they farted or pooped or anything human like that. and plenty of men are like that too.
StarryPhoenix97 2 points 5 months ago
At 19, there's a much higher percentage of people who just don't know what a real, healthy relationship looks like and can only go by whatever examples they have in their lives and whatever their favored media is selling to them. Aside from the exhaustion, I can't imagine dating anyone under 25 because I can't believe that they would be dating me as a person. It seems like standard procedure that everyone has to go around and collect some relationship 'war stories' before they're ready to settle down and date for real.
Gonzako 6 points 5 months ago
Yeah, this argument fails to address how men get to experience relationships. One man could be your perfect partner but he simply doesn't put himself in positions to meet/date new people.
I know its easy to assume men get propositioned the same way women do but that's simply not true.
KaChilde 1 point 5 months ago
I’m a man.
I have had limited relationships in my life.
I still don’t think that older men acting predatory to young women who don’t have the same life experience as them is cool or valid.
This has little to do with the scarce dating scene for incels, and more to do with men who focus on young women because women their age know they are skeezy.
TubularTittyFrog -2 points 5 months ago
those older men and those younger women both know what they are doing. they really do, but they will pretend they don't because plausible deniability.
and they don't care what anyone else thinks about it. they are just seeking fantasy fulfillment, like the rest of us. their fantasies are just different.
blockheadjt 4 points 5 months ago
Women only line up for rock stars mate
ChickenLadyLovesLife 4 points 5 months ago
And baristas.
blockheadjt 1 point 5 months ago
And pharmacists I guess
SolarMonkey 16 points 5 months ago
As a woman person I can confirm my worst choices were when I was still young and developing. I wasn’t 19, but 20.
My choices didn't get much better, but thats why I eventually stopped dating entirely. I’m a shit judge of mates, and choose the worst for me (yay trauma!!) so I just don't anymore, it’s so much easier. I’m tired of trying to grow and being brought back down by shitty men. Much rather bring myself down.
However of all the bad, that age brought me the worst. He turned out to be a convicted felon rapist (not of me. happened after he stalked me for 2 years which was itself after he moved 1300 miles to be close to me when I left him and moved home), which I discovered through court access years later. I dodged that bullet, for sure. I mean it grazed me, but didn’t hit. Sorry to the lady behind me. :(
ThatWeirdGuy1001 10 points 5 months ago
It was her biggest mistake not mine!
/j
WorldsDumbestMan 1 point 5 months ago
Why is maturity important again?
blockheadjt 7 points 5 months ago
Immaturity leads to poor decisions, disregard for consent, short-sightedness etc
WorldsDumbestMan 2 points 5 months ago
Would liking Pokemon, believing anime is real life, and having a cringe sense of humor count as immaturity? Asking for a friend.
OldSageRick 8 points 5 months ago
Not necessarily, you can have all that and still act with maturity
PieMePlenty 5 points 5 months ago
To a degree, yes, but that's not the problematic kind of immaturity. One can be immature in some things like believing in monsters under the bed (things that don't matter) while being mature about fire while camping or alcohol and driving (things that matter).
explodicle 2 points 5 months ago
Most of the time "immature" is just a vague insult when someone doesn't conform to the speaker's norms.
Trainguyrom 2 points 5 months ago
As a parent who also has some younger friends, maturity is more about decision making skills, particularly under pressure. When SHTF do they shut down or do they figure out how to move forwards? Do they call for help when out of their depth or do they just flail and make things worse? Do they step up and do what needs to be done to get things going in the right direction or do they just let problems compound until it's a bigger challenge? This is maturity. Being able to figure out what you need to do and then doing it, and adjusting when things don't go how you expected is maturity.
Immaturity is being unable to step up when the time demands it. Unable to comprehend when to take something seriously vs what you can blow it off. For example, interpreting maturity as purely "societal expectations" is indicative of immaturity
explodicle 2 points 5 months ago
Most of the time
purely
I certainly wish everyone used your definition, and hope I didn't give the wrong impression with my comment.
Edit: the claim that critiquing this practice itself is immature is a bit of a bulverism.
WorldsDumbestMan 2 points 5 months ago
Experienced this literally when my grandparents said "come back and eat here, you are not a baby".
I had very good reasons not to eat, they just can't comprehend this anymore.
Fredselfish 8 points 5 months ago
I feel attacked, the mother of my children was 19 when we met.
SleeplessCityLights 7 points 5 months ago
I think for most men it is also the lowest of our dating standards. Everyone was just so dumb.
funkless_eck 6 points 5 months ago
I think you've missed that's she's referring to men in their 30s dating 19 year olds
RamenJunkie 1 point 5 months ago
Maybe what OP meant was 19 was the loest of the man's dating standards, reguardless of the man's age.
WorldsDumbestMan 2 points 5 months ago
I have seen an 18 old say he dated a 40 year old woman and apparently, he had a good time
RamenJunkie 2 points 5 months ago
Bro was 18, he would have a good time with a blender mate.
COASTER1921 6 points 5 months ago
Depending on where you're at this can be more or less common - college being a key exception. My wife and I met first day of college, started dating at 18. Neither of us expected the relationship to last particularly long but we fell in love and it stayed that way for the duration of school. Neither of us wanted to end a relationship that clearly worked well despite having never experienced any other relationship before. The interesting part to me is that there were several other couples on the same floor of our dorm with the exact same situation, and more than a decade on they like us are still together.
TubularTittyFrog 7 points 5 months ago
how does that work. practically. like how were you in a situation where middle aged women wanted to date you as an 18 year old?
when i was 18 the only middle aged people i knew were parents, or teachers/professors.
the only middle aged people who approached me, were gay men.
ferrule 3 points 5 months ago
Mostly I had a type so I was being flirty with coworkers at a couple of jobs I had. One was a bartender at a dive bar I went to that didn't care to card.
I was legal and not looking for a lot. They knew what they wanted and we just kind of clicked. Plus it was mostly going over to their place for food and sex it's not like this was some big love affair.
TubularTittyFrog 2 points 5 months ago
you were a barfly at 18? that tracks I guess.
ferrule 2 points 5 months ago
Where I grew up most teenagers worked a lot. Hotels, restaurants, bars, etc all needed cheap labor so we had a lot of long hours at summer and weekend jobs. Most of us got included into the adult after work activities.
someguy7734206 5 points 5 months ago
Obviously, the people who dated someone at 19 who they subsequently broke up with is more likely to regret that date. And then there are the people who are still with the person they dated at 19.
Although I guess it is true for me that my worst dating decision was somewhere around 19: I didn't make any effort to date anybody, and now that I have no dating experience at age 33, that ship has now sailed without me.
Jax 3 points 5 months ago
I'm not qualified to give anyone dating advice, I was single until I was 28 and then fell in love — I still have 0 dating experience.
The only way I can describe it is by brute force. I put myself in bars, hated it. Clubs, same thing. I didn't even meet my now girlfriend by anything other than random chance, and I was just about ready to give up had I not literally bumped into her.
Point being, get into the real world. Take walks, work out, live your life the way you want (just spitballing, this is not a formula). Naturally you will find others who seek to live their life the same way. Whether you make something of it or not is up to you.
flandish 5 points 5 months ago
naa. mine was at 32. my wife of 7 years, she was 41, had just died. i was alone in a house. came into money. paid off house. heard father in law tell me dont be a hermit, we love you. so i dated later that year. it was a mistake. obviously. but i wasnt alone. problem was when i “woke” i realized this person was truly using me and my vulnerability. moved on from that asap of course!
TubularTittyFrog 3 points 5 months ago
i just met someone who lost a spouse and boy... they were in a bad spot. but really really had convinced themselves they were not and that they were legit into me and should be dating and in a new relationship.
despite all their behavior being obviously that they were not into me. They were just clearly distraught/lonely and trying to fill a void, and while they were nice it was just so boring/life sucking to be around a person who was clearly just constantly living only in their memories even though they were 36.
HexesofVexes 4 points 5 months ago
Mine was late 20's with folks +/-2 years; I got a lot of folks wanting a father figure, or wanting a provider. The level of possessive crazy was also just off the chart.
Different strokes for different folks.
As someone who teaches 18/19 year olds (and overhears snatches of their lives), trust me, they're dumber than you remember being. It's not worth it; their priorities and yours DO NOT align.
TubularTittyFrog 2 points 5 months ago
I'm in my 40s and I've spent the past decade+ dodging ladies who want a daddy, even though they are my own age.
I never encountered any of this in my 10s/20s, people just wanted a normal partnership/friendship type of relationship. I miss it so much. I'd kill to meet a girl like my LTR in my mid/late twenties... but part of why we broke up is she basically went from being a independent and successful to demanding I pay her bills for her because she shouldn't have to pay bills because she is a girl...
SethTaylor 4 points 5 months ago
I wasn't really dating much in my late teens and early 20s but I can say for sure that the girls/women I liked around those times were absolutely awesome. They turned out great. I turned out... not so great. So... good for them.
owenfromcanada 3 points 5 months ago
You keep decent company, it seems.
FrigidAphelion_1 3 points 5 months ago
Hey thanks for making me feel even worse about getting cheated on and dumped by my ex when we were 19
OldChicoAle 2 points 5 months ago
So guys like Jerry Seinfeld
TubularTittyFrog 1 point 5 months ago
No. I objectively missing my teenager and 20s dating. It was vastly superior to my 30s/40s dating.
and the reasons the relationships ended in those years was much normal/sane/healthy than the ones I encounter as an adult.
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Considering the kinds of men who tend to seek out much younger women, it's less "funny" and more "very concerning".
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