Some thoughts on the ages of my friends

I have quite a few friends that are considerably younger than me. It’s not that I seek out friendships with younger people, it just kinda worked out that way. It sometimes weirds me out to think about how my younger friends are closer in age to my brother (who’s 7 years and 11 months younger than me). I mean it was bound to happen now that we’re both adults, but he has friends that are literally older than me, and I have friends almost as young as him. I mean they literally could have been his friends in an alternate universe. Actually, thinking about that freaks me out a bit, like I adore my friends but I would not want my brother to have friends like them. I want my brother to stay sheltered for just a little bit longer…

My brother’s 19, my little cousins are 21 and 22, it’s kinda crazy to think about the difference in maturity/life experience between them and my 21-23 year old friends. Especially with my cousins. They just seem so much younger. My cousins grew up in a semi-strict Catholic household, were restricted from watching certain TV shows literally till age 18, my aunt monitoring their dating life like a hawk (which they weren’t allowed to have till 18 either), but all around grew up in a loving, prosperous home.

My 2 youngest friends, who are 21 and 22, they both grew up in abusive households, in poverty, homeless at times, watching their parents deal with severe drug addiction. My youngest friend’s dad committed suicide. The other one, he’s personally done high level dealings directly with the cartel. At the same age that my cousins were playing with legos. My heart breaks for them, they had to grow up way too fast.

Stephie · F

Maturity plays an important role in late teenagers.

One says that there is about a 2 years gap in maturity between boys and girls. That maturity level evens out around the mid twenties. Women tend to be up to 2 years more mature than men in that age group.

An 18 year old male teenager would have the maturity of a 16 year old.

Perhaps that those males are attracted to you because you give out the impression to be very mature for your age and kind of look up to you or it could be that you subconsciously seek the presence of younger males because of a maternal instinct.

There are several different possibilities here and there is no right or wrong. I can imagine that you have a positive effect on those younger males that see in you a figure that they can take as a role model for the ones they did not have while being younger.