There’s this gal who occasionally works at the local Subway (Marin and I tend to eat Subway for lunch; it’s almost cheap if you can split a foot-long with someone) that I think has a crush on me. Call it a hunch.

Aside from begging questions along the lines of how well you can get to know someone simply by chatting sporadically for a few minutes at a time (and then spiraling out to even larger questions such as how well you can actually know anyone, and how well you actually know yourself), this raises an even more basic issue: this gal is 18.

(If that didn’t strike you, then know this: I’m 24, and pushing towards 25. If it still doesn’t strike you, then I say: feh! you are more worldly than I.)

In high school I had this self-imposed rule that I wouldn’t date anyone younger than my sister. (I mean, I would have thought, that’s just sick!) As I’ve gotten older, my “acceptable dating age” limits have broadened (something that was inevitable, as my sister is a mere year-and-a-half younger than I)… but still! I know what I thought about male college seniors/graduates dating high-school-age gals (oddly enough, college gals don’t usually seem to go for high-school guys).

Even overlooking my prejudices, the idea of this cross-age crush gets me thinking on another line of thought: for being essentially the same person I was when I graduated high school, I am a completely different person. Despite going to college in my home town, and thereby missing giant swaths of the College Experience, I have still experienced a whole lot more in life than I had when I was fresh out of public schooling. And though none of those experiences were life-defining, their cumulative effect has been enormous.

How much is that experience worth? How big of a chasm does it make? Perhaps more importantly: how would dating someone who has already attended college affect one who was just starting?

Many years ago, now (though it really doesn’t seem that long to me), Katie wondered aloud what kind of advice I would give to incoming freshmen. Even after graduating, I don’t know what all I would really say. Imagine the weight added to that question if the people you would be advising actually listened to what you said!

…

I’m not even sure that anyone else will understand what’s eating at me, here. (That’s reasonable, since I’m not sure of it myself.)