40 y.o. track coach marries his student :(

[PeppyGPhiB]

Originally Posted by AlphaGamUGAAlum

I know I'm not the person you asked, but I'm throwing this out there anyway:

It's weird because most friendships we consider mutually beneficial; both parties get something out of the deal: entertainment, support, networking, whatever.

While you can easily see why an older person serving as a mentor or having a selfless interest in a younger person like a niece or neighbor is beneficial for the kid, when the older person starts to expect whatever usual benefits that we get from friendship in return, that makes the person weird.

A 45 year old man shouldn't turn to 14 year old girls for relationship advice or affirmation, it seems to me.

So if you had several older men who offered you advice and support and you think of them as friends, that's great, but I'd probably classify the relationship a little differently. If you actually hung out with 45 year old men, and they relied on you for companionship and whatever 45 year old guys talk about and do with their friends, it would seem a little weird.

ETA: it's odd that all I can come up with 45 year old guys doing for friendship involves golf or talking about landscaping or doing stuff with their wives. How sad is that?

Yep, well said. Friendships are supposed to be equal.

The 14 year old might think it's cool to hang out with older people, but I think it's odd that a 40 year old would find it enjoyable to hang out with 14 year olds...what does a 14 year old have to offer a 40 year old? I'd have to believe that it was sexual, honestly. I guess I just wouldn't trust any 40 year old that wants to hang out with 14 year olds. Especially alone.

[James]

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.

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB

Yep, well said. Friendships are supposed to be equal.

The 14 year old might think it's cool to hang out with older people, but I think it's odd that a 40 year old would find it enjoyable to hang out with 14 year olds...what does a 14 year old have to offer a 40 year old? I'd have to believe that it was sexual, honestly. I guess I just wouldn't trust any 40 year old that wants to hang out with 14 year olds. Especially alone.

[SWTXBelle]

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!

[naraht]

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