Over the years, I have witnessed my friends and acquaintances going into relationships. As we get older, it is normal and expected that we would start dating.
These relationships start to get into varying degrees of seriousness, meaning, and importance.

You can understand why in my late twenties, I get startled to see my peers, or people older than me still dating teenagers. Or people in their early twenties.
Seriously? What are y’all doing together? How much do you have in common? What do you discuss?

The logic that age is just a number is one that I agree with only when both parties are past the first quarter of a century of their lives.
More still, they should both be gainfully employed, financially self-sustaining, and generally productive. At that point, age truly is just a number.

The number of people I have consciously dissociated from for their propensity for cradle snatching is uncomfortable for me.
Not cradle snatching per se. More like textbook snatching.

And what is this ugly behavior of lurking around for a girl to turn eighteen so you can date her? This is creepy. It is bordering on child abuse.
Technically you are both adults, but how much of an adult is she actually?

Let me situate it like this. If a boy that used to call a lady “aunty” ever grows the effrontery to ask her out, no matter how cute he is, what do you think the outcome would be on average?
Then why are grown men feeling comfortable cornering and wooing girls that called them “brother” or “uncle”?

If you know me, then you know I detest disrespect. So you can understand how I feel when the girl that used to be respectful towards me throws it all to the wind now that one of my friends is pursuing her whenever the lights are out.
Thankfully, I don’t have any such friends. Or maybe they keep such shenanigans away from me. Or just maybe they warn such girls to be on their best behavior when they see me.

If I ever decide to run for public office, you should know that one of my agenda is going to be “if you would have been a likely candidate to babysit her or him, then dating is off the table for y’all.”
What kind of relationship do you want to have? It is predatory and uncomfortable for everyone else.

I have lost count of the number of times I have come close to asking, “are you dating her or are you babysitting her?”
How else should I describe a youth corper dating his SS1 student? Or a working-class man dating his neighbor’s pre-university daughter?

For goodness sake, she has not even finished going through puberty. She is still coming to terms with her body. You are there claiming she is more mature than her age.
Why can’t you go and look for people closer to your age that are just matured for their age? Or are you less matured than your own age?

If not that you are an agbaya. Because you can impress her by spending a tiny portion of your tiny income. Why not try that on your peers?
When it is time to condemn child marriage, your voice is one of the loudest. Let me tell you now, what you are doing is just as bad as underage marriage. If not worse.

Before you say age is just a number, consider dating someone older than you by the exact number of years you are older than your target.
If you still think age is just a number after that, then you should actually go with the older option.

Leave kids alone to be kids. Yes, they will make a lot of mistakes. They will get their hearts broken. But they will be doing that with their mates. And they will learn from it.
Stop damaging people. Stop being all in their thoughts while they are supposed to be thinking about school assignments.

It is time for men to start holding each other to account. The girl is impressionable, you as an adult are not.
You know when your friend is crossing ethical lines. Keeping quiet is a tacit endorsement. Leaving your room for them whenever they come around is being an accomplice. If issues of statutory rape ever arise, you will have questions to answer.

Wilson Joshua is a Video Editor, Content Creator, and Creative Writer.
You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. @IJOSWIL

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