I wasn't precisely an average person by any means, but I had older members of both sexes as friends to one degree or another at that age. They invited me over for dinners or to just talk.

No one made a pass at me that I noticed, and I was much more comfortable talking about adult issues than some run of the mill kids stuff.

I had no trouble speaking fluently and comfortably with someone regardless of their age. In fact a lot of my friends were always significantly older than I was, often by decades.

This girl seems like she was a bit of a prodigy in running, which would have created a certain fascinating element to her. Maybe she was extremely bright also.

I don't know, I was never a "kid" in the way that a lot of you seemed to have experienced being, or else believe that people below the age of 18 are.

I can also say that I know people that are 18 that are interesting and well rounded and I know 40 and 50 year olds that are utterly uninteresting and have not much substance. It really depends.

I think a lot of you may be overly swayed by generalizations as well as shoulds and woulds.

James - the difference would seem to be that you had MANY friends, whom your parents probably knew, and apparently it never crossed the line from friendship into romance. That's good. Intellectual maturity is not the same thing as emotional or sexual maturity. No one would have a problem with a 40 year old coach mentoring a star athelete - but marrying her is a different ball of wax. I'm not much on 14 - 16 year olds getting married, even to each other. Can it work? Yes. Is it likely? No.
A normal 40 year old man should not be looking to young girls for romantic relationships. Hey, at least let them get out of high school!

Pedophilia
 

While the law may have counted sexual contact when the first started being interested as "Pedophilia", Psychiatrists generally don't. There is a large body of work that separates true pedophilia from what is called Ephebophilia. Peophilia is pre-teen/pre-puberty and Ephebophilia being teens and post-puberty. In fact, among many people diagnosed with Pedophilia, there is a significant drop in interest in subjects once they have reached puberty.

There are three things for them that affect whether it is legal in North Carolina for them to have intercourse:
A) Is he still her coach?
B) Has she reached 16?
C) Are they married?

If C is true, they are fine
If C is false, then there are punishments for both A being true (sex between an student and an educator at the school and/or B being true (sex between someone 13,14 or 15 and someone 6 or more years older (actually a slightly lower punishment if the person is 4 or 5 years older doesn't apply here)

Randy

I'm sorry...maybe I missed it...


How did the parents figure that they didn't have a choice?

Were they extorted or blackmailed?

Did he threaten them?



What did I miss?

Worse. She was giving them the silent treatment....so they didn't have a choice. :rolleyes:

oh no. not the silent treatment....what would she have done if they threatened either time out or grounding for a month?

Yea, I'll have to agree with the names thing. I had some seriously strange names in my classes. :p

I can attest to that. I see some interesting names in my line of work.

Why would a parent name a child "Jessie James" and be surprised when he broke the law.

I don't know if he is still in office, but there is a Sheriff Crook.

There actually is some truth to the names thing. Basically what happens is that people react a certain way when they hear a name, and they'll treat that person accordingly. The person with the weird name reacts to the way they're being treated, and so on. They call it "conforming to name" and things like that.

Kinda like if you constantly talk to someone as if they're stupid, they'll start to act stupid.

Oh my Lord! I am a little horrified that there are some many ppl who are not somewhat disturbed by this.

I am pretty sure that the article mentioned that they were caught exchanging text messages a 2 in the AM when she was still 14. I know that a lot of you say that you had much older friends when you were in your early teens, but really...were you chatting it up with them in the middle of the night? and if so what about? I mean, who here honestly believes that at 2 AM he was giving her coaching or life advice?

I guess a better question is what 40+ yr olds on this board have teenage friends? Do you consider them your buddy like your other 40+ yr old friends? Would you have them stand up in your wedding or some other 'friend-like' commitment like that? It seems like when you're a teenager hanging out with older folks you might view your relationship as a friendship. However, maybe they viewed it as a mentorship or a big bro/big sis type of relationship...different from their other grown up friendships.

Also, we keep speaking to the emotional maturity that 16 yr olds had back in our grand parents generation. However, the mere fact that she couldn't/wouldn't wait until she graduated from high school and gave her parents the silent treatment (a move that I have not pulled since I was a teen myself) kinda shows that she isn't emotionally ready for marriage. The fact that he didn't come directly to her parents, state his intentions, and develop their 'friendship/relationship' in the open shows that his intentions are a bit less than honorable.

Ultimately the fault lies with her parents. I can't believe that they let it get this far, and I am sooooo glad that my parents nipped any such foolishness right in the bud. I couldn't have been friends (the chatting at 2 AM kind) with a guy 3 yrs older than me...let alone 20 yrs. Unbelievable!

I can only speak for myself on this, but yes, I did talk on the phone to an older male friend late at night. I believe at the time I was 15 and he was 38 or something? Not really sure. I have no idea the exact time of night. Mostly, we discussed philosophy, Jesus, and different ideas about Christianity. It wasn't a sexual thing. He isn't a freak and I'm not a freak, and it really isn't a big deal :)

First off, the parents claiming they had no choice is the most ridiculous thing ever. "It was going to kill us all?" Please. You are the adults in this situation, you could have prevented this and endured the awful silence, but you chose to cave and sign off on a completely inappropriate situation THAT YOU RECOGNIZE AS INAPPROPRIATE. You are not her friends, you are her parents.

Secondly, while I respect and acknowledge the stories of those who have posted saying that love can develop at this age and with such an age gap/they had friends with this kind of age gap, this situation is wholly inappropriate. This girl clearly had feelings for her coach as stated by the text of the email posted in the article "He's the apple of my eye..." and while that's fine and normal, the fact that it eventually culminated in him marrying her signals to me that this was not just about friendship. A responsible adult figure in his position would have attempted to explain why her feelings were inappropriate and misplaced on him, and would be better directed towards someone of her own age.

The other thing is that while there are obviously exceptions to every story like this, as DSTRen's story indicates, the sad fact is all too often, there is something inappropriate going on. Who knows whether their relationship was sexual before hand (even if it was consensual, it's inappropriate), but the level of emotional intimacy they seem to have, enough to culminate in wanting to marry each other, is neither appropriate or ok.

It's not definitely illegal activity, but it's a little too shady for my comfort.

^^^^^ attempted to marry a pre-schooler last year

:barf:

Soooo...if in the future you have a 14 yr old daughter chatting on the phone w/a man who is at least 20 yrs older than her in the middle of the night, and you can't personally attest to what the conversations are about, then you will be cool with this?

I guess what I am stuck on is that it is a parent's job to protect their child. Something like this (the 14 - 30+ coed friendship) seems like a glaring risk. To chalk it up to a unique and special friendship (I think that we can all admit that this is not the norm) just seems negligent.

I guess I can't really say what I would do with a teen daughter - it's a long way off since I don't even want to think about pregnancy right now! (:eek:) But I would really hope that I would know enough about any children that I might have to be able to judge whether or not any friendships they might have, regardless of age and sex differences, are appropriate and healthy. It just seems to me like every person and every friendship could be one way or another.

Yes..but the thing is, you don't really know what HE thought. Maybe he was sexually attracted to you. If he didn't tell you, you may not have ever known. It's not so improbable.

I suppose not. He's married now, to a woman his own age. If there was any sort of sexual thing that I never noticed, then I have to say no harm, no foul. He certainly never expressed anything of that nature in any way. I just don't think that as a rule such a friendship has to have sexual overtones. But I guess it just depends on the people involved.