18 Year Old Girls

As we get older, women are told, "the younger version of ourselves are coming. Coming to take our jobs. Coming to take our husbands."  I always thought that it was something that was said on Sex and the City.  I didn't believe this really happened in real life. 


Until it did. Until I was replaced by a newly graduated high school senior.  


I was amazed. Enraged. Upset. Confused. Baffled. Taken Aback.  Hurt. 


I couldn't understand how this little girl with limited life experience had gone in and swooped up this guy who I thought was a man who valued experience and knowledge in the women he was dating.  A guy who has had his fair share of experiences.  What the hell could they possibly have in common? What the hell could they talk about?


What I think hurt the most is that he never was forthcoming about it all. I had to find out from someone else. I had to find out that I was being phased out.  Because he wasn't man enough, or mature enough to tell me himself, even though he was given multiple opportunities.  


Then again, maybe in this instance it isn't the 18 year old girls who are the enemy.  Maybe it's the guys we are dating. They are the enemy because they choose to be immature. They choose to play with our feelings. They choose to act like they are 18 year boys who don't know any better and don't care to.  Maybe the enemy isn't the little girl who thinks she is charming with her stupidity; maybe it's really the guy who choosing her young stupidity over a woman who has a clue and knows her worth.  


I knew my worth. I knew I was exhausted of the dating game we were playing and even if that 18 year old hadn't stumbled in, I was throwing in the towel if he wasn't going to make our relationship official.  


She just gave me a better out. She gave me a better reason to see the guy for who he really was (or was trying to be again) and I was able to walk away without feeling like I had made a rash decision to end things.  


Maybe 18 year old girls are good for something. 


Maybe they are like these big road block signs, with the flashing lights that line highways during the summer. Maybe the 18 year old girls who come in and swoop up the men we are dating show us that we aren't with someone who is serious, committed, or interested in true worth and value.  Those 18 year old girls show us what we've really been dealing with all along and what has been hidden beneath an experienced facade of a boy posing as a man.