#ofc some older people will be freaks and manipulators and groomers

[crayonsandclovers]

I wanna add something too!

I am in a dnd focused friend group. And the age range is huge - from the youngest person having 16 years to the oldest guy having 29 and lots of college students/just out of highschool people in between. And somehow we all coexist and have fun!

When I was in highschool I struggled a lot with fear of authority, and by that I meant that I was absolutely scared to be disrespectful or treat someone older/with higher authority from me. I could get a panic attack from that. That's because my entire life I've only known adults as higher, more important than me. Everything changed when me and my friends went to the our first fantasy con together and when I met the oldest guy for the first time (especially that he was a big name in the fandom we were all into). But when he approached us (he did cause he was DMing for one friend of mine) he started treating us as equals and it literally made me nervous because I didn't know how to react. He even noticed I was nervous when we were approaching some authors for the autographs and he took the lead of the group instead of me.

Later I moved for college to the same city he's from and it turned out that we live extremely close to each other. So sometimes I come by, return some things we left at one another and so. At first I was still getting nervous but the more we talk, the more comfortable I feel with someone that much older from me considering me equal. We also hang out on discord often!

Another example is a friend of mine from college. He is on the 4th year and I'm just finishing 1st one of the same major. He's also 29 years old. At first some people considered him creepy for wanting to hang out with "literal kids" (mind you I'm and most of my years are 19). Turns out he is an amazing guys! He goes out of his way to help us with Math and Statistics classes which are difficult and a lot of people struggle with it; he gives us tips on how to handle proffesors and is very caring of the little group that decided to stay with him. He's also pretty chill guy, we hang out every few days and we do science projects together.

And honestly I feel so much more confident since I know them both, especially in talking to older adults and teachers or proffessors. We need relationships with people of different ages, especially older and I'm happy someone is poiting this out.

So just wanted to add my point of view to the discussion. Maybe my case is a bit extreme, but I believe there are people out there who share the same problems and fears. Trust me, you'll be alright!

i think some of you guys are insane 👍 it's actually possible for a 16 year old to be online friends with someone in their 20s. source: teenagers are actually people who can talk to other people about shared interests.