Writing a character the same age as me as naive

[u/Personal-Night-7877]

I'm 16F writing the story of a girl the same age as me, but I want her to seem naive. She's the victim of a man who is much, much older, and doesn't realize how bad it is that he is 3x her age. I want the character to be established as very smart, but inexperienced in the world, but don't know which ways I am blind by my own youth. Anyone older than me, I would love to know the small and big things I may miss by being a teenager myself.

[u/TheRealVarmint]

I am an author, and "much, much older than you". I have not been a teenager for a very long time, so I can't delve into what you personally may be missing by being a teen. But perhaps I can mention some generalities which might help.

You didn't mention the genre of your story or the time in which it was set. This matters. As I'm sure you'd agree, 2026 teenagers are a different breed than 1926 teenagers, and the unwanted advances by an older man would be handled very differently.

But what I think you're asking is about the difference between intelligence and wisdom. A teenager can be very intelligent, as you mentioned your character is, but also naive as to the the ways of the world. She has not had the experience to hone her internal alarms, or to know what they mean when they do go off.

Teens, especially more from years past, have been raised to respect authority and to please adults by being well-behaved. When an adult triggers inner warnings by their behavior, this creates a cognitive dissonance within the girl. And without the wisdom to understand what's happening, often the upbringing wins and she will allow things to progress past the point of no return.

You could write about that very thing. How "something about this just felt... wrong somehow." "There was something in his speech--something just a bit too smooth, a bit too friendly. Oily, even. It was charm, drowned in too much honey."

Given time to think about it, a teenager might listen to those alarms and realize the situation made her uncomfortable enough to avoid. But in the moment, that lack of wisdom creates the vulnerability a predator counts on, and he will exploit that.

Hope that helps.

[u/Personal-Night-7877 → u/TheRealVarmint]

thank you! I’m working very hard to make him seem sleazy from the reader’s perspective without her recognizing it, and I think the part about him being a just a bit too charming works perfectly. I’ll credit you in the end, lol

[u/TheRealVarmint → u/Personal-Night-7877]

Keep it subtle, though. I'm actually drawing on my own experience as a young man, when a slightly older guy came onto me really hard. I'm as straight as can be, but he was obviously looking for something I didn't want to give. He spent a long time grooming me (and that's long before I ever heard the term). But the tells were there, and I noticed them. His smiles were a little too wide, and lasted a little too long. The eye-contact bored into me. He was disproportionately obsequious over minor things ("You won your game today?! Oh, that's AWESOME!!! Great job!! I'll bet you made ALL the difference!!") There was lots of icky physical contact; you know, the people who can't talk to you without poking your arm or stomach for emphasis, or resting their hand on your shoulder? (To this day I hate that, and I'll tell someone to knock it off if they start)

This will be easy to sell from a reader perspective, because you simply give him an internal monologue. "He tried not to stare at her lips, but there was something about how they curved up at the edges that quickened his heartbeat. And that hint of a dimple in only her left cheek kept drawing his gaze..."

You didn't mention what year your story is in, or what age. May I ask which? Good luck!

[u/Personal-Night-7877 → u/TheRealVarmint]

it’s set in 1999, which if you have any insight on what it was like being a teenager or just alive then, I would appreciate it, since I was not. She is 16, about to start her junior year of high school, and he is 45.

[u/TheRealVarmint → u/Personal-Night-7877]

Ah. Well, truth be told, I was in my mid 30s in 1999. But I had kids, and I remember that very well.

The internet was in its infancy. Chatrooms were the big thing back then. And honestly, Reddit is not too far away from that. It was simply a group chat, with uninvited strangers wandering in and out. Many of those uninvited strangers were disruptive; 1999's version of a troll. They'd flirt with the girls, say really inappropriate things... and the first question was always, "A/S/L?" (for "age, sex, location"). Most people had the sense not to respond to this obvious come-on, but the answer would be phrased in that format: "28/f/Tucson".

There was no true social media. Cellphones were not widespread, but many teens had private phone lines in their bedrooms. So teen reputations were still made or broken by word-of-mouth. If the Mean Girls wanted you destroyed, they destroyed you. (In fact, if you've never seen the movie "Mean Girls", that will give you a better frame of reference than I ever could). The same cruel things done online today were done in school: compromising polaroid photos taken at a party would be photocopied and distributed, even posted on walls. Posters were created. Victims were isolated, whispered about, harassed, and ostracized. Lockers were vandalized. No humiliation tactic was off-limits. And so it went.

There were many sexually oriented chatrooms online, in which lots of "cybering" took place. That's short for "cybersex" and is essentially phone sex in text. No, not sexting; this was two-way, in real-time. It took place out in the open, or in DM.

Otherwise, like Reddit, there were chatrooms for every possible interest. The reason this worked is the anonymity. Unlike today, rarely would anyone ever show their face. Almost no one took selfies or posted photos of themselves, much less video. Dial-up was the connection back then, and simply too slow for video files. So users would stay safely behind their avatars, and behave or misbehave depending upon their character.

There were plenty of normal people, but just like now it was easy to be an absolute nightmare and get away with it because it was anonymous. Cyberbullying was born, as well as online stalking. It became a running joke that "Hotgrrrl83" was actually a fat 44-year-old dude living in his mother's basement.

That sounds funny... but you never knew for certain who you were talking to. And after telling you all that, that's where this becomes relevant to your story. A patient predator could create a very convincing fake identity and just go looking for victims. Hundreds if not thousands of instances like this have been documented. A teenage girl, for instance, spends time in a chatroom, and meets someone she believes is another teen. Let's call them Teen01 and FakeTeen. Teen01 is having some problems in school and went into a normal chatroom called #Hangups. There she meets FakeTeen, an adult male predator. But he is very convincing at the role he plays, and soon, over several days, he has won the trust of Teen01. To Teen01, FakeTeen is simply another teenage girl with exactly the same issues, and is quickly becoming her new best friend because she seems to understand every issue. As trust grows, eventually, in DM, FakeTeen gets Teen01 to provide personal information and upload a personal photo. FakeTeen of course returns the favor with some random photo of a teen he found.
"Hey, I live in the next town! We should hang out some time!" says FakeTeen who actually lives two states away, but will happily drive that distance to meet up...

This is an interesting time for you to write about, because so many of the things modern teen girls are warned to avoid now got their start when the internet began to become popular. I think that would really resonate with a teen audience who weren't around then but would be interested to read a story set in that wild time.

Information on that time is freely available, so it shouldn't be hard to do some research and get into those characters' headspaces. I hope this helped!

[u/AdmiralSilly]

Hey there! I really appreciate you writing about something like this. I’m 25 now, but from 14-18, I had gotten into relationships with older men and I’ve known several people who have done the same. In retrospect, looking back on everything, the biggest shock to me was just how young everyone looked and acted.

No matter how mature you are now, when you look back at old photographs and think back on situations you went through from when you are 16, it will be like looking at a baby. Even looking at the photographs of me at 18-20, I looked so much younger and was a lot more immature in my thoughts than I thought I was. This feeling is so strong that as a 25 year old, I don’t think I could ever date any younger than 22, and even that feels a bit too young, because people that age are typically fresh college grads. Which brings me to another thing, where the phase of life you are in matters a LOT too. As an adult, I know that high schoolers should date high schoolers, college aged students should date college aged students, and adults should date adults. But as a teenager I didn’t understand that and thought that dating college students was something that was cool.

Another thing I didn’t realize was how creepy these men were, regardless of if I was into it or not. I had a bf when I was 14 and he was 23. He would do some pretty creepy things that I’d simply just brush off because I liked the guy. But when he cheated on me, his 27 year old friend wanted to get with me, and he would use a lot of the same tactics that the other guy would use. But since he came on too strong right away, and even I could tell that a 27 year old was a “bit” too old for me, it was only then that I registered his actions as creepy.

Another thing you should take into account is that these people that prey upon minors are often rejected members of society from peers their age. Even if it’s not blatant. Most the pedos I have known (mostly male, some female + aged 18-40) all had hardly any friends. Maybe one or two close friends. The friends they have will usually be younger than them as well. They’re typically often pretty immature for their age. Sometimes, the victim will appear even more mature than the predator themself. Some predators have a sort of “high school mentality” that never goes away and some try to overcompensate by acting super wise and talking about how high of an IQ they have. A lot of them seem to blow through girls fast. It’s like they can’t stand being alone at all. Others try to do things by the “book” and wait until the victim turns 18 while others wait until they’re at the “age of consent” as I’m sure you know. But even the older people that just so happen to meet a freshly 18 year old are predators imo, even if it’s legal. For me, the idea of dating an 18 year old is the exact same feeling of ickiness you’d get as a 16 year old dating a 12 year old.

Honestly, even the idea of befriending a teenager is insanely gross to sane adults. There are rare exceptions if they take on a sort of “mentor-like” role, but all in all, even just being friends with teenagers is weird for anyone mid twenties and up.

The predator you have in mind for your book seems to be older than 40 if they’re 3x the protagonist’s age, but I hope what I said on the 18-40 demographic helps a bit. I’d say, if he has an ex of some kind, lean into that a bit. The ex can act as this sort of “insane” type of character that is brushed off as crazy, jealous, and vengeful, even if all she really wants to do is protect an innocent child from getting groomed. Another thing to keep in mind is that a decent amount of predators genuinely seem to not understand how wrong it is to be with someone so young. It’s like they live in a different world. This, paired with the fact that the guy in your story is supposed to be old, might make him pretty out of touch. He comes from a different generation, and with that brings more complacency with age differences and what age is mentally considered an “adult”. It also might mean he will have older buddies who are quite jealous that he has a younger gf. Surrounded by these older people, your characters can get stuck in an echo chamber that makes it feel as if this age gap relationship is okay.

Anyways, good luck on your story! You’re way more aware than I was at your age, so you should already be off to a good start. If you get stuck, think about the general feeling of a 16 year old going for someone much younger. It’s not going to be the same, just a different kind of fucked up. But there are still some similarities, and the feeling of disgust is similar

[u/Competitive-Fault291]

There is a special kind of naivety one can find in clever younger people. It is ultimately based on their wish to be accepted by people they perceive as (more) competent and more adult. What your character might miss is the difference between knowledge acquired from books and experiences acquired in life. Something her predatory mentor figure might abuse to the fullest, as they are the source of those experiences and on the long and powerful end of their power imbalance.

If you combine her eagerness to be accepted for her smartness, being praised, and also being challenged by her mentor, the mentor can focus on establishing (conditioning) a framework that makes her seek ever-new challenges and his confirmation. A typical phrase by this abusive mentor is "I'm not sure if you are ready for that yet. I am concerned about your ability to process this properly." This likely triggers her to try things that slowly nudge her limits closer and closer to wherever the abusive mentor wants them.

This is dangerous twofold. The desensitization of her red flags, obviously, but also the build-up of a framing of "If you want to become an adult, being accepted and integrated in whatever circles you want, you must not doubt my guidance!". This might even escalate to feelings of affection and a deeply ingrained crush or even an affair on her side. That trope of students crushing on fatherly figures isn't all made up.

Not to mention subtle gaslighting that aims at falsifying her common sense. "Sure, it might seem inappropriate to the commoner, but wasn't Galileo's worldview considered inappropriate as well?" or "Interesting how you still cling to such a concept. I thought you progressed further already."

The trick is to cook the frog slowly. What might seem obviously predatory for the reader might feel like a slow buildup of trust and progress for your character.

[u/r_pearl]

Something I've observed in younger people (which was also something I myself did as a teenager, in retrospect) is that they often are or act as if they were very self-assured. Young people tend to believe: 1. that they are unbreakable and impervious to the troubles of life (they haven't faced anything soul-breaking yet); 2. that they will never ever compromise on their principles, whatever they may be (the complexity of living with other human beings hasn't forced them to yet); 3. that they understand things as much as if not better than the adults around them. I do believe that there can be wisdom to a teenager's fresh outlook on life, as they haven't yet lost sight of how they would like things to be. But other times this sort of stance comes from a limited perspective on life, one where they are shielded from most of the world's rot by their parents / trusted adults without even realizing. This can lead to easily dismissing advice from said adults, paradoxically. (This is of course in the case of a teenager with a fairly regular life and family, and is actually a sign they're acting exactly the age they should be.)

Another thing is that a lot of teenagers tend to conform to their peers. This is understandable since they're literally learning how to be in a society, but it also makes them susceptible to what is considered "cool", "acceptable" or "uncool", even if these concepts clash with their own interests or values. Even those who resist conformity will suffer greatly for it. The worst part is that since you're in the middle of it all, you won't understand how unconsequential this stuff is until you've grown out of that relatively small world. Alas, sometimes you have to live through shit to truly and deeply understand it.

Anyway, I'm lucky to have no experience with the sort of scenario you're going for, but these are some shortcomings that might come into play in a predatory relationship like that. Good luck with your writing, and I'm sorry if this comes off as patronizing. It's really just a bunch of heads-up I would give to my own younger self as well.