<p>My friends & I note that it appears that couples are now the exception vs being the norm when we were in HS. In our HS, the kids typically hang out in groups with very few ‘couples’.</p>
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<p>Actually he did let her know on multiple occasions and I confirmed and added to his account as I had already been in the workforce for a few years longer than him. Unfortunately, she refused to listen, displayed a bit of a 'tude, and thus showed remarkable immaturity for a 19-20 year old. </p>
<p>Her behavior is something I’d expect from a 11-13 year old…not someone who is supposed to be an adult under the law. </p>
<p>One fortunate thing about having so many older cousins was how I learned much from what NOT TO TOLERATE in potential dating/relationship situations from their accounts and from observation. One big aspect is to not tolerate anyone who showed little/no consideration about time pressures arising from school, work, and family obligations. Such folks have caused some of them to almost flunk out of school or even flunk out of graduate programs.</p>
<p>It’s always hard to figure out how things will work out. I skipped one grade in elementary school and was the shortest boy in my freshman class in HS. I was offered the opportunity to skip my freshman year in HS and did for two weeks but thought it was so awkward. But, I wasn’t old enough to get my driver’s license before graduating from HS and entered college early. I grew a lot in HS and grew another inch (to 6’2") in my freshman year of college. I don’t recall having any dates in HS – I didn’t really have any social skills either, I don’t think – but I talked to a woman at my HS reunion who said I did asked her to go see a play and was embarrassed to tell her that she would have to drive, so I did have one date. Didn’t have any dates my first 2 years of college (partly caused by the fact that its first class of women admitted as freshman was in my freshman year). But, I decided to learn social skills during sophomore year and had girlfriends junior and senior year. Skip forward 2 years after graduation and I started grad school. As it became clear that I was a) very ambitious; and b) likely to be successful overall (academically and likely financially), something switched. I checked off all the boxes on a lot of young women’s prospective husband list – tall, probably not that bad looking, athletic (varsity athlete in minor sports in HS and college), smart (attended three of HYPMS), likely to be a success, and nice – they started flocking to me. I could almost feel the marriage lust and started a) becoming more careful about who I went out with and especially slept with; and b) going out with undergrads who didn’t think going out or sleeping together meant that this was step 1 to marriage until I was ready. In the first couple of years that I lived with ShawWife (as a professor at the university where I’d gotten my PhD), I’d be approached regularly by young women I’d dated "Shawbridge, how are you? Would you like to get together? … Sometimes oblivious to ShawWife (then ShawGF). The trick was to remember names (embarrassingly, I sometimes couldn’t though I remembered their faces) and introduce them to ShawGF. So, no dates until junior year and then all has worked out fine. No need necessarily to worry.</p>
<p>ShawSon did not skip and took a gap year. He also grew late – form 5’3" at age 13 to 6’4" as a senior in HS – and also didn’t have any dates in HS until his senior prom. There were clearly girls who expressed interest and he appeared largely oblivious (sometimes comically so). He’s fearless, though. So, when it came time for the HS prom, he was sick but decided to go. So, he called a girl he’d been friends with his freshman year who had left to homeschool and pursue her dancing career (she now attends an Ivy). Apparently, she’d been one of the school’s hot freshman. Well, she said yes. No dates that we know of freshman year or first half of sophomore year. Sometime during sophomore year, dates happened and he’s had a live-in girlfriend for a year. This summer, he chose to get in shape and eater more healthily and lost 35 pounds. Two to four years from now, he’ll tick off the boxes the same way I did on the prospective husband check list. Then, the young women will show up at his door (or bedroom).</p>
<p>ShawD is, on the other hand, very social. She’s delightfully ebullient and can get even the shyest boy to start talking. [If she moved to the forest, the trees would start talking]. She is tall 5’9" and reasonably nice looking and dresses really well. Boys have always been around – she can almost always get a ride to wherever she wants to go. But, she’s relatively emotionally self-protective and hasn’t had an extended relationship – in HS, there was one boy that she probably had had a sub rosa relationship with – and she didn’t seem to date in her first semester of college. No shortage of male interest, I don’t think. There was a guy who rushed up to her in the immigration line at DFW when we were flying back from Mexico during the winter break. He said, “I saw you on the plane and promised myself that if I ever saw you again, I’d try to talk with you and get your number. I’m really embarrassed about doing this but you have the most vibrant eyes I’ve ever seen.” Later, I asked her if that was the strangest pickup line she’d ever gotten and she rolled her eyes and said no. Basically, this kind of thing happens regularly. [She does have pretty amazing eyes, actually]. But, no boyfriends. She transferred this semester to study nursing at an all women’s college. But, she went to Hillel at another school and a couple of guys evinced immediate interest. One offered her a ride from Harvard Square the following weekend (even though it is a pretty easy subway ride) and the other texted 3 times asking what she was doing that weekend. But, despite the looks and the social skills, she hasn’t had a boyfriend. She says she’s holding out for tall, really good looking, athletic, and Jewish – but we think that the super high bar she’s holding up is more self-protective. So, at one level, she’s a late bloomer as well. </p>
<p>mcat2, even if your son didn’t date in college, I wouldn’t despair. It is harder to meet someone outside of college, but kids now use OKCupid, Jdate, … and meet people and marry.</p>
<p>So, I think we don’t know how things are going to turn out.</p>
<p>I also don’t define “late” as anytime in high school, or the first year or two of college. Both my kids have found college easier and more interesting socially than high school (which actually was kindergarten thru high school, tiny district, all one school), but so far haven’t found even short-term partners. Of the maybe 35% guys, many prefer other guys. You would think there would be as many gay women to even out the statistics, but if there are, I’m not hearing about them.
Momma-three - D also loves to ski…</p>
<p>This strikes a bit of a nerve. My daughter is 25. She has not been a nun or anything like it, but she has not had a serious relationship or even something semi-serious. She had prom dates in high school, but only if she asked a friend to take her. She went out on a date or two the summer between high school and college. There was no indication of any sustained romantic relationship in college, even an unrequited one. In fairness, that is not the sort of thing she would necessarily have shared with us, unless it turned into a real relationship, but we knew who her college friends were, and we more or less knew how she and they were spending their time, and there wasn’t a lot of space to hide a secret boyfriend in. Post-college, there was a glimmer of something with one man, but he is clearly taken now.</p>
<p>She says she is straight, and so are almost all of her female friends. Both of her best friends have boyfriends of over a year’s standing. She is bothered enough by the situation to talk openly about wanting to find a boyfriend, but nothing much has happened in that respect. Her workplace is mostly women (and very few of them as young as she), and her (not small) friendship circle is women and gay men. She does a lot of stuff, and is generally very busy; it’s only recently that space has opened up in her schedule that a boyfriend might fit into (but of course she could have made space for a boyfriend in the past and didn’t).</p>
<p>We (her parents) are beginning to worry a little. When we were her age, we had been involved for four years and were engaged. We think relationships take practice, some trial and error, and we are concerned she isn’t getting that. We would be thrilled if she found that starter boyfriend.</p>
<p>Our son, by contrast, was the first kid in his class to have an official girlfriend (5th grade, 11 years old). Not that he was particularly advanced – his participation was pretty much to say “yeah” when the girl asked him to be her boyfriend, and to say “yeah” to whatever she wanted the relationship to be. Not that he didn’t like her – he did, and she broke his heart when she finally dumped him for good three years later – but she was way out in front of him in terms of emotional, physical, intellectual, and any other category you want to use intelligence, and he was basically along for the ride.</p>
<p>Since then, he has gone through girlfriendless periods, but not that many of them, and usually there was some queue of young women willing to audition for the role. He is very girl-friendly – likes them, respects them, doesn’t make many demands, expects them to be smart and ambitious, has actual interest in things like clothes, jewelry, John Hughes movies, and girl-group pop. He’s not a great boyfriend, though, in that he doesn’t exactly put his girlfriends in the center of his world. He just broke up with his last college girlfriend, or she with him (it’s not that clear).</p>
<p>Mother of two late bloomers here. I was a late bloomer, but I thought it was because I was raised in a repressed, controlling environment, with little opportunity to socialize. So we raised our daughters in a loving, supportive environment, with lots of opportunities to socialize. Yet, they are both exhibiting the same issues I had in the dating field. I now realize it has more to do with personality. If I could go back and redo their upbringing, I would have a lot of discussions with them about feelings and how to deal with them. Both of them are terrified of anyone getting too close emotionally, yet they both crave a relationship. My H and I are working on addressing the issues now, but I don’t know how long it will take to help them, or if it even will.</p>
<p>I had my kids at 37 and 40. Lots of single women in their 30s loved me because it gave them hope. Yes, you can have your kids at that age, but then you hit your 50s, and your energy drops. You can’t afford not to have all your energy when you are dealing with teenagers. I also worry about having enough energy to deal with grandkids.</p>
<p>Be careful what you wish for – my brother met his first wife (you can see where this is going) in college; they married right after graduation, and later divorced. My nephew was very seriously dating someone he met first year of college; they later broke up. By contrast, my other brother dated in college, but no one seriously, and met his wife a few years after college. They’ve been married 20+ years.</p>
<p>So far, my daughter (freshman at college) hasn’t mentioned dating anyone, and that’s fine by me. While college is a great time to meet people, she may not find “the one” during her four years there.</p>
<p>I think a great thing about going to a large Uni and living in a big city is there are a lot more opportunities to meet people after graduation. D1 has a BF who lives in a different city, but she is out whenever she is not working, and they are gatherings organized by friends from college. At those gatherings, there are people´s friends from other schools or work place. D1´s roommate went to Georgetown, so she is meeting a lot of people from there. Seven of her sorority sisters rented an apartment together, so they always have parties there.</p>
<p>The down side of working in a small, sleepy town is it is much harder to meet eligible partners sometimes.</p>
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<p>I agree, Husband and I were both late bloomers and so is my daughter. My husband was more concerned about her not dating when she was in HS and the first 2 years of college, but my feeling was, it will happen when it is suppose to happen, Why push it. She had lats of friends, mostly guy friends and she was friends with them and their girlfriends. I believe this allowed her to feel comfortable with the opposite sex and learn social behaviors and norms in a protected sort of way. She was able to observe certain dynamics within the context of relationships. I knew she wasn’t emotionally ready for such a relationship. But she is now, she is more mature, more comfortable with herself, very independent and more self assured.</p>
<p>JHS- “We (her parents) are beginning to worry a little. When we were her age, we had been involved for four years and were engaged. We think relationships take practice, some trial and error, and we are concerned she isn’t getting that. We would be thrilled if she found that starter boyfriend.”</p>
<p>H and I were acquaintances (and in other relationships) from age 18 to 21, dated long distance for three years and married after an engagement of less than one year, so I was a bride at an age younger than your D. Notably, I was a rare bird, as most of my friends did not marry till they were 30. But I had had BF’s starting in 9th grade…</p>
<p>I hear you! I really really believe that there is a learning curve to dealing with romantic partners, and I am also worried that my 21 year old D has not had any real practice… My D has hardly had any male friends, either, as her groups have been mostly females. I think that coed groups are a great first step in this learning process, btw, but D1’s HS class was mostly girls, so it did not happen… The one guy in her HS groups is now out of the closet- everyone knew he was gay in HS except him. He is very happy and well-adjusted and moving down his romantic curve now that he is in college.</p>
<p>I think the world has changed, that hooking up is precluding dating and pairing up, that more know they are gay, etc. So we shall see how these late bloomers fare!</p>
<p>D1 plays a varsity sport in college, thus spends lots of time with just females, and the college is predominately females with mostly gay males. She is frustrated by that scenario, but LOVES all the others aspects of the college. I also believe that she needs to be more experienced in order to have a good honest sense of her sexual orientation, but that has not surfaced at this point.</p>
<p>JHS hit on what bugs me about it. I’m not looking for either of my kids to get married anytime soon, but I do think that HS and college are the years to date a lot and find out what you like and don’t like and just, in general, gain experience so that when they meet THE ONE they know it. Dh and I married at 25 and looking back that sounds insanely young. However, I had been around the block and back a few times with lots of different types and ages of guys. I felt like I knew what was out there. I want my boys to have the same level of experience so they can make an informed judgment about their prospective life partner.</p>
<p>ETA: x-posted with performers mom. Looks like we’re getting to the crux of the matter for several of us.</p>
<p>In ds2’s defense, he is in a great group of friends, both male and female. Two of the boys and two of the girls have coupled up, but the rest are just part of the crowd. No one feels exluded. It’s not a surprise to me that he is thinking of asking one of the girls in the crowd to prom because 1) he likes her and knows she had crushed on him in the past, and 2) he’s been able to be around her in all sorts of situations and genuinely likes her. That feels really healthy to me. He’s not really the one I’m worried about. It’s ds1, who didn’t really have that kind of social circle in HS.</p>
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<p>JHS, this was definitely an issue for my D in both college (your alma mater) and after graduation. She did have one relationship in college, but it was with a grad student. Her workplace is also mostly women, and nearly all her male friends are gay (many of them are in fact her classmates who also moved to NYC). She met the guy she’s now seeing through an old friend, but in some circles the pickings are definitely slim.</p>
<p>One of my sons, gay and in graduate school, recently “set up” a straight female friend in his department with a straight male friend in a different department at their university. He didn’t make it obvious, but created circumstances where it could happen and enthusiastically encouraged the young man to make it happen. Neither of his friends, in their mid-20s, had ever dated before. They have been dating for three months now and my son is so impressed with himself that he is looking to repeat the experience. (We do keep warning him not to be an “Emma”)</p>
<p>Maybe your daughters could ask their gay male friends for help? :)</p>
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<p>He must be in the wrong places.</p>
<p>When I visited my son when he was located in California and now in New York, I found a stack of cocktail napkins on his bureau, with girls’ names and phone numbers.
I had a conversation with him about misleading young women, taking their numbers and having no intention to call. He said they gave them to him without his asking. Sometimes he felt they expected him to ask and he did.</p>
<p>Definitely does take practice/trial and error, except for a lucky few who find their long-term partner in high school math class. A couple of my oldest D’s longest-running single friends have their first partners now. I don’t want her to start feeling like the maiden aunt (I had a few great maiden aunts, but that’s not her aspiration). Nothing I can do about it, but it helps to vent, and hear others vent.
My girls’ gay male friends aren’t in the matchmaking biz, apparently.</p>
<p>Having kids in hs it’s interesting to read this thread. One of my son’s main criteria for college was a 50/50 m/f ratio. As a senior, there is a girl he likes, but her parents are so strict they really don’t ever let her go do anything. My son is about as square, rule following, respectful as they come, if they’re nervous about him, they have no hope. She’s also commuting next year to the local college, so I don’t see her breaking out of that. I will be curious what happens with him in college. He actually talks about wanting to marry a girl he dates in college. He’s an old man at 18, and has been 60 since he was 5.</p>
<p>My dd on the other hand at 15 just admitted something that made me want to vomit a little. She had been at the same school since K and just this year we transitioned her to a bigger school. She said her only goal for this year was getting a boyfriend. She watches too many zac efron movies. I try and tell her no boy acts like the boys in movies. She had a date for homecoming, had a brief little friendship with another boy who doesn’t live here. She’d been mentioning a boy who had been going out of his way to say hello to her at school and apparently things are starting to blossom a little. I think she likes the idea of it more than reality.</p>
<p>However, I’ve got to get this one out there… what’s with the floozy girls nowadays? The hookups and casual sex I hear about in hs and college floors me. Call me a prude, but that shocks me. My daughter told me how they were having an abstinence meeting at school (she goes to a catholic school) and she said mom, it’s too late for most of them.</p>
<p>My daughter’s gay male friends work in the art world. They are not a good source of straight male friends. Better candidates might be the boyfriends of her female friends, but the only one that lives within 300 miles of her is the only one she actively dislikes, so nothing much will come from that quarter.</p>
<p>My wife and I are both a little haunted by our sisters. My sisters are both in their 50s, and neither ever married. One had periodic serious boyfriends, but none in the past 10 years, and none since college lasting more than a few months, with lots of space in between. The other has never had any kind of intimate emotional relationship with anyone. Back in her youth, she was the original hook-up girl, but she used to give people fake names so they couldn’t find her later. If she has ever “dated” anyone, none of her relatives knows about it. (And she has practically lived with my parents for 12 of the past 15 years.) In fact, counting my sisters there are six female first cousins in my family, on both sides, and only one of them was ever able to form long-term, stable romantic relationships. My wife has one sister who has been married for 30+ years, to her second husband. But of her other sisters one has only had a couple of serious relationships in her life – properly not counting her months-long impulse marriage 20 years ago, which survives as one of the few pieces of unqualified parental advice I have given my kids: “Don’t get involved with anyone you meet in rehab.” And the last sister was a late-bloomer who married exactly long enough to have two kids, and has gone 26 years since without any kind of relationship. </p>
<p>So we don’t have a sense that there’s always a happy ending for late bloomers, or even for early- or just-right bloomers who fail to progress.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, if you all want some rays of hope: We had dinner last weekend with friends whose second child is much as mathmom describes her first: very nerdy, wrapped up in culty things with male friends. He made it through college without a hint of a girlfriend, or even of potential girlfriends. He’s a PhD student, now, and planning his wedding (or: having his wedding planned for him by the women in his life) to a woman his parents adore, and whom he met initially through parental effort (a young lawyer who worked with his father set the son up with one of her college friends who works in the city where he is in grad school). Talk about helicopter parent success!</p>
<p>Neither of my kids have done much dating at all. Both are interested in opposite sex & had a summer romance while in college. S is now 24 (now working in his major in DC) & D is now 22 (now a SR at her U). They both have lots of good/great relationships with both genders. Would love for them to have some romance in their lives, and hope it will happen in time.</p>
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<p>BTDT – I mourned the end of that (early bloomer) son’s relationship for quite a long time. </p>
<p>I was a late bloomer – the guys at my HS just didn’t think tall nerdy girls were cool. Got involved in Model UN in college – and wow. That’s where I found my people (and my DH!).</p>
<p>S1 didn’t date in HS, but has dated more than I expected in college. What used to seem weird now appeals as a “good prospect.” ?!?</p>
<p>helicopter parents :)</p>
<p>At a high school sporting event for her youngest, my very good friend was sitting next to a woman she had been running into for years at similar events. She knows the parents and all the kids by reputation. They are chatting and realize my friend’s daughter, just starting graduate school, and the other mom’s son, a new lawyer, are living in the same city. My friend tries to give her daughter’s phone number to the other mom to pass on to the son. The other woman says her son only dates “really smart women” and my friend answers, “Hey! My daughter graduated summa from one ivy and is in graduate school at another! What more could he want?” The other mother finally condescends to take contact information. </p>
<p>This couple has been living together more than two years now. 
and see this as a permanent committed relationship. They arranged post PhD plans to be together.</p>
<p>ps - the other mom really likes my friend’s daughter :)</p>