While in high school, a person changes completely. In the grades leading up to your senior year, you learn about yourself and discover your interests and maybe even your future career. A freshman has just left an underfunded, depressing, public middle school to start this journey of new growth.

They will look back on themselves after graduation and think, “How could I have ever been so naïve? Why did I dress like that? Why did I think I was so funny?”

They will look at the entering freshman class and see them as children, despite only being a few years older. They know that by the time they are in their senior year, they will be unrecognizable. However, and despite this, some of these seniors look at those freshmen and see their homecoming dates.

In my opinion, some seniors try to date freshmen because they can use them. Then, throw them away once they have gotten what they wanted. I have seen people my age get pressured into sending explicit pictures and doing things they are not comfortable with because their older partner wanted them to.  Yes, there is the occasional couple who have just fallen for each other in difficult circumstances and there is mutual respect and love.

Unfortunately, however, most of the seniors who do this have no intention of having a healthy and happy relationship. They do this not only because they know that none of their fellow seniors want to date them, but because a younger, more impressionable mind is easier to manipulate, which is exactly what they want.

While the physical age gap is not the main issue, it has to be established and discussed as a problem. An 18-year-old having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old is a crime. In the state of Florida, the legal age of consent is 16.  So if an 18-year-old has sexual relations with a 14 or 15-year-old, it is considered statutory rape.  Even if both parties give their consent, that consent is not recognized by the law, and it is a second-degree felony that is punishable with up to 15 years in prison and 40 years for habitual offenders.

This issue expands way past the opinions and judgments of your classmates. If you are caught under these circumstances, you will be stripped of your right to vote as a felon and you will go to prison for a very long time.

The legalities of these affairs may seem redundant to go over as they are rarely enforced fully, it shows how serious this normalized issue is. The completely different maturity levels are what makes this so strange to me personally.

For me, it’s less about the upholding of the law and more about the emotional and ethical toll that kind of relationship can have on a person. Reach out to your friends, make sure they know that they are loved and appreciated so that they don’t accept validation from creeps. You are worth more than whatever a washed-up weirdo has to offer you.