Annoying thing from childhood

[Mayabird]

This is something random I remembered last night before I went to bed.

You all probably know how much I disliked the place where I grew up and went to school and how I can go on for hours about how miserable I was, how stupid everyone was, etc etc. This thing, though, I want to check up on.

I remember that none of those idiots in my school, even through high school, could separate romantic attraction to other forms of love or liking. Sure, I liked lots of guys as friends but among the n things I got teased/picked on/harassed about was being in love with them.

Questions:
1) Are they really that stupid?
2) Are kids like this everywhere?
3) If #2 holds, when do people grow out of it? Or do they grow out of it?

That's all for now.

[Ra]

They were that stupid at my school; I was friends with a girl for a time when I was in about 4th Grade and eventually distanced myself completely from her because of other students saying we were "in love".

[LadyTevar]

Middle school and high school are where kids start to learn the difference between love, like, romance, and sex... but they're still mentally/emotionally immature enough to give other kids the same schoolyard teasing from pre-school.

So, one part is immaturity, one part jealousy (you have a SigOther, they don't), and one is just Nener-neener-neeener.

[Mayabird]

I didn't have a Significant Other at that time. I just befriended who I felt like befriending (which was not them and often males) but they were probably jealous of other things. You know, like not getting pregnant at age 16. Though partly I wonder if they were more prone to doing stupid crap like that partly because they still couldn't distinguish between different types of love. (Abstinence-only sex ed and their churches are still mostly to blame, though.)

[LadyTevar]

I'd say you hit it on the nose, Maya. They couldn't tell the difference, and just did what their hormones told them.

Never helps that they weren't taught Sexual Education. My school didn't go into detail, but we were shown how the body works, and then split into male/female groups to be shown various birth control. Obviously, the boys were done a lot faster. I understand there was a lot of hilarity with condom balloons and tasteless jokes.

[Cpl Kendall]

I don't remember squat from high school sex ed but I remember the Army sex ed pretty vividly. The photos and videos they show you of STD's are real eye catchers. But the best thing is the practical where you roll on a condom on a simulated penis (aka dildo) from the hospital teaching aids. And of course they give you all the free condoms you can carry at the end. As a matter of fact the Army gives out free condoms all the time.

[Coyote]

They may well have been intimidated to think that you "had someone" and you were able to face or handle these terrifying new emotions and they... couldn't.

Even if it wasn't the case, their imaginations filled in the blanks with their own well-known but unacknowledged fears.