Can you put an age limit on love?

[Hannahleh]

I know you'll think to say 'no' right away...

 

But if you think about it, how many twelve year olds would you believe when they told you they were?

 

Is there an age when you can fully recognize the difference between infatuation and love?

 

I always said there was no age limit, but in my head I always put it somewhere in the 16-18 range...

 

Now I think I might be in love-- I don't know if I could imagine feeling more strongly than I do... but is 15 too young to be in love? How old were you when you first fell in love?

[Sally00]

I'd say atleast 17 years old...

 

When I first fell in love, I was 19-20 (around my birthday). He is my first love. I still love him very much. We talk as if we're engaged. Heehee. We've been dating for 6 months.

[CarnelianButterfly]

I think it would only be acceptable when you were fully capable to make your own choices. There are certain things a 12yo will not be able to think through that a 18yo or a 25yo would consider. Even at 18 not everyone is the same or fully capable of the same maturity. I think the people involved will need to be mature, not just for their age but as people over all. They need to be able to understand things beyond sex and raw emotion to what there is in a real relationship. Most often people discuss love, but fail to talk about relationships, because even though you love someone you may not be capable of being a responsible partner ie caring for the other person, respecting that other person, knowing when you are not in a mature enough to actually be in a relationship.

[Mythical_Suicide]

Personally you can't put an age on love everyone matures and sees things differently at different ages. And Honestly I have seen alot of 13 or 14 year olds that are more capable of loving someone then someone who is 25-30 years of age. People may disagree with me but I am, and have always been very mature for my age and at age 13 I could very well distinguish love.

[coollady1957]

I would say that in most situations that you can not put an age limit on romantic/intimate love. I would think that at age 12 though, a person may not be fully aware of the difference in love and infatuation. At that age they have not had a chance to really experience life enough to realize the difference possibly.

 

I knew I was IN LOVE with my BF when I was 16 years old. I had dated a few guys before him but once we started dating ( I was 15 at that time) , after a period of time I knew he was " the one". I was so totally in love with him. He became my husband when I was 18 and he was 20.

 

Even though I was 16 when I really realized we were truly in love, we were engaged for those next 2 years until I graduated high school.

 

This may certainly not be the best choice for everyone, but it worked out in my case.

 

We were married for close to 28 years before his death at age 48.

[vesper]

I loved a boy in the third grade.

[Beyondthesea]

I think it's based on maturity more than anything else. Age is a number, and no one is the same. There's too many generalizations with numbers.

[rose2summer]

Society has changed. My grandparents married at 13 and started having children immediately, 10 of them. They are deeply in love in their late 80's. Society tells us that we cannot love until a certain age, but who is to say what is right for 1 person is wrong for another. I know I wasn't capable of loving until I was 23 and it's still in development for me. I cannot say I have truly been head over heals in love yet, so to each their own.

[NKP]

I believe you can love at any age.

 

I knew someone that meet when they were 10 and started dating a year later and they are now 48 and they are still in love, they still do little things for each to show how much they love each other

 

And i think it depends on the person aswell

[Mjb]

i dont think there is any age!! Mt grandgrandparents have been head over heels in love since there were 12 and 55 years later theyre still going strong!! there is no set age! U cant help what ur heart does! x

[Sheyda]

I agree with Mythical Suicide; you can't pinpoint a particular age because everyone matures at different rates.

 

As for myself, I don't think I really knew what love was until I turned 19. When I was 14 I thought I was in love, but it was just a crush. When I was 16 I thought I was in love, but it was just infatuation since I didn't really know that guy, either; I was in love with the idea of what I thought he would be like.

[Ians Mommy]

I was 14 even though I'm not sure so much if I was really in love with him. I still have feelings deep down (Ian knows) because he was my first.

 

I'm definitely in love right now and I'm 16.

 

Though, you'll NEVER feel love as strong as you will when you hold your baby for the first time or feel him or her kick. That's love.

[MissDashwood]

I had a crush on a teacher when I was 13/14, never talked to him because I was too nervous, but paid attention to who he was in class and watched how he interacted with others and the crush grew to admiration because I found him to be truly a wonderful person. Because of it I pushed myself to get to know him even though I left that school and through the course of a further four years I can now say that being as close with him as I could get, I feel love for him now. I realized it was love, or darn close, about two years ago, but it's official. He is the first person I ever loved and though it doesn't look like there will be a "we" in the not-too-distant future, I'd like to hope that life will put him and me together one day as I think we belong.

[Ms. Babydoll]

I believe you're never too young to fall in love, I'm 13 and I believe I've fallen in love for the first time ever.

 

I've had plenty of boyfriends before but I've never said "I love you" to them and I've never felt that way about any of them before. But then I found Alex (my boyfriend who I've been dating for nearly 5 months now) and I believe I do love him, I said "I love you" to him, that's the first time I've ever said that to a partner of mine and I have all these different emotions for him which I've never felt for anyone else.

[Spugly Fuglet]

Romeo 14 years old

Julet 13 years old

 

what more can I say

[MissDashwood]

I think it's funny that this question is so heated these days because it used to be general practice that girls were married off between the ages of 16-23 nearly a century and beyond ago. Today there is so much controversy over protecting children and keeping them pure as far as possible and such, which is fine now as I agree that this is a different time period and teens do not have a mindset of being married off to a 30 year old man at 18. It doens't happen anymore and so teens have been slowed down by society.

 

It is true that society has turned the teenage adults of a Jane Austen novel (example) into "children" now who are not "emotionally mature" to handle "the hard expectations of love". For crying out loud, 40 year olds hardly know what the expectations of love are. This is a time when divorce is a quick out and men and women expect to be on the same playing field and so men do not have to "respect" women as gentle, delicate females because a woman would find that condescending now!

 

I know some girls back from high school who I would have said are complete nutters if they claimed they were in love, both because of who they were interested in as well as their interactions with the boy being superficial. A date would be twenty of their friends hanging around a tree at the park doing nothing. It's bogus. I don't believe in "dating" in that way that even 20-somethings think counts - clubbing and getting drunk, are you kidding me? The Real World is the worst broadcasting of the idiocy of 20-somethings.

 

I believe "courtship" is a more proper term for what should happen. Who needs to "date around" to "have fun while you're young" and waste precious time "mingling" when you could just be looking for someone for long-term happiness? That's what I intend to do.

 

And also, as for my story from above, I was 13/14 when I had the crush but I didn't feel "the twinges of love" until I was 16, but I can definitely say that the real feeling of love didn't come until I was 17.5 .

[AwdreeHpburn]

In some cultures, 12 year olds get married and start their families.

[MissDashwood]

There's a reason us poor girls get the plumbing in early, isn't there? And it ain't to just to bug us!

 

I was mistaken for 21 at my first job when I was 16. Though I do look 16 now, I'm 18.5! But I have a teacher friend from 7th and 8th grade and she says I act more like a 25 year old. My teacher friend I mentioned who I fell for, he's 27 now, she knows him and was aware that there was something between he and I, and even she says he and I are actually equal in maturity!

[Emptyami]

Love can happen at any age but just becareful...I was 12 when I began seeing my ex husband. He was 16 at the time. I thought I was in love..and I believe I was...however, he ended up being very abusive and now he is going to prison for child sexual abuse...so he is still messing with younger children...so I think I was a victim in more ways than I knew..just becareful.

[Ians Mommy]

There's a reason us poor girls get the plumbing in early, isn't there? And it ain't to just to bug us!

 

I was mistaken for 21 at my first job when I was 16. Though I do look 16 now, I'm 18.5! But I have a teacher friend from 7th and 8th grade and she says I act more like a 25 year old. My teacher friend I mentioned who I fell for, he's 27 now, she knows him and was aware that there was something between he and I, and even she says he and I are actually equal in maturity!

 

I pass for 19 all the time. I love it lol.

[hotsands]

Well if you were over 18 I'd say go for it. I wouldn't think too highly of an adult that would be willing to date a 13 year old.

[madden_lover]

I am only 16 and I am in love with a boy. I know that he is the one. I am for sure that he loves me back, I am also positve that we are ment to be, we are deffinitly soul mates. but I agree with some of you. I think love is based on maturity, and you know when love is real. Someone cant walk up to you and say oh you dont love him you are only 16. How could you possibly know what love is. But that isnt ture. Believe what your heart tells you not what everyone else tells you. I dont think there is an age limit at all. so just believe your heart and no one else.

[Azual]

I've been with my girl for 4 months and I got a gut feeling she is the one. You really can't put a limit on deciding whether or not someone does love.

 

I admit there will be emotional points in the relationship that will cause you to wonder about yourself - But if you sit down with your significant other and talk about it and they are the one... it will all work out.

 

I myself am in one of these tough times and I'm just waiting to see her again so I can get it straightened out. Guess that's my .02

[YabbaDabba]

Well, I think it all depends on the two individuals. I mean, I'm not saying 8 yr. olds have it all figured out, but for some people--kids, even--it's real.

 

For example, the parents of a girl I used to know, met when they were still in grade school. "I knew she was the one when she shoved me into a puddle of mud--then helped me right back up," her dad once told me.

 

He was joking around, but from their childhood stories, it's pretty clear that from about 11 or 12 yrs. old, they were 'together.' First in a childish, peck-on-the-cheek way, then as teens and then they got married.

 

That said, I think one's idea of love matures as you mature. Honestly, few of us are judging potential life mates by the same rules we used when we were 16.

 

So, yes, I do believe in "childhood" love, but I think it's only one facet of a very complex emotion.