I’m a 30 year old man and I couldn’t imagine chasing 18 year olds. I teach college students, I speak to 18 year olds regularly. They’re not for me.
When I was a teen I wonder if I’m older if I would still be attracted to teens. I was training a coworker a few years ago, and she’s fresh out of highschool. As soon as we diviated from work conversations I can feel any miniscule amount of attraction I had drain out from my body.
I experience this too, what happened in that conversation that drained you?
For me it’s social media. I’m old enough that I don’t do social media. But 95% of teenagers’ lives revolve around it. I can’t relate and have no desire to.
I’m old enough that I don’t do social media.
-@Cryophilia@lemmy.world on social media Lemmy
Edit: Or perhaps I am wrong
Social media is defined as a website or application that enables us to create and share content. A social network is alternatively a website or application that enables us to communicate with one another by posting information, comments, and messages.
So I guess Lemmy would be considered social network instead. I didn’t even know there was a difference.
Edit 2: OK, it seems most people consider Reddit a social media, but others debate it. And Lemmy is fairly similar.
I guess I made a comment only to bamboozle myself.Reddit is not social media because it’s not about social interaction, because it’s anonymous. It’s not social if it’s anonymous.
That’s how I think about it. I avoided social media my entire life, even though I was the perfect age all along: xanga/MySpace in middle school, Facebook opened to everyone when I was in high school, Instagram came about when I was traveling/living my adult life in my 20s…but I’m glad I avoided it. Reddit, when I used it, struck me as very different. It’s not about you. It’s about anonymity and news/memes. If that’s social media, all of the internet is social media.
Huge difference between an anonymous social network and one where your real identity is out there.
By that definition literally any website with user-generated content is social media.
Are Steam Community pages social media?
Lemmy is all the social media I have nowadays. I wouldn’t change it.
Alot of adults now too unfortunately. I was at the bar recently with a friend and was chatting with some girls, they asked for our Facebook and their interest was immediately gone when I told them I didn’t have one.
Fine by me if it’s that much of a no for you I didn’t want to be your fb photographer anyway 😛
There is a big difference between sex and a relationship.
If I werent married I’d absolutely screw a woman half my age, but dating one… I see complications.
But that’s… not the issue here? Men are much more attractive when they are 20 compared to 40 as well.
That doesn’t make me creep around university trying to get into their pants. It also doesn’t inspire me to write sexist stuff online, etc.
Im saying that its biologically healthy to look at a young attractive person (of your preferred gender) and go “Yep, I would really like to do things with that person” It is however societaly problematic to be a perv in trying to make it happen and does raise some awkward questions about what a guy is really looking for if he wants to be with someone half his age.
As for the sexist stuff online. You ever seen some womens wishlists on dating sites? Now I aint saying shes a gold digger… but you know the rest of it.
There’s a lot of women after young studs. A lot don’t see issues with that. Young people are generally seen as hotter.
Please be at least 36
Turning 40 this year.
But how about 22? 24? 21 maybe?
Most of the males between 27-32yo I know would definetely do an 18yo girl given the chance, but none of them are actively looking for one because it is weird.
I guess it is more like a fantasy kind of deal. If I had to guess the reason is that young women are more sexually active than 30yo women. Friends with gfs always complain that it’s pretty hard to get them in the mood, like they have to beg. Men are just more sexual than women in general.
Just had a friend break up with his gf because she would use sex as a manipulation tool.
Young women are not more sexually active. There’s a ton of research that younger people are less and less sexual. So maybe stop making things up and posting them online.
I mean technically since you have not provided any of this research you are also just making things up and posting them online. Regardless of whether or not you’re correct giving no source, and if asked saying “do your own research” (which you haven’t done I’m just doing an inb4) just makes you sound like one of those crazy conspiracy theorists or something
It’s a fairly well known stat for awhile now: Teens are having less sex.
But that says nothing about the male/female split, or the age split. This is just comparing teenagers of today with teenagers of yesterday.
“If I had to guess”. I was guessing, followed by personal experiences… I never said “here’s the absolute truth”.
You know it is possible to correct someone without being a total ass? Plus, I wasn’t talking about facts but instead about what males think. If you asked 1000 males who they think is more sexually active between a 20yo or a 40yo, what do you think the results would be.
Some confidently incorrect shit here lol.
Older faces are rated as less attractive than younger faces and treated like a category when making aesthetic judgments. Older perceivers are less influenced by the age of the viewed face than younger and middle-aged perceivers. Men, more than women, distinguish more clearly between faces when judging attractiveness, especially in female faces. Aging has less of an effect on judgments of elegance than beauty and gorgeousness.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001691821001359
Previous research examining stereotypes of the elderly also found that older adults were judged to be less attractive (Ebner, 2008; Löckenhoff et al., 2009), and other research has shown that age stereotypes are linked not simply to chronological age, but also to physical appearance. Specifically, unattractive physical qualities, such as wrinkling, gray hair, and baldness, are associated with more negative impressions of elderly faces (Hummert, 1994; Muscarella and Cunningham, 1996; Hummert et al., 1997). In addition, Zebrowitz et al. (2003) found that, compared with younger faces, older faces showed greater resemblance to faces with genetic anomalies and this contributed not only to impressions of older faces as less attractive, but also to impressions of them as less healthy, sociable, and intelligent than younger faces. More generally, the well documented attractiveness halo effect (Eagly et al., 1991) provides reason to believe that the lower attractiveness of older faces would augment negative stereotoypes, like incompetence, and weaken positive stereotypes, like warmth. Older and younger faces differ in many ways besides attractiveness. One that will be examined in the present research is a possible difference in their resemblance to emotion expressions. Research has documented an influence of emotion resemblance on impressions of warmth and competence (Zebrowitz et al., 2007, 2010) and, as discussed more fully below, there is reason to expect differences between younger and older faces.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5627340/
Like YA, OA showed both the attractiveness halo effect and the babyface stereotype. However, OA showed weaker effects of attractiveness on impressions of untrustworthiness, and only OA associated higher babyfaceness with greater competence. There also was own-age accentuation, with both OA and YA showing stronger face stereotypes for faces closer to their own age. Age differences in the strength of the stereotypes reflected an OA positivity effect shown in more influence of positive facial qualities on impressions or less influence of negative ones, rather than vice versa.
lol. Try reading the comment you replied to. They didn’t say anything about attraction.
Young women are not more sexually active. There’s a ton of research that younger people are less and less sexual. So maybe stop making things up and posting them online.
Less sexually active and less sexual are very different statements to me. I was addressing the second portion.
Not only that but a large portion of this entire threads argument is based on how people find each other attractive. Being promiscuous isn’t really relevant when the topic is about people in relationships with large age differences.
I suppose you could argue sexual promiscuity heightens your chance of getting into relationships with larger age differences, but I don’t have data to back that up. I doubt it’d be true if that’s what they’re contending but I wouldn’t care either way lol.
Less sexual still doesn’t mean less attractive though… ? I have no idea what you’re on about. Just rewind to the comment that person was replying to and the context is very clear:
If had to guess the reason is that young women are more sexually active than 30yo women. Friends with gfs always complain that it’s pretty hard to get them in the mood, like they have to beg.
Young women are not more sexually active. There’s a ton of research that younger people are less and less sexual [with each other as of late]
added that last bit because it was clearly referring to the studies coming out in the last few years or so that show that young people are having less sex today than previous generations did at similar ages.
Again, less sex has nothing to do with age differences. It sounds like everyone is just arguing about different things tangentially related to the meme lol.
Apparently y’all think people having less/more sex matters with age differences. I’m arguing 18 year olds are absolutely sexual regardless of how much more or less they’re having sex. And 18-25 are the peak years of attractiveness for nearly everyone.
They’re also the best time to have children even if our society makes it nearly impossible to have them between 18-25. That’s a sliding scale which basically gets worse every year after 25, not even 35.
Good luck telling people at 26 they’re already putting themselves and their children at risk though lol. After 35 has always been a stretch but our government refuses to help while the working class is so under the boot they can barely unionize.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/maternal-mortality/2021/maternal-mortality-rates-2021.htm
A lot of of younger women/girls are, in fact, much more sexually active. Especially these days because hormonal birth control is known to permanently lower libido. Also, hormones.
This is just false. Women, on average, are most sexually active in their 30s. We have known this for ever… And somehow this garbage thought that young women are more sexual keeps showing up in male focused narratives.
It’s definitely more of a combination of disgust and secondhand embarrassment. When I was 18, my mid-30s manager was clearly into me and I definitely thought he was creepy and old and everyone made fun of him behind his back. Now that I’m on the other side, it doesn’t look any less pathetic. 18 year olds look like children because I’m old enough to be their parent, and the only thing I’ve ever felt for one is vaguely maternal affection. The idea of dating them is super gross.
OK I’ll be the one to go against the grain in these comments. I am a nearly 40 year old man and I would bang a hot college girl in an instant. I can’t help that.
Theres also a YAWNING FUCKING CHASM between “Yes, If I were single I would really like to have a woman almost half my age find me sexually attractive enough to fuck me” and going out of your way to try and make it happen.
Also, like none of those 35yo women ever went and flicked the bean after watching the 20yo who mows their lawn go shirtless in summer.
Oh for sure. I wouldn’t want to be a creepy guy to a young person. But the other comments were all like “I’m not even attracted to young beautiful women”
I’m not even attracted to young beautiful women
Depends entirely on how old the person saying it is which is will vary wildly from commenter to commenter.
No because 18-year-olds are kids. I’m not even close to 40 and I think 18-year-olds are kids (especially from an emotional maturity perspective). 20s would be like the absolute youngest.
I’m in my 40s and I’m in a college town and I honestly can’t tell whether I’m looking at a college student or a high school student half the time.
In terms of basic aesthetics, I can appreciate the beauty of an 18-year-old, but I can appreciate the beauty of a 5-year-old in an aesthetic sense. Sexually, they look way too young to me.
PC-pissing contest for 30-somethings. It’s a trend.
I’m a guy and when I was 18 I got a lot of interest from women in their 40s. Sexual attraction is just natural.
Yeah, but it didn’t start at 18 did it. A number of women hit on me when I was under 18 and no one would think anything of it. We are groomed into it starting with calling 6 year old boys handsome young men and he’s a cute kid.
Lots and lots of people would think plenty about an older woman coming onto a minor.
Is it really grooming if it’s just how everyone in society acts?
Yes.
“Grooming” to me always implied the actions of an individual, with the intent of generating a sexual relationship with that one person. It’s got a level of intent that the lady at the grocery store calling me a “handsome young man” and then never seeing me again doesn’t have.
It doesn’t really matter what it is to you when it has a hard and established definition.
Nothing you say matters to me though, and thanks to solipsism, that’s all that matters!
Well grooming doesn’t have to be an individual, and it doesn’t have to be sexual. Kids are groomed in school to go to college. The word means to train/prepare for. Training someone for something can be good thing or a bad thing. Or anything in between.
Sure, but usually in these types of conversations people use “grooming” in a much more specific (and negative) connotation
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That’s on you for attending those kinds of parties.
boooo boooo get outta here boooo
There’s a lot you can help here, though.
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Don’t be a creep.
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Don’t lie to your partner about this.
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Don’t spin some weird sexist or misogynistic bs theories out of your attraction.
That’s it. Doesn’t seem too hard but you’d be surprised how many are struggling with these simple rules of decency and respect.
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Did you mean FOR an instant?
Also yes.
Nobody should be judging any two adults about a consenting nonabusive relationship.
After all, women polish the pearl to only age appropriate book porn that has nothing to do with poorly narrated but critically succesful actual rape fantasies built on having no idea what consent means lol.
You can think a 30 year old and 18 year old shouldn’t be dating or fucking all you want. But I’m pretty sure the old pricks and women scoffing at it are doing more virtue signalling than they are lol.
Don’t want people fucking 18 year olds? Raise the age of consent.
The age of consent isn’t the issue, it’s the objectification of people that haven’t even hit physical maturity yet.
Physical maturity is such a terrible thing to quantify lmfao.
And again, age of consent is ABSOLUTELY THE ISSUE IF YOU BELIEVE 18 YEAR OLDS ARENT SEXUALLY MATURE.
It’s literally, not even metaphorically, the crux of the issue if you believe there’s one.
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Uhhuh.
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I’m 46 and married, but if I was single, I absolutely wouldn’t want someone almost 30 years younger than me. We’d have so little in common! I suppose if you just look at women as objects to stick your dick into…
Normal dudes think those guys are creeps too. I’m in my 40s, and have several guy friends my age who date, and it’s always with women their age.
The post doesn’t mention dating, just “wanting” them which I took to mean sex.
How would you know who these guys want to have sex with if not by who they date?
People talk about that stuff and you might hear who someone fucked and so on. Many possibilities
Alright. Maybe it’s normal. All I can say is that in my circles none of that is. Sometimes one of us might say how hot this or that woman is, but she could be any age really. If you know dudes over 35 that are constantly chasing 20 year olds, or talking about them, then I think those dudes are weird. Just my experience/opinions though.
Not to mention, as a 30+ year old, looking at 18 year olds feels…gross. They look like children.
After 40, the “child age” jumped to like 25 for me. As in those under 25 look like children.
25 is when your brain finishes maturing, so it’s when adulthood actually starts. The crazy thing is that we let people join the military, rack up credit card debt, etc. well before that age.
The flip side of that is so wild. Remember being like 12 and an 18 year old seemed so grown up? Now I see an 18 year old and…yeah that’s a child, bro
Yeah I’ve got some divorced dad friends who like the college age women and they are just boring AF to talk to. I don’t get it.
Pretty? sure, but boring AF. Give me a little baggage and some life stories and I’m in.
These guys don’t want somebody to talk to. They want to relive feeling that age again, but they also want somebody who doesn’t have much life experience. Odds are, women their own age won’t put up with their bullshit, and they want somebody who won’t push back on them
Okay, this is gonna come off creepy… but there are interesting college students. They are just few and far between.
Are you trying to imply that humans have a variety of personalities and experiences in life?! Creep! /s
Old/young relationships CAN be not creepy and potentially abusive but, like you say, they’re few and far between. Better to try to be friends in most cases.
There’s enough illegal shit for me to be disgusted with, I don’t have time to be bothered by any relationship between two consenting adults regardless of how little sense that relationship might make to me.
I’m an older dude, I can’t hardly stand being near a fucking teenager, much less want to have sex with one, they’re annoying as hell. What the fuck is wrong with some people.
I mean you could maybe try being a compassionate adult around them. Attidudes like this are what contribute to poor inter-generational relationships. It’s why boomers blame everything on millenials and why millenials just respond with “ok boomer”. Teenagers are people, their brains are developing, some are figuring out their shit, some never will bother to. And they will become older folks who are people just the same. So it behoves us to try being a positive influence around them rather than trying to fuck them.
I mean, as a 45 year old man… I can be compassionate, but let’s be real teenagers are annoying as shit.
This isn’t some generational thing, we where just as annoying as that age.
It comes with being immature and unsure of who you are.
You’ll grow out of it too.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Yeah I wasn’t disagreeing. Teenagers are indeed annoying as shit. They’re also bright, depressed, confused, fired up, determined, lost, immature, too mature, and on and on. None of this negates the importance us adults having the maturity to not dwell on our bitterness or frustration over youth and focus on being a positive influence when we have the opportunity.
A friend of mine with daughters told me that he couldn’t see the appeal in teen girls, because “I have two; they don’t even know how to wipe properly.”
That might be a family problem more than a teen girl problem. 😒
No… No. Teen girls are, in general, pretty gross. Anyone cleaning bathrooms knows. The media likes to portray us as these clean little angels but we’re pretty disgusting a lot of the time lol
Reminded of:
Note, the last woman (Eden):
reportedly shouldn’t be on the graph. Ol’ Leo’s single apparently.
Classic. Seen this chart a few years ago, funny how he’s still sticking to it. Tbh for me it goes from “cool/funny” when he’s in his 30s to a bit “weird” now that he’s around 50, but whatever works for him and his partners.
When I was in my late 20s, I went to a local con with an 18-19 year old coworker and her friend about the same age. Nothing funky, just hey if you’re going we’re going come roll with us.
Love them to death but jeez Louise I could never date one of them. They weren’t even particularly immature or anything but theres nothing to relate on or talk about etc etc.
It’s like a different world. They have different slang, music tastes, different types of friend and school drama, physical energy levels, at a different stage of their life, etc. I agree, what do you even talk about?
It’s not really that different. I live in a rural area where you can’t afford to stick to specific groups or you’ll have nobody to talk to. I’m in my late 30s and my friends have ranged from 18 to 85.
To be fair the really younger ones were usually attached to a larger group but we still considered each other friends and would hang out and talk about… Well, the same stuff we talk about here online with age-indeterminate people?
Guys we’ll drink and talk trash, mechanics, guns, projects, gaming. Girls more music, culture, many of them are into gaming or hunting/outdoors stuff too believe it or not.
Couple years ago I was sitting by a fire talking about AoE2 with a 19yo girl, I think the game is older than her but she got into it when Definitive came out on Steam!
I also have a friend in his 80s I go over for sauna and tea with regularly, he has so many wild farm stories and knowledge to share, plus he is an old school original coder and ham radio operator who is the last maintainer for an ancient database system.
You have something in common with everyone except the truly stupid, don’t be shy and just talk to people
I don’t think the people dating in this situation do a lot of talking or even have much in common other than what’s in Daddies wallet.
Ironic. I’m in to 30-something women and even 40-something women, but the catch is they have to not be mentally ill
That goes for any relationship. Men and women. It is harder the older as so many more are paired, and the single ones have a higher likelihood of having… reasons.
Or just baggage, which isn’t particularly healthy for your mental state. When looking at my circle of friends, at the latest when your ~35 you will have lived through cheating or other types of betrayal. People often are just assholes to each other and hurt people hurt people.
I see this as an additional reason though, to not date someone who is still very young.
Yeah, if I ever conquer this damn divorce and my general anxiety, I’m just gonna meet people and hopefully find someone with few enough red flags that I can feel comfortable around them
Relevant username
but the catch is they have to not be mentally ill
I feel like there has to be a more…tactful? Less judgmental? way of stating this
🎵 Stacey’s mom has got it goin’ on 🎶
OPE
I keep getting older, but they all stay the same age.
I have always found this argument to be hilarious in a deeply sexist way.
Why? Because it takes two to tango.
If young women really did find older men repulsive and creepy, why do so many of them date older men? Why do a fair number of them marry older men, especially in this era of unprecedented economic opportunities for women?
The fact is, such attitudes against a very historically normal pairing is shaming two people who are functional adults for their very adult choices and decisions.
Or do you somehow disagree that an 18-yo woman isn’t a “functional adult”? Because I see that attitude of infantilizing and bubble-wrapping women against the consequences of their own choices and decisions as deeply sexist, and a prime example of misogyny.
Meanwhile, men of that exact same age can be forcibly conscripted to fight and die in some foreign oil-war that they never had an opportunity to vote against. How are we adult enough at that age to die without any choice in the matter, but women aren’t adult enough to choose whom to be with?
Gotta love that gender bigotry.
People are probably not functional adults until 23-25. But it’s harder to mold a 25yo to die in a war for you than a 18yo.
I do agree with your general point - it takes two to tango. And a lot of the older women complaining have themselves dated across the chasm when they were younger.
It always felt odd to me and still does though - I feel that the larger the gap the more it reveals deeper issues for both sides.
But it’s harder to mold a 25yo to die in a war for you than a 18yo.
Yup. Between education and maturity, I became a (mostly) pacifist by 25, after fully intending to join up before I started uni.
What I also find deeply hypocritical is how many of these women treat a gender chasm in the first place:
- Young woman with older man? That pervert! He’s a pedophile!!
- Older woman with a young guy? You go, girl! Ride him like a cowgirl!
And yes, that age gap can be identical in both examples.
And yet plenty of women also shame older women that are preying on much younger men too. That’s not making a point it’s trying to make an excuse.
plenty of women also shame older women that are preying on much younger men too
I have never seen that happen in my entire life.
Not. Once.
Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it must only happen behind closed doors - without any public censure whatsoever - in ways that doesn’t happen for older men with younger women.
Older men, in comparison, are very publicly shamed.
Well if you’ve never seen it then it’s never happened obviously
For me, it’s not the age gap so much as maturity gap and, more importantly, the power differential. When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I didn’t have my shit together in any way nor did I have a good level of maturity and self-confidence.
The power differential between one in their 40s or 50s (hell, even 30s) and late-teens/early-twenties means that healthy relationships are the exception, not the norm.
Bro have you seen how much Larsa Pippen has been (rightfully imo) dragged in the Bravo community for dating Marcus Jordan?!
That shit ain’t cute in either direction!
Larsa Pippen
Who?
Bravo community
What’s that? Some sort of spanking-new social media platform? Certainly less than 6 days old, otherwise I would have heard of it.
Marcus Jordan
Who?
Edit: had to google all of these. I have no clue who any of the “Reality TV” stars are, not into basketball, and as for “Bravo”, I never even thought about TV channels as I have not watched actual broadcast TV since 2003.
Lmao I had to rep my Housewives because I had to leave the Bravo subreddits back on reddit and we don’t have a community here. I never pass up a chance to toss it out there in case there are other lost Housewives fans floating around Lemmy. 😅
Anyhow, yes, Larsa Pippen was married to Scottie Pippen for years, including when he played on the Chicago Bulls with Michael Jordan (late 80s/early 90s). Marcus Jordan (Michael’s son) was already born by then. Scottie and Michael were a duo in the 90s, paired together in NBA games and whatnot, pretty much the faces of the Bulls franchise.
Larsa Pippen is 49. Since divorcing Scottie, she’s gotten together with Marcus Jordan (33). She’s been absolutely dragged by Bravo fans due to the age difference, and because there is a nonzero chance she knew Marcus when he was in pull-ups (she denies this).
The point I was making was, even if it’s an older woman going after a younger man, gross behavior is gross behavior. It’s not cute in either direction. We call out ladies too!
It makes me wonder why people praise Harold and Maude and vilify Manhattan, though I suppose the director of Harold and Maude didn’t marry someone Harold’s age. But most people agree that Harold walked away a better person, despite having Maude woo him and rip herself away immediately.
It’s been scientifically proven that 18 year olds’ brains aren’t fully developed. Biologically, no you are not an adult at 18. Arguing that it’s all good because both parties are ostensibly consenting adults is besides the point. The older party, no matter what gender, shouldn’t be chasing people well outside their peer group. There’s obviously a layer of manipulation when 2 people of wildly different ages get together.
why do so many of them date older men?
Do they?
Or do you somehow disagree that an 18-yo woman isn’t a “functional adult”?
I do, because your brain doesn’t finish maturing until you’re 25.
Meanwhile, men of that exact same age can be forcibly conscripted to fight and die in some foreign oil-war that they never had an opportunity to vote against.
That’s wrong, too. The age of conscription should be 25, for the reason I gave above.
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You just argued for men not being drafted at 18 - they are mere kids. Women, on the other hand!
I didn’t argue for anyone being drafted. I was referencing how the person I was responding to mentioned it.
Just say you’re attracted to teenagers and stop wasting everyone’s time. The answers to your questions have been discussed countless times.
Creep.
Yeah, I don’t get it. I’m 38m and don’t find college-age girls attractive anymore. Even in terms of physical attraction, I’m more attracted to women my age. 18 just looks like a kid to me.
If I see young people of that age group it sometimes makes me remeber of when I was that age and the fun I did/could have had. Nothing in me wants to engage with any of that at all anymore. Just happy care free memories.
A few years ago a friend had a 40th birthday and his gf arranged a night out. She took us to a night club in a university city. It was such an odd experience. We left pretty fast.
I’m 38 and anyone under 30 looks like a child to me by now. 28, sure, they’re probably old enough despite the lack of life experience and looking a little young, but 18-year-olds still have baby fat! Gross.
40 here. Girl friends constantly need to assure me young women we see are “old enough” bc I think anyone under 30 looks like they’re 13.
