Ah...I guess I should start this story from the beginning...
---
New school year, first year of junior high...you see an older friend of yours talking to a tall, long-haired guy. You're 12, and he looks about 16...you smile at him, and Ashton introduces you. From there, your friendship grows. You learn his name, you start skipping lunch to be with him and his group of friends, who you also become friends with. You meet new friends, you grow away from him. But he brings you back, back to his circle of friends, protects you from the jerks at the school. You realize, you're slowly but surely falling for him...then comes 2 days before Christmas holiday. You have his phone number...dialing it slowly, make sure you have it right...his mother picks up.
---
"Hello?"
"Hi, is Victor home?"
"No, he's in the hospital right now. He had a nosebleed and a headache, and he felt really weak, so he went into the hospital."
---
[the next day]
You talk to him like every day...then, as the class bell rings, you tell him you called for him last night. He looks up at you with fear in his eyes and says,
"I...I probably have a brain tumor...the doctors think I'm gonna die."

Tragic, yes, but what are we to discuss? There are a lot of issues here the most minor being the ridiculous age difference (love at twelve is farfetched,) the next and much more glaring issue being the lost of loved ones. It's tragic, but death is a very unescapable part of life. Sorry. For what its worth, I'll keep this guy in my thoughts, but this is a half finished anecdote. More is needed in the realm of beginnings and endings.

(NOTE: I am not intending this harshly - simply replying to an ambiguous and possibly hypothetical situation)

True to some extent, but maybe just some reaction was needed, Mike? It happens to the best of us. And as for hypothetical- *shrug* I believe all people are inherently good, unless they give me a real reason to

As far as your friend goes, whether or not you're in love with him, you obviously care for him deeply. So, as advice goes, make each moment you're with him count. Look for the little things you'll treasure. Just enjoy him. And as far as reaction goes, I'll keep him in my thoughts.

Is this a story about something that is happening to you or a hypothetical situation. If it's the former then that really is very sad; is there time to try treating it?

Well, I must second PsychWardMike here and say that the age difference thing is ridiculous. 16 year old boys want to be doing things that 12 year old girls shouldn't be doing and are probably not even thinking about. Then there is that whole just started puberty/just finished factor. ::cough cough illegal cough cough:: I also can't imagine how much a 16 year old and a 12 year old have in common, but anyways... And the skeptic that I am I must ask, if this boy was in the hospital and the doctors think that he may have a brain tumor, what the hell is he doing in school the next day? I mean really, whose mother would DO that? I'm not trying to be mean and I'm sorry if I come off that way, I know he's your friend (hopefully just) and I hope he is okay.

Stories like these are indeed tragic... it's really sad to think that at such a young age, you can get such a horrible disease. I hope things work out and he is successfully treated.

Are you in the same class as a 16 year old? Anyway, I do hope that he gets better because I think that it is awful when he still has his whole life infront of him and also for your sake because it's awful losing a loved one...

I still want to know why he was in school the next day if him and his mom think he has brain cancer.

Oh, shush, Mike.
A 12 year old can care for someone just as much as you can, if not, even more.
An innocent caring for someone, also with a bit of flity exitement because they're older...
so what?
I was 14 and I, even now at 16, have formed a bond in my heart to an older person, that i just can't get away from, and he's 20 now.
and don't ya' dare tell me my feelings can't be real.
Don't even try.
I hate it when people do that, because they have no idea how it is in your position, in your shoes.
: P

I'm sorry dear, but 12 year olds can't be in love. What they deem to be 'love' is infatuation; we all experience it. You cannot truly love someone until you come to a realisation of who they are, and accept them for that. To be able to recognise their weaknesses, and perhaps even their downright nasty side, and still feel the same warmth and want to be near them as you ever have. That is love.

EDIT: I should correct myself. In this instance, I am talking about Eros; romantic love.

I'm with little bear on this one. I mean, when I say I love someone, hmmm, well, barely love. Merely me thinking they are either a) incredibly gorgeous or b.) I have learnt to trust them with my life. However, I think that because people want to find out what love actually feels like, they often think they are in love, when really they are only half way there. However, by no means does being only half way to real love mean that it isn't special. And I think that love only grows stronger when you almost loose what you have, because only then do you really realise what you've got. So yep, I wish you and Victor loads of luck and I do hope that he gets better soon.

Well, then i truly pity you two.

the innocence is what makes their love all the more precious...
and that's at the age when you learn the difference between right and wrong, and you begin making your big mistakes...
to have someone who makes mistakes, but your convictions and bonds are with that person, and they are so strong that you accept and care about that person regardless...
that's love, dearies.
i'm sorry you can't feel it like they do
<33

Well, I said that I'm not saying that this love is any less precious.. but I'm just saying that I doubt it is the true love. Anyway, I too am 13 and there is a person who I have told absoloutly everything to.. who also is older than me...and I really do love him. But I know that it's not real love- but then, it's not just a teenage crush. It makes me happy just seeing his name and I miss him when I'm not talking to him. Luckily he's not got any life threatening illness...

But what I'm saying is, love is possible at any age, and a fine example of this is how a baby often stops crying when returned to its mother. But love for another in this kind of instance is definately possible, but perhaps not 'true love'. I think that many young people are mistaking 'true love' for what they feel at that time and love has become a word used much loosesly. Although, really for all I know, I could be talking waffle because I haven't felt true love yet...

I think that they are both talking about eros or romantic love, with sexual feelings and desire, which I too don't believe is possible to be, truely, felt at 12.
You, however, seem to be thinking about agape or unconditional, selfless, more spiritual love. A love between friends, platonic, adoring love for another... or as someone said earlier, infatuation.

Gimme a break

It has nothing to do with their innocence. If you class 12 year olds in our day and age as innocent, you need to really re-evaluate your view today's children.

Listen, here's the facts. At 12, you're most likely entering puberty, hormones flying over the place. You've been to school, your know what first years are like. In a relationship one week, the next they're with another person. That's not knowing what love it. Thats pure infatuation. Children of that age can't form romantic attatchments. Plus, you pretty much repeated what I said, but applied it to kids, which I said can't happen.

To which I say:

Buh?

Can I just say.. she's umm.. 13 Anyway, yer... you're right... innocence is pretty impossible around my age.. I mean.. sex is the butt of almost all our jokes and boys is, I guess, pretty much the biggest thing that we talk about... It's just like that.

'my view of today's children'...

ugh.
pathetic.
sure, your right. kids can't have a signifigant attachment, because they haven't had all of your experiences.
no way they might be able to, you know, care about someone else in a non-selfish way.
nope, not at all like the 'adults' going around.
because adults never lie or cheat or sneak around.
only kids.
they are also meant to be seen, and not heard.
and if your up past 10, you'll be kidnapped.
>_> you people...
Just because you are jaded, doesn't mean people can't have human emotions.

Is that what I said?
All I meant was... children are really not all that innocent.. I never said adults were innocent either.. And also, seen and not heard? never...

Of course a 13 year old can have an attachment to someone, I don't think anyone can say otherwise, but it doesn't mean that it will be signifigant, long-lasting, or have any real 'love' involved. I've been 13, I've been 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and now 19. I've had many different relationships with many different people at all of those ages. The things one feels for a person at 13, is completely different than what one feels later on. Reguardless of any of this, it would be, can I say, inappropriate for a relationship to develop between a 13 year old and a 16 year old. The life experience gained at those ages is SO signifigant. And it is okay for a 13 year old to feel attracted to a 16 year old because that is fairly normal, but if a 16 year old is attracted to a 13 year old, that is a sign of a serious serious problem.

I don't think that was the point that was trying to be made. Of course they can make attachments - it's just that younger people make them for the wrong reasons and justify it with the word love.

Ffs, we're discussing Eros. Romantic sexual love, which you seemed to infer that 12 year olds could feel. I'm not talking about Agape, or Philia etc. I was talking about romantic relationship, not bringing bloody kid's rights into it.

Just out of interest.. and fear of what I might get searching on the internet.. what are the different types of loves and like.. how they are characterised?

Eros - Romantic, sexual love.
Storge - Love for family
Philia - Love for friends
Agape - Love for the Human Race as a whole; the whole world.

>_>
I had a three-year, loving relationship that started when i was 14.
he was 18.
Don't you dare tell me i wasn't really feeling love.
Don't you even attempt to be so pretencious as to assume you know how i felt.
Yes. it was a sexual, romantic, caring relationship.
yes, i cared about him wholeheartedly
and i still do.
i can feel it, and i did feel it, and there has never been anything my life as wonderful as the experience i had then.
I am 16, and he is now 20. though there were some things that eventually separated us, it does not mean that i was not in love, or for that matter, that i am still not in love.
Just because you can't empathise, does not mean it's not real.

I think you underestimate how powerful hormones are.

I don't think it's quite possible. I was twelve once, and I was *sure* that a crush on an older guy was love. A year later I couldn't understand it--it was all hormonal insanity. Perhaps you were able to feel eros at a young age, Manj, but I don't think the average twelve year old is capable of it. I'm not you, and I won't be, so I have no way of knowing, but common sense and my own experiences tell me a preteen infatuation is not deep, sexual love that lasts a long time. I have nothing against kids, or innocence, or the rush of seeing someone you care for in the hallway--I just don't think that's love

I think you underestimate the human spirit.
now, i never used to be all about this lovey-dovey stuff...but i truly care for that person. i find their body attractive, as well as their smile, warmth, and mind...
still.
if it had worn off, i'd understand, but it's still there, in the back of my mind.
all the time.
and i care, and i love, and i never want to see him hurt.

little bear, you just can't accept the fact that there is love that you can't understand.
like with my avatar back then...
you've got a lot to learn about feeling

Mhari *not sniff*: Thing is, I thinnk he's just saying that what you say is not valid, because it is not wht he knows to be true, when ultimatly we each have our own truth.
Mhari *not sniff*: No doubt that sexual loving relationships are diff for 'younger teens' than 'older people', but love between each relationship we form is always differant because the people are differant.
Mhari *not sniff*: Tsk.
...
...
(edited for uselessness in certain posts)
...
...
Mhari *not sniff*: I think lots of people think ut too taboo to talk about underage sex and sexuality without fear of being encouraging of it.
Mhari *not sniff*: *think it's
Mhari *not sniff*: As encouraging it is bad.
Mhari *not sniff*: Didn't you know.
Bloopy! ahh! : hah, so i hear

(there. i cut and pasted it <3 not spammy at all, doll.)

Aha! and i finally found out what 'ffs' meant.
>_>
that aggrivates me...

Being so blatantly rude. if i had known that's what you said, i'd be more volitile when responding to you

It is a widely used abbreviation. I thought nothing of typing and figured it was suitably apt in demonstrating my frustration. I apologise sincerly if you found it offensive.



There is a reason why PM is called Private Message. It means you don't drag whatever is in them out into the wider community kicking and screaming like some unwanted lovechild. I shall only say this. If I want to see guys making out I'll go look at some homosexual pr0n. Its just I didn't think that Matazone was the place to parade one's fetishes.



Sorry dear, but I really don't think it was. As I said, hormones cloud our thinking. I've experienced it too. I was sure I was in love with this girl. Absolutely goddamn postitive. But then, I took a step back and looked at her, and me, a knew that if it came between my life, or hers, I would save my own skin. Sad, but ultimately true. Now, this is by no-means a measure of love, but its a step there.

Also, there is the simple argument of statistics. Just because you were capable of love in your early teens doesn't mean your peers worldwide would be. You are not representative of the population of the world m'dear.

Oh, and thankyou Black Wings and elphaba2 for being with me on this one. Its not something I'm used to, people agreeing with me.

Again, all i can be is sorry for you...
sorry?...
and dissapointed.
i just think anyone attempting to 'tell you how you really feel' has got to be whacked.
because honestly?
you'll never understand me.
and you'll never feel the love that i had, and that can only inspire pity in me for you.

Dpon't try to tell me how i feel.
you have no idea.
stick to things you know more about
like hate and grumpiness >_>

I have realized there are feelings and emotions outside of my own bubble.
go read a book, and live a little, and perhaps you can realize some things about the world around you

Well Manji, When I was 14 I was with people that were 18, and I was with people that were 20 when I was 16 also. You bet your arse I thought it was love and I thought that I was going to be with them, and I thought that I would do anything for them, blah blah blah. The problem with those age differences is the difference in maturity and tastes. and certainly no 14 year old should be sleeping with an 18 year old. I hesitate to say it's not right only because I don't believe in right and wrong, but I do believe it's rape and I'm sure you even think that rape is wrong. All I can say to you is that maybe you'll understand when you grow up. You still seem to lack life experience, so I say to you, go out and live life a little.

I lack life experience because i'm not jaded against caring for people?
Jesus...you people...

i really shouldn't have to defend my personal feelings against you.
why do i even bother?
You'll just trample over them, regardless...

Oh dear, yes, you're just so misunderstood my darling.
+
Buh? Because I haven't been infatuated with someone, I should be deserving of pity?



For God's sake, the insults are really hurling out now aren't they. I have yet to see you make a rational argument other than "Oh boo hoo, you don't understand how I feel therefore you must be hateful and nasty.."



I already quite realise that m'dear. As I have already stated, your experience is not representative of the population of the U.S. yet you seem to think that I cannot see the world around me. Once again, buh? How do you come to that conclusion.

It seems to me you just want to exchange insults, and let this thread decend into a flame war. Well my darling, I have news; I won't be stooping to that.

No one is trampling your feelings for crying out loud. And you lack life experience because you simply don't understand the differences between hormones and 'true love' yet. I am the last person that is jaded about feeling for people. I'm in a relationship right now, I have been for over a year, I couldn't have acomplished that i I was so 'jaded'. Do you keep a diary? If you do and you have had it for more than a few years, why don't you take a look back to when you were 12 and you will see how foolish some of the things you were thinking and feeling were.

Can I just add a little thing here, I know this is quite a personal discussion but I really wouldn't like it to get too personal or heated.

A place for dicussion of serious issues. Please keep it lighthearted and non-flaming. 'Discussion' is the keyword here.

Not that it isn't a discussion just I can see it has potential for going otherwise.

Correct you are, Teapot.

Oi, all of you, calm it down a notch, will you? Xkitsurabamix, if you don't quit it with the insults, you're going to land yourself a warning. I understand that you believe that your feelings are being misunderstood but no-one's directly attacking you the way you are them. Please don't comment further if you can't refrain from insults. Also, little_bear, if you are insulted in future posts, please don't bother responding, instead alert one of the mods to prevent more hard feelings.

As for my own opinion, I agree with others that my capacity for "love" at twelve/fourteen is much smaller and much different compared with my ability to love now. That doesn't mean that the strength of emotion I felt for the people I loved then (also with whom I entertained thoughts of spending "the rest of my life", etc) was wrong, unimportant, or false, but it was certainly nothing like the romantic bonds shared between myself and my boyfriend now as adults. There is a lot of growing as a person that one must do between teenagerhood and adulthood that are extremely valuable to one's ability to love fully and selflessly.

No-one's saying that a young person can't love, but it's not quite the same kind and capacity of love that older individuals feel for each other. Also, that's why there is so much to say about an adult being in love with a young teenager, because it's hard to understand why an adult would choose to love a teenage in a way that the teenager cannot fully replicate. Of course both may be loving one another in the best way they know how, but it still raises questions about the adult's motives, which in worst cases are not truly love but methods of gaining access to sex.

Warn me all you like, but honestly,
me?
insulting him?
have you even been reading the posts?
just because he says i've been insulting him, doesn't mean i have.
it's just a pathetic attempt at excusing himself from any of the blame.
Warn me. go ahead.
so what, will i not be able to use the forums anymore?
bah. good riddance.

And this is the perfect time to note that I've been keeping my trap shut. Save for that time. And that one. And that one. And that...

Okay fine, I'll take the spam out of this.

12 is too young to love (let's look at the laws, yeah?) romantically. Period. That does not mean that other forms of love can't be felt. Fine. IOJ have my own serious doubts however that adults can even feel love until their fifties or sixties though. Let's face it. Love's a dying breed and we can't hope at 12 years old (don't give me purity, it takes all sides of human nature including the ugly to love) one can love romantically. Would a 12 year old (or even, let's conceede, a 14 year old) be willing to stick with a lover with Alzhiemer's as they grow progressively worse? No. That, my friends is what true love is. Period. As I said. Real love is dying. People love to the best of their abilities and that's all.

That was a little rambling, but I think/hope I did both sides justice, yeah?

I have been reading the posts, actually, and that attitude of yours is deplorable. It's a shame that you feel insulted and can't be adultlike in your responses to both me and others. A warning - which you will now recieve - will not get you immediately "banned" from the forums, but I guarantee if you continue to undermine discussion with insults and treat other forumgoers (and mods) with blatant disrespect, then you run a real risk of being banned in the long run.

Please don't return to this thread until you have something positive to say.

I think that maturity is a relative concept and that age is not a consistent way to measure it. I’ve known very mature 13 year-olds who’d I say are capable of having a romantic loving relationship. [Actually, I’m a bit surprised at the responses to this thread, because I’ve always considered Matazone to have a larger-than-average population of very mature young people.] I know that the majority of the population isn’t, but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible. I don’t think it’s fair to say that there is a definite age when one is capable of having an adult-like relationship and when one is not.

I also don’t think it’s fair to try to classify abstract concepts like love into neat little categories (Eros as opposed to Agape, True Love as opposed to Slightly Less Than True Love, or whatever) because you really can’t put limitations on something like that; there’s too much overlapping and emotions, as a rule, usually defy rationality in ways that can’t be classified or labeled. I would say that I hold little distinction between the people I love ‘romantically’ and the people I love ‘as friends’. So, to say that a 12/14 year-old is capable of feeling this type of love but not that type of love just doesn’t really fit well with my concept of ‘love’. Sure, there is always room for growth and people will continue to grow in maturity with each new relationship, but that doesn’t mean it can’t start at a young age. Basically, I agree with XKitsurabamix that to say young people are absolutely incapable of these things is an underestimate the potential of the human spirit.

It's very late, so I'm going to try and be as brief as possible. Please excuse this manner if it seems inappropriate, but I really and very tired and not in the best of health.

There are a few points I'd like to make here, the way that I see it:

1) In the eyes of the law in the UK, a person over 16 having sex with a person under 16, even if the younger person has willingly consented to this, still legally counts as rape. The reason for this is that the law does not see that a person below this age is capable of making decisions about their true feelings towards another person with sufficient gravity that means that a choice before this age would be wise. That's just what the law thinks. In some countries it is less, in some it is more. It might also be worth noting that there is some evidence of a link between early sexual activity and cancer in the reproductive organs of women. The body just isn't ready until it has fully matured. But this is a little beside the point...

2) I developed late in my teens, but I remember the way that I felt. The world was bright ice in my mind. The strength and clarity of the way I felt was astonishing. Were these true feelings that I'm now too jaded to feel in the same way? Maybe, maybe not. I can say that they felt very real at the time, and were, for that very reason, real.

3) The feelings that I had were real, but whether they are the same emotions that I would use to describe 'love' today is another question. It was Romeo & Juliet love. It was bold, dramatic, and ultimately was never going to do anyone any good. It was so strong that it was very destructive, and I made bad choices because of it.

4) The bad choices that I made were all made for very good reasons. In the end I grew and learnt from those bad choices, and became the person that I am today because of them.

5) I did listen to the advice of others, and this helped stop me making some mistakes along the way, which could have made things a lot worse.

So...

Manji, you are right to defend you right to feel the way you do.

Little Bear and co., you are absolutely right to try and encourage Manji to exercise caution.

Manji, this is the overall direction of what people are trying to say. There has been side-tracking along the way, but people are saying these things because they see in you the potential destructiveness of powerful emotions and they don't want you to get into trouble. I can see from your point of view that it is very easy to see everyone else as outsiders who cannot respect the way that you feel, but they are saying these things because they care and want you to be safe. It is difficult in the heat of a debate such as this to always make this clear, but this is the reason that they are saying these things.

It may well be love, but love is best when tempered with judgement. I don't think it's ever possible for anyone to predict when love will come or what it is, but I do know that it can blind people to their own unwise decisions. As Tomoyo points out, who knows when love can start? Emotions are one thing that cannot be predicted, but being prepared to handle them in a way that doesn't rip you apart is quite another. That really is something that I believe comes with age (and often with experience of this having happened to you, even though others will try to protect you from it).

It's easy to say that teenagers don't really feel love the way that adults do, but I think that this is dangerous ground (not least of all when you consider that in many parts of the world life-expectancy is still considerably less than 40). It may be that teenagers feel love more strongly than adults do, because we have other things that ground us and that stop the strength of the emotion from harming us. Love ripped me up in the past, and I have got off lightly compared to some that I know, so I've seen the harm that it can do.

So Manji, yes, you may well be in love, but you also might not have gained control of your emotions yet. The very fact that emotions have run so high in this thread that things have got a bit out of hand is evidence of how difficult it can be to stay rational when feeling this way. What people have been trying to say is please be very careful, love at your age is hard, and can make you do things that might harm you. We are worried. I'm worried. Please try and understand that no-one here wants to see you hurt mentally or physically, and, sometimes impeded by awkward language, this is what we are trying to protect you from. It's not easy for us to sit by and watch as we see others make mistakes that we see as familiar to ones that we have made in the past, especially when we remember how much they hurt us, so we are trying to convey that caution is wise. By all means do love, but please be careful too.

*claps*

Nicely done, Mata. Order has been restored in the Victor thread, although I'm not sure if Manji plans to come back. Really, I think that whole fiasco is a fine example of the extraordinary power of young emotions (not intended in a condescending manner, just commenting) and how easily wounded they (we?) are.

Returning to topic:
The fact that Victor is 16 makes a difference, but it's logical for a girl her age to like an older boy, since the vast majority of 12 year old boys are absolute eejits. I always lusted after my older brothers' friends when I was that age, except none of them took an interest in me. I don't want to be hurtful, but is it possible Victor is just being kind? That is, if this is not a hypothetical situation. Lola! Come back and keep up your thread!

Also, 16 year-olds are smarter and quicker and more "active" (as my health teacher enjoys putting it). Four years will not be a difference in 20 (or even ten) years, but the gap is just slightly beginning to close as now.

I revise my opinion to the words of so many breakups: she may love him, but she is probably not in love with him. That is, if I fully understand the concept.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."

Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860

^_-

Let it rest now please, or speak to me on PM if you want to discuss it.

Hey Lola!!! I was wondering how Victor is? Have you had any more news? I hope that if your have it is good

Hi...I was originally only going to PM Asenyth with what I knew...because (s)he asked me specifically for information. But...no, this isn't a hypothetical situation, Vic is 14, not 16, and he just TURNED 14. I now know I never really loved him...I knew what I was getting myself into, because I let myself fall for people WAY too easily, and just like I thought he would...he let me down. All the long talks about how f***ed-up our families were, all of it...and he let me down. I knew it was gonna happen...and it did. He didn't just find out that night that he was dying...he'd been knowing for a while...a long while. Right now he's all doped up on drugs the 'doctors' gave him. It's not his fault...he apologised to me. But we're going to grow further and further apart, just like it always happens...funny, I'm the only girl that's happened to that hasn't gone out with him...but, love fades, eh?

It is sad that he is dying. I am sorry that boys are meanies, and I'm glad he's not 16. Best of luck with him and all the other pesky boys you will encounter.

Heh...thanks...All of you flamers can go to Hell (just kidding...really I am!) And thanks for all who defended me...I knew I was gonna make a stupid mistake, but it's better in the end.
Love you all! (even the flamers)

For the record, I was not flaming.

*re-zips mouth shut*

I'm so sorry to hear that. It's nice to know the details now, and I hope you find a better boy who won't be driftable. And won't incite heated debate.