Welcome to Gaia! ::

Now while I realize our beloved guild does allow exceptions to the 21+ and such, and that many 21+ fishing rooms are a guideline. I am getting really irked that so many teens and preteens are ignoring the 21+ signs.

And I don't care if you're a 16 year old and that an 18 year old can vouch that you're mature for your age. If your 18 year old friend is spelling some as "sum" then you're not validating your claim to maturity.

A lot of teens think they're very mature for their age. But does that make you an adult. Heck no. Does that make you grown up? I give a resounding NO.

What irks me is when teens enter a 21 plus chat room and find it offensive that I will censor myself if I know teens are in the room. If you are under 18 or 21, I will not discuss certain topics with you or when you are present. I will not speak certain cuss words I will openly use with friends who are 21 or older. I will censor myself because if you are a minor, you are a minor. End of story. You may feel you are "mature enough" to tag along in a 21+ fishing zone or room, but it is my duty and responsibility to treat you as the minor you are.

You may think you're mature enough to roll with the adults. But guess what, are you able to discuss things like Mortgage concerns, personal property tax, child rearing, marriage issues, having your body steadily decline (you just won't understand menopause, arthritis, gray hairs, middle age spread, wrinkles, etc). Now yes, Gaia is a fun place to talk about fun things. But when it comes down to it adult pockets are popping up in Gaia because many of us like talking to people in the same life stage as us. I am not going to be able to discuss with a 16 year old the woes of student loan debt and the financial difficulties of grad school. It bugs me that a bunch of teens who think they're "mature" are joining into 21+ places on Gaia to pick up boyfriends, to find dirty chat, or to roll with the big guns. 1. the main reason I go to 21+ rooms and such is because they are the LEAST likely to have cyber going on in them. Do not defile the beauty of a clean internet hang out because you're some horny teen looking for older person action. Go to my space for that.

2. If you enter a 21+ room and you are a teen, do not gripe if the people are all "over 21 years of age" and that they are censoring themselves because you are a minor. You are a minor and it is my legal and ethical obligation to treat you as one. That means I WILL censor my language and my conversation when you are in a chat room with me.

3. You would complain if one of us joined a 13 yr olds 0nly room, understand if you're a teen in a 21+ room, people will be pointing that out to you and will be gravitating more towards conversations with the other 21+ people in the chat room.

4. Being "mature" for your age entails far more than you can ever understand as a teen. Yes, I was mature when I was your age. I was working virtual as a counselor to my own family, taking on all the responsibilities of my father who had become a dead beat, acting as a second parent to my little brother, etc. But -I- was still very immature at the time. I could not fathom just how great the burdens of responsibility are.


Sorry for the rant. I figured maybe people could share their experiences regarding minors in the 21+ rooms, and maybe strike up a debate about what constitutes maturity.

I realize there are always exceptions to this, and that several people over the age of 21 aren't mature. However, I also believe that 90% of teenagers think they are mature for their age.

Yeah, I know the feeling. Whats worse is, I don't even go places that are specified teen and they get upset with my age. I really enjoy gaia, its one of my few escapes (being trapped on the ship at times, any way off, even digitally is a blessing). One of the hardest things though is trying to explain to this one girl why we can't have a relationship. I've never tried the online thing (I'm engaged anyways), but shes only 16! I don't mind being a friend and giving advice or lending an ear, but shes developed a crush and sees it going on all around her. I mean sure, I saw plenty of 13/21 couples growing up. The girl thought she was getting someone more mature and the guy was getting someone his maturity level stare . While I can't say i was innocent, as a 19 year old showed me the ropes at 13, I still have to disagree with it. I 5 year age difference is nothing after your in your 20s. Its proportional. Maybe I'm just wrong though, it wouldn't be the first time.

Age means little to me friendship wise. Many of my friends are younger than me some by only a few months most by 5 or more years (which one of these days will get me in trouble.. wahmbulance *sigh* and not by me having a relationship with them in any other way then friendship) But my friends and I often have many things in common which gives us a reason be friends to hold some what decent conversations.

Mostly what I can't stand of the younger people is the damn drama. Everything little thing has to effect them in some way. Really I have been known to get up and actually move to a new place to live because of drama...yes I am awear that by doing that it makes me appear immature, but it is my way of walking away with out getting myself trapped in the middle of it. Sure I have lost friends, but my way of thinking is that if they where truely my friends they would have never put me in that posistion in the first place. SOme of those who conitnued to talk to me after the fact, are some of the best friends I could ever have. And they would do anything for me just like I would do anything wiht in my power for them.

So really I guess what I am getting at is that age is a win lose thing. YOu can make some of the best friends in the world with younger people but at the same tiem they can annoy the piss out of you by actually acting their age.

As for ages when it comes to a physical relationship, I will be honest and for what ever the reason I tend to find myself in relationships with younger men. But I keep it legal. That is also the reason why I have kept myself single for the past 2.5 years. Because I happen to look like a 16 year old (sucks I get carded for everything!!!!) I happen to attract 16 year olds. I have to almost pry them away from even after I tell them that I wont do anything with them because I dont' want to be in trouble with not only with their parents but with the law, but even still they can't seem to grasp that what they are doing is wrong.

Sure I have seen some odd aged couples (currently where I work there is a 19 year old married to a 31 year old man. Neither one of them look their ages, she looks older and he looks younger...O_o) So I dont' have a doubt in my mind that it is possilbe to make such a large age gapped relationship work, my problem is that most of the time the teens tend to not want to grow up and realize that there is soemthing more out there than their own selfish needs and wants. Which all leads back to the damned drama...

Wow I'm just making pointless rants, and I am sorry. lol

Wow, what a time for me to come accross this. Last night while on an over 21 thread a 16 year comes on and wants to be friends with everyone. Well, we were all into something and just ignored him. Well he got p.o.'d and started to curse at us. Some of the others start to give him some crap, but I pm'd him and told him just to be kool and people would be more receptive to him. Well at first he told me not to treat him like a kid, blah, blah, blah. I sent back, that I was not treating him like a kid, but like a friend. That I would have told any one of my friends the same thing that I had told him. Well, he finally calm down both with me and the thread. But frankly I am not a mom and I don't want to be on here. I felt like someone had to pull that kid in before it got ugly, which it was on the point of anyway. Oh well, kids, will be kids. We really should remeber on thing, We were that age once too and probably just a silly and young.

I think even the most "mature" 16 year olds just aren't the same as a mature 30 esque old.

It's about life experience. And even if you've had a hard knock life, if you're a teenager the chances are extremely slim you've really had the life experiences to understand things yet.

I think my own personal wake up call was when I was playing my flute on a street corner to raise the revenue to buy a package of ramen so I could have something for dinner. My fifteen dollars a week just wasn't cutting it because I think I bought something frivolous like suave shampoo or dish soap. Talk about your rites of passage biggrin

What's bugging' me too was I entered a fishing room that said "21+ only" inside I think I saw one of the sixteen year olds from the other night. No one said a word to me, suddenly they all left, next thing I know there's a password protected 21+ room. rolleyes I'm beginning to feel like you're not acceptable in 21+ rooms unless you're a teenager. Ironic, nay?

At my age I just go with the flow around here. I only come on mostly to post in the forums myself. I avoid any 'hot' topics. It's not proper to me with the age of the general population of the site, overall. I try to find 21+ rooms to play games in if I see one.

I act different among minors than among others closer to my age, for sure.

I was about to say, I think we're going into the realm of being overly dramatic to try and make a point: at 24, I am in no way concerned with grey hair or middle age spread, quite frankly. Heh. I might talk about it if someone else wanted to, but I usually have better things to worry about then how I'm going to age in the next 15-20 years. I found that part a bit silly is all.

I've never wandered into a 21+ room in games, because I always assumed it was a bunch of teens trying to cyber. Guess I know now it might actually be safe and I won't necessarily have to worry about reporting TOS violating behavior. lol


However, I guess I can understand both ways on this.

I know when Dak first made this guild, he had a 15 year old try to join who got bent out of shape when he was told, "sorry, you're too young to join." He then proceeded to pull every big word out of his vocabulary and still failed to mask his THIS ISN'T FAIR!!!one!! attitude while trying to show how mature and intelligent he is.

I agree that it's nice to have somewhere to hide where everyone has similar life experience and is about the same age. Who doesn't like to hide from the kiddles and talk about real concerns at times? Try to talk to someone younger and you'll most likely get an answer to the effect of, "Man, that suxx0rs." Or they'll turn the conversation to their angst about love and how hurt they are and they'll never trust anyone again, my gawd. Save it for your friends, you know? I'm past that stage in my life and I have no desire to relive it and wallow in your drama with you. I also am not going to tolerate being told that I just don't understand because to say something to the contrary means I've obviously never had my heart trampled on: happened more times then I'd like to admit.

I also get annoyed when people come into the quiet game rooms and then tries to chat, only to get annoyed when no one talks back. There are dozens of talking rooms and very few where people can come to be unaccosted by inane chatter. So I can understand how annoying it is to be having a real conversation with adults and someone who is much too young to be having it wanders in. They really shouldn't.

But on the other hand, I remember being 16 and hearing constantly from my teachers how mature I was for my age and then I'd be told by everyone else I was just too young to understand anything or that my opinions didn't count. I always thought it was some adult conspiracy to make me feel inferior and put me in my place. At that age, despite the relative maturity, I couldn't comprehend that life experience isn't the same thing as maturity or book smarts. It took a few years out of high school before that lesson finally sunk in and I started to experience life out on my own. I equate what's happening in the chat rooms here as what happens at a family holiday: everybody wants to sit at the adult table.

I was always the one who kept quiet if people were talking about something I didn't understand. I still do that even now. xd