The Law as it Pertains to 16-Year-Olds

Nothing productive ever transpires between two 27-year-old males suffering from pangs of arrested development. For the sake of this blog, I'm somewhat forced to throw myself to the wolves and admit that I was part of the following conversation. However, I am still equipped with the option to protect my friend Jason's anonymity. In the interest of not feeding him to the wolves, I will refer to Jason as "Justin" throughout the remainder of this blog.

The following conversation is drastically paraphrased, but the gist is totally intact.

Trust me.

Justin: I was talking to a few people from work the other day. I kinda painted myself in a corner. I was trying to say that the average girl is at the peak of her physical beauty at the age of 16 or so.

Adam: You think? Not like, 21 or 25?

Justin: Some of them, sure. The older you get the more you know what makeup works for you, what clothes are most complimentary, some girls mature better than others...

Adam: (giggling) ...They're not so damn giggly.

Justin: Right. But physically speaking, the average girl is at her physical peak in high school.

Adam: Which made being a high school boy pretty damn difficult.

Justin: And for a lot of girls, we think of them as teenagers for the rest of our lives. I haven't seen Jenna Keith since 1998. I'm sure she's changed a bit in the last nine years--

Adam: --A few haircuts. Her clothes are probably different.

Justin: (pauses long enough to consider the stupidy of Adam's interruption) Right. A lot about her has probbaly changed. she looks more like a 27-year-old than an 18-year-old. But when I think of Jenna Keith, I think of Jenna Keith as an 18-year-old. So if somebody came up to me and showed me her high school picture, I would probably look at it and think, "yeah, she was pretty hot." But then, I'd be a 27-year-old guy looking at a photograph of a 17-year-old and everyone would think that I'm some sort of pervert.

Adam: Yeah, but it's an old picture. That girl's not 17 anymore.

Justin: Does that matter? If some guy gets caught tomorrow downloading child pornography that was created in the 70's, is that legal? No one would think it wierd for me to have a crush on some girl when we were both in high school, but I haven't seen her in almost 10 years, so when I think about her, I'm thinking about an 17-year-old girl.

Adam: Yeah that's weird. I wonder what would happen if you took a nudie picture of your high school crush?

Justin: Did she pose for it? Or is this a photo taken while hanging from the treetops with a telephoto lense?

Adam: (laughing, but also creeped out) No. You guys are dating or whatever. It's a consentual picture. Like "Titanic."

Justin: That was a drawing in "Titanic."

Adam: I know. I'm not speaking directly about the medium, so much as the emotional resonance throughout its creation. She's 17. She's nude and you keep the picture. Twenty years later the cops suspect you have kiddie porn, they bust down your door and find only that one picture. Can you have that picture in your possession? Is that allowed?

Justin: I dunno. Does it matter what your relationship to the person is? If you know them, can you take whatever picture you want?

Adam: I doubt it. If you could, there would be no more "dirty uncle" stereotype. But also, there's got to be some line, right? I'm pretty sure my mother has pictures of me peeing into a fountain when I was five.

Justin: Are you tastefully peeing into the fountain?

Adam: Is it possible to tastefully pee into anything? Is that what defines underage porn? How tasteful it is?

(Both pause uncomfortably while thinking about the direction the conversation is going.)

Justin: Besides two sets of parents not being happy about the nude stuff, there's nothing legally wrong with two 16-year-olds taking nude pictures of one another, right?

Adam: Until you turn 18.

Justin: Then it becomes porn? What if that girl turned out to be your wife? What if you took a nudie picture of her when she was 16, you stayed together, married, saved all your photographs and that was one of them. Is that child pornography?

Adam: Does it matter if you knew the person or still know the person.

Justin: Yeah. Like if you and I both got married--

Adam: To each other?

Justin: No. You and I get married to two seperate girls. What if on our wedding day we were both given a nude picture of our wife as a 16-year-old. But let's say I had known my wife since we were 10, but you hadn't met your wife until you were 25. Is there any difference in the photographs then?

Adam: I'm pretty sure that two 17-year-olds who are having sex have to stop once one of them turns 18, which would be the worst birthday present ever.

Justin: They have to stop until they both turn 18?

Adam: Yeah. It's like the adult swim break at public pools. Everyone's having a fun time, then the lifeguard blows the whistle and the kids have to pause the fun for fifteen minutes. Except with the law, it's much more than 15 minutes.

Justin: That's retarded.

Adam: Well okay, it's not the best analogy, but it's close.

Justin: The law is retarded, not your analogy.

Adam: You don't have nude pictures of any 16-year-olds do you? I'm asking in case the cops question me.

Justin: Not that I know of.

Datred

So everyone's looking for what?
A house? A car?
We all eventually want two kids? Two-and-a-half kids? Two-and-one-third kids?
A dog? A cat that gets along with the dog? A bigger television than the neighbor?

I'm in competition with everyone. I don't usually watch more than eight hours of television a week, but dammit I want a bigger television than you. I don't drive more than two miles a day to work, but damned if I don't want sweet suicide doors on my car.
Why?
Because your car ain't got suicide doors.

I'm willing to pay thousands of dollars I don't actually have, just to get my grubby paws on a master's degree that says I'm smarter than you. A piece of paper that will prove once and for all who's boss.
Unless you have a master's degree from a school that's better than mine. If that's the case, I'll challenge you to some physical activity of which I can beat you.
Unless I can't beat you. If you out-wrestle, out-swim, out-box or out-javelin me, then I'm going to start dating someone and that someone will be better than whoever you're with... if you're with anyone at all.

And this is where I've seen a lot of battles come to a conclusion.

First of all, I can't explain why - even amongst friends - competition arises. I don't explain why so many people want things they can't explain their desire for. I don't know why two people who might have taken baths together, gone to prom together or played in the same band with one another, would ever be compelled to silently and subtly battle for the upperhand.
I can hear you asking, "Adam, if two people are silently and subtly competing for a better overall existence, why are you so sure there's even any competition?"
Truthfully, it's because I've won and lost many of these battles myself.
I want more than any of you've got and whether you'll admit it or not, you want more than the next guy over.

I've noticed over the last few years, as my generation moves away from toys and clothes as examples of primary status symbols moves towards (*gasp* dare I say...) family and careers that there's a whole new brand of angred and hostile "Haterade" out there and it's getting tossed all over people's backs like they just won the Superbowl.
Dater hatred. "Datred" for short.

It happens all the time, two friends drive to work together, play raquetball, work out, share each others Slurpees, invite one another to their home for tickle parties and "Grey's Anatomy", whatever it may be.
Then one of the two friends goes out on a date, leaving the other one at home to decide whether Izzy or Meredith is cuter - alone.
At first it's okay. No feelings hurt and it's a chance to dish and gossip because - let's face it - most first dates don't end up turning into wedding bells. The second friend is totally supportive.
But, alas (or is it "alack"? Maybe lo and behold? Yeah, I'll go with "lo and behold")... Lo and behold, the first date turns into three, four, eighteen, nineteen dates. And all of a sudden "Grey's Anatomy" alone isn't so cute.
The first friend is happy. Finding someone to go that extra mile with is a comforting feeling. Being inside a relationship is great and safe and somewhat relieving.
But to every ying there is a yang. And more times than not, two friends aren't dating anew at the same time. Either Friend #1 is newly dating and the other is already in a relationship, or Friend #2 is hitting a dry spell.
And if Friend #2 is hitting a dry spell, Friend #1 needs to be very careful how to proceed because the thin ice of friendship underfoot is cracking.
No one wants to see their friend miserable, but misery does love company, make no mistake about it. And there are a lot of people out there with the mentaility that if "I can't be happy, I damn sure don't want anyone around me to be."
So what happens to our hypothetical duet if one suddenly finds romantic happiness and the other is draggin' ass in the dried desert sands of love? Sometimes nothing happens. Friend #2 smiles through the pain, wished for the best and makes due.
But other times, "datred" happens.
Datred sneaks up and jams a big ol' burr in between the saddle of friendship and the horsie of fairness.
Datred ain't nothin' but pointed jealousy at a happy couple.
And there's not a whole lot anyone can do about it. Jealousy happens and everyone has just got to deal with it. You're no different and neither am I. I get jealous all the time.
I wish I had Ryan Cabrera's hair.
I wish I had Tom Waits' voice.
I wish I dressed like Beck.
I wish my parents swam in the same gene pool as The Gyllenhaals.

See? No one is immune and no one is perfect. But whether you're a dealer of datred or just snort it sneaky-style in a nearby alley, you'd be best served to remember that everything passes. Everything evens out.
And there's always a first date around the corner.

The Daring Devilish of Dated Damsels Dueling

Sometimes our lives twist and turn in ways we cannot possibly imagine and therefore cannot defensively ward off.

A week ago, my current girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend went to see 'Marie Antoinette' together, after which they planned to have dinner. I had nothing to do with this outing, as a matter of fact, I was unaware of its development until a day or two before it was - as Young Joc might say - goin' down.

Imagine this for a moment, okay? An old girlfriend chatting with a new girlfriend without moderation by me whatsoever. And I let it happen. Quite pointedly, I ended up encouraging it, which in hindsight seems like a foolish thing to have done.

I write about it here in the hallows of MySpace because this very site had quite a lot to do with how this all came to be. Y'see, both ladies are very kind souls, with little jealousy or ill-will toward most people. Therefore, upon their sporadic meetings within the last month, they became friendly (not friends, mind you, just friendly) quickly and comfortably.

This, frankly, is to be expected amongst women. Women generally hate each other. That's why you always see one of them haging out with, like ten guys. To the undiscerning eyes however, you'd think these two hypothetical girls were best friends. After a series of compliments on shoes and purses and hairdos, one girl will leave the earshot area, leaving the remaining girl to rip her to shreds on just about everything.

"Can you believe her? She's so two-faced. I just can't stand her. And who is she kidding with that dress? Does she know her fat ass is hanging out the back of it?"

Ouch.

The fact is, I'll never know how these two girls really feel about one another. Neither of them talked much about the encounter and I dared not ask. Added to which, they are both too respectful of my feelings to complain about each other to me.
Or maybe they really enjoyed each other's company. Who knows? *
How did this all happen, you ask? Well, the damndest thing... neither of the girls especially wanted to hang out with one another, but their politeness trapped both of them into a Thursday date.
It always starts with drinking, doesn't it?
Yes.
It does.
Both girls were drinking at a party and felt it acceptable to act like dawgs-4-life. They exchanged phone numbers in their drunken state and New Girlfriend texted a courtesy thank-you the next morning to Old Girlfriend.
Slightly confused by this action, Old Girlfriend flippantly invited New Girlfriend to be MySpace friends.
People, if you can't see the enormous social movement that this website has wrought on the world, you need to wake the fuck up. Months ago, I railed against the vagueness with which our society defines "hooking up". Is it kissing? Is it marriage? What is it? Well, hooking up ain't nothing compared to "friendship" versus "MySpace friendship".
The long-and-short of it is, Old Girlfriend doesn't pay too much attention to MySpace and has any number of people as friends on it. New Girlfriend has mostly close friends and thought it strange that Old Girlfriend thought their relationship was further along than it was.
Wanting to make the thing honest, New Girlfriend e-mailed Old Girlfriend with the suggestion that they hang out and get to know one another.
So what could Old Girlfriend do? Say no? That wouldn't be very nice.

And remember, no one is nicer than girls trying to put on an act.

And where the hell was I while all this was going on? I must have been playing Xbox or relacing my shoes or some damn thing, because it was only after I tried to make plans with New Girlfriend on Thursday that I was informed of her filled schedule... with one of my best friends.
Shit. What information do they have on me that could come back to haunt me?
Shit.

Shit.

So this is weird, right? Shouldn't I be able to veto this?

The best part of it all was on Thursday afternoon, when I talked to both of them seperately, they both tried subtley weaseling out of this whole mixed up situation.
"Adam, you're bothered by this aren't you? I'm gonna cancel. I'm just gonna say I can't come."
"Adam, does this wierd you out, because I can totally just come up with some reason not to go."
To both of them I just crossed my arms and smiled, like a hog in shit. How deep that shit would end up being, I still haven't found out.

Remember when you were younger and you came home from school to find your hidden stash of whatever you didn't want your parents to find, found? Whether it was porn or pot or food or slutty clothing or a corpse, we all had something hidden in our rooms we didn't want Mom and Dad to find. But Mom and Dad always found it and we, as good little monsters, would sit in our room waiting for the thunder to be brought down upon us.
Would I be grounded for a month? No allowance for a year? Extra chores? No more car? No more t.v.? No more flute lessons? Oh God, what did they have in store for me?
And most of the time, our parents did come up with a punishment, but every once in a while... they didn't.
Nothing.
Not that day, or the next or the next, or ever. But they knew. They found the pot, the mini-skirt, the dead body... they knew. And the waiting for the punishment was agony.

It's been a full week and neither girl has mentioned any details of their nearly five hours together.

I have lost complete control over what goes on around me.

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* In typing this, I can feel both girls chomping at the bit to defend themselves. Hackles up! Hackles up!

Dating in China

I went on a date last October. I've been on a few since then, but none quite like this one. I've relayed my experiences to a few members of my family, but until now I kept the bulk of the details under wraps from most of my friends.
Enough time has passed that I doubt I'll face any reprocussions.

And if I'm wrong... well, that might be kinda funny too.

* * * * *

I'm moving to China.

In Chinese culture, the responsibility to mate does not fall onto the shoulders of the man and woman in question, but on the families of the man and woman in question.
I like this idea. Dad did a pretty good job picking Mom and Mom did an equally good job picking Dad and so... I pretty much trust their opinions. But more than my trust of their collective opinions, it would save me from having to go on any more dates like the one I went on Saturday.

I'm trying this "traditional dating" thing with a girl I barely know (which, in itself, is one of the familiar traits of "traditional dating") and decided that the first date went well enough to warrant a second.
Everything seemed to align itself perfectly. On the phone the night before, I told Casey (that's my date's name, Casey.) that I had friends coming in from New York and I'd like to meet up with them after dinner. Not wanting to be rude or give the impression that I put Casey second, I told her that I'd love for her to meet my N.Y. friends. She accepted the invitation and added that it was funny I mentioned my friends because she too had buddies visiting from out-of-town and tomorrow was their last night.
It was my bright idea to suggest we start our night eating dinner with her friends while capping it off with mine.
Voila. Perfect.
Everything was in order.
We decided to head into Boston's illustrious Back Bay area to eat at a seafood restaurant.

What Casey didn't think to tell me and what I didn't think to ask was how old her friends were. This prior knowledge might have asuaged the look of shock that crossed my face when we arrived at the restaurant, and two 40-year-old Brits greeted us at the door.
Kisses all around.
As it was a "last-night-in-America" get-together, it wasn't only Casey and I joining the two Brits but two other couples and some oddball who I believe to be a spinster as well.
We sat down and immediately everyone ordered wine.
First of all, I like sodapop, okay? I do. I wanted a Dr. Pepper. But everyone was wearing argyle sweaters or carrying fancy clutches (or should I say, "clutching fancy clutches") I decided I'd have to settle for a glass of water and get the Dr. Pepper later. I told the waiter that "I'll just have a water" and quickly added "...for now" in hopes of staving off a judgemental glance from him after the other eight people around me all ordered wine.
I'm sure the waiter either thought I was a recovering alcoholic desperately clinging to sobriety amidst my wine-guzzling mates or that I was years younger than I looked and couldn't yet drink legally.
It should also be noted that wine goes through me like a Nascar in the final three laps of the Indianapolis 500. I drink the stuff like it was grape juice and I imagined myself, at some point, calling the Brit wife a "tart" and taunting the spinster to "get out more" in a wine-induced frenzy of indecent behavior.
Water it is.
Then came the dinnertime conversation.

Being 25 is an extremely awkward age.
Being 15 was physically awkward, but being 25 is socially, the most awkward I can remember feeling. College kids have all turned up their noses at my supposed neveau professionalism, but I'm so new to my post-college existence that I haven't the establishment that 30-year-old members of society have. I'm like Oliver Twist out here!
Look, if you wanna talk about sports or movies or Eastern seaboard ghettos, I'm all over it. Unfortunately, the Brits, the spinster, a married couple who were both balding, and two remaining completely nondescript human beings decided to speak about such barn buring topics as the Roman tyranny over England centuries ago, energy resources in Belgium, and the best outlets of information throughout the globe. *
There are about eleven people on earth who would find it uninteresting to learn that 24 hours earlier I, me, Adam - personally shook the hand of Bruce Springsteen - and seven of them were sitting at this Goddamned table! I spent the bulk of the evening praying that no one ask my opinion on whatever topic was currently being discussed. It was like being in Mr. Averbach's 10th grade history class all over again. I kept coaching myself, prompting myself in hopes of remaining invisible amongst the other eight:

Smile Adam, smile Adam.
Don't forget to nod. Nod knowingly, Adam. Keep nodding.
Oooh! The speaker is looking you in the eye; quick! Avoid eye-contact! Avoid eye-contact! Goddammit, look elsewhere! Find something on the table that needs your attention NOW!
The fork! Fiddle with the fork! Keep fiddling.
Drink some water. Drink some more, but not too much. Don't finish your water before they all finish their wine because you'll have to ask for more water and remind everyone that you aren't drinking wine.
Alright, enough time has passed. Look at the speaker again.
Smile Adam, smile Adam.
Don't forget to nod...

...and so-on.

I realized something about Casey. She's extremely sophisticated. She's kind, but also extremely regal, which made me wonder if she thought I was regal, which we all know I am not. For all I knew, I still had a piece of beef jerky stuck in my teeth from lunch. How sophisticated can I be that I not only eat beef jerky, but occasionally run the risk of allowing it to remain in my teeth from one meal to the next?! But even Casey, who apparently befriends 40-year-old resource industrialists from London, had little to say during the dinner, which meant that she and I said very little to one another, because Lord knows I was so afraid of being exposed as a doofus I dared not ask Casey about her favorite shellfish.
I took every chance I had to make some sort of comment, interject with some witty one-liner. I even danced with the idea of saying things with a British accent, but I was sure to have embarrassed myself had I done so. Instead I spent most of the dinner hiding my frequent yawns.
And when not hiding my yawns, I spent the remainder of the dinner in tears, because the spinster kept cracking chunks of lobster into my retinas. It took all the self-control I could muster to refrain from leaning in close to the woman and calmly suggesting that her eating habits are why no one will ever love her. She seemd to really like me, however. She kept deferring to me while she talked and nudged me when she thought something was funny.
It was because of this that I opted not to crush her soul.

The lovely night ended with the check. I had decided early on that I would not be paying for Casey's meal tonight. Technically, she owed me a meal (as we decided on the first date which I paid for) and each meal was, like $30. That's not second-date money. That's engaged-to-be-married money and none of you will convince me otherwise. The Brits pulled open the check (with a final tally that topped $350.00) and asked if we all just wanted to split the final tally nine ways...

!...
...?
(no, I was right the first time)...
...!

...I'm not cheap, okay? If you know me, you know that I'm looser with money than I should be. But these people got wine, champagne, and dessert. Heck, the spinster got a $50.00 lobster dish! And I had just spent a good ten minutes thinking about what I'd owe on the bill while pretending to listen to the balding woman discuss her hiking trip in Zion. I hade a crabcake combo and water.
That's it.
$29.00 including tip.
But the male Brit said, "if we add in tax and split it equally it should only be about $45-$50 bucks."
I almost choked on the last portion of my sixth water.
Shit. Pardon my language, but shit.
How can I get out of this without exposing myself as a cheap, teary-eyed, MTV-watching, AA member? Then it occured to me: the spinster didn't drink champagne, nor did she have any dessert. That stupid spinster was gonna get me out of this mess.
"You know, I don't know that everyone got dessert." I say.
"Yeah, and I didn't have champagne either." The spinster piped up.
THE KICK IS UP... AND IT'S GOOD! Yesss! Thanks spinster. You just saved me 20 bucks.
I spent exactly $29.00 not a penny more.

Dinner didn't end for another 45 minutes after we paid the check (it never does) and it was kisses all around when we all parted, but I had had it by then.
My hand was out, shake it if you want, but there will be no kisses.
The dinner took over two hours longer than I had planned, so we ended up not meeting up with my New York friends as planned (I saw them the next day though). Instead I drove her home on a rainy, dreary night. And if you feel like you know nothing about Casey after this entire story, it is because I too, know nothing about her.
Essentially, the second date furthered nothing between us. I don't know if I'll go on a third date with her, but I do know that if we happen to make arrangements, we're going bowling.
You hear me?
Bowling.
Followed by pizza slices.

And if she doesn't like it, she can go to China where they'll take care of all of this stuff for her.

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* The general concensus was that the best informational resource is found in the BBC network followed by England's newspaper The Gaurdian. No one seemed to even consider MTV News when I brought it up.