I’m 37M and for the first time in my life I feel I can see how immature most guys are under 25. Making stupid noises, doing stupid shit for giggles, not emotionally available, irresponsible, not good at communicating, etc.
I couldn’t see this when I was that age but now I think I understand why girls always used to say guys are so immature and didn’t find you attractive. I coach HS swimming and the girls are way easier to coach and talk to. I prefer to coach them because I can actually communicate at an intellectual level. Its amazing to even at that age how much more mature girls are. It must have sucked growing up as a girl to deal with guys.
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I have met guys in their early 20’s who are quite mature, and guys in their late 30’s who are not. My guy friends growing up were the more mature type, and they were wonderful friends.
Not sure about most… I personally don’t really take boys under 25 seriously because… well most aren’t grown up yet and have a lot of fragility around their ego. Like ain’t nobody got time for you to be insecure over me making more money type of thing.
Same with sex. Under 25 mostly don’t understand what good sex actually is, so many wanna-be “doms”. Pass.
Nah , there were always mature men at all ages.
Yes, most women are told over their whole lives to excuse horrible behavior from men due to their immaturity and “boys will be boys” mentality. Girls are held to a much higher standard for behavior.
Frankly, making it to 37 without seeing this is appalling and demonstrates just how fucked up this is.
Not necessarily. Anyone regardless of gender can be immature, and age doesn’t necessarily mean you are mature. For me it comes down to whether or not they can act/respond appropriately based on situation.
I actually notice it much more as an adult compared to when I was a teen myself, probably because I was such an immature girl, lol. But, yeah – I see it with my friends’ kids, and they’re not even sexist parents (insofar as they try very hard to ensure their discipline is equitable). The girls are almost always waaay better behaved than the boys!
(Like, yes, there are always outliers – I was one of them myself, albeit in the opposite direction. But, on the whole – I would indeed agree with your generalisation, OP.)
No, not really. Myself and my friends were all pretty immature and messy into our early to mid twenties. We behaved better in school but that didn’t translate to the rest of our lives. Depends on culture/upbringing a lot too. I grew up and became responsible in spite of my family – my husband was raised to be responsible from the start.
Yes, and pretty much never.
I don’t think guys are immature at a younger age. I think some guys are immature regardless of their age.
I don’t see men as more mature because they are older. I see based on their actions. In terms of age, I think younger guys are just in a different stage than I am, but that alone doesn’t give enough to judge maturity.
I feel like some men never mature. But it seems that many men are more mature after 35 or so. It probably correlates with prefrontal cortex development rates (males are slower to mature).
It’s kind of interesting, I saw it as sort of a bell curve.
The last time I was single was when I was 26. Men under 30 seemed immature, but men over 40 seemed even less mature. Part of me wonders if the reason those men were interested in me was because they couldn’t find women their own age to take them seriously, but idk. It’s true that the mature ones seemed to be taken already.
This is all speaking generally, though. Lots of impulsivity and emotional unavailability from men in their 30s, too.
I had no patience for high school boys when I was in high school. My patience has not grown with time or age.
There is a pretty big leap forward among a lot of them in college, though. I noticed my male friends home for college over Christmas break freshman year were dramatically different than even the summer before we left.
You summed it up pretty well.
Boys mature later than girls, it’s science.
ETA that’s not to say everyone follows that natural pattern though. Nurture has something to do with it too.
Guys are socially allowed to grow up without maturing, the ones who do mature are like the exception to the rule. Especially emotional maturity. They have it reinforced to them over and over again that they don’t actually need to develop emotional skills, there are tracks in the dirt from other men that they can follow if they want to avoid it altogether.
If they grew up in patriarchal households where the load was unfairly unbalanced onto their Mom and girls in the family, they develop in a kind of bubble, like little princes. And then their sisters get used to being vigilant to everyone’s needs and anticipating when a man needs a boost, compensating for that lack of emotional intelligence, so they develop the opposite way too soon.
Some guys are mature at 17, some never mature.
Some guys are good partners, some guys will never be good partners.
I do not think men are a monolith, no
My husband was always mature beyond his years. We got married when he was 22 and had our first child at 23. He has worked hard so I can be a stay at home wife and mother. He is in the military and with moving around it makes it easy for me to be at home.
But on the other hand my son is 16 and my daughter is 13. She is way more mature in some areas then my son but then he is more mature when it comes to independence.
I don’t think there is any easy answer. I do believe it depends on the guy and in some cases the way in which he was raised.
When they start to take responsibility for their own self AND care for other people. I’ve seen younger men with maturity but they didn’t have good childhood growing up,the environment kinda forced them to think differently and be more mature. Also those men are often the ones who take the most responsibility for the whole family which means they carry a lot of burdens on their shoulders. On the other hand,I’ve seen men at 70 years old and still act stupid so age isn’t a big the factor when it comes to “maturity”,but life experiences is.
I think there are a subset of PEOPLE who are immature when they’re young because they’re young but I do notice that it’s permissable for men to continue like that into adulthood without being labeled as “crazy” or being called specific mental illness labels as an insult.