Right. Which is why I don't need a cell phone, lol. I already have an answering machine, thanx. The only reason I'd want a cell phone is for the immediacy. And since I don't care about immediacy, I let my voice mail get the calls. Why on earth would I double/triple my phone bill just so I can have 2 sets of voice mail? The emporer is not wearing any clothes.

Much less 37 year olds shouldn't be dating 19 years olds--they had been dating 4 years! and lived together. She was far too young for that.

This girl bacame an adult while dating this guy and realized she almost missed her young adulthood in this inappropriate relationship. Luckily she woke up and will now be able to go out with her friends and people her own age, do the things 23 year olds do.

Maybe your friend can do the same thing: go out with people his own age. Find people who are in the same stage in life and forge a real relatioship based on a partnership, not an unever power trip.

You seem TOO involved in the personal details of this. And judgemental of the girl...

I think you like your friend and want to be his girlfriend and are trying to walk the delicate tightrope between supportive friend and girlfriend. You want to pull that mythical act of merging from supportive friend right into replacement mate. Has it ever really been pulled off? It didn't even work on Seinfeld.

So, (1): stop judgeing this girl through your jealous glasses. (2) stop trying to decided what to do to get this guy and back way off.

Plus, that mature 19-year old is STILL immature compared to how mature he'll be at 29. ANYONE at 19, no matter how mature relative to the rest of society, is not finished growing emotionally. She is immature compared to her uptimate adult state. The brain doesn't finish growing, making final neural connections til 25. Those last neural synapses to fill in are in the critical thinking part of the brain. Someone under 25 simply does not have the physical brain connections to make critical decisions, much less the experience or emotional maturity.

any 37-year-old who is seduced by the charms of even the most beautiful 19-year-old enough to let her come live with him is a pathetic loser. I.e. someone who sacrifices likeness of minds and intelligent conversation for a svelte 19-year-old body.

***Or else, someone who is intimidated by women who are more mature and needs a 19-year-old idiot single mom to preen before, so that he may appear manly to himself***

The evidence now is strong that the brain does not cease to mature until the early 20s in those relevant parts that govern impulsivity, judgment.

Control and moral judgment is the last part of the brain to mature, usually not until the early 20s.

why is her child living with her parents? Why sin't SHE doing the job of parenting her own child?

and I think we're seeing a deep deep part of Barb surfacing: she is getting closer to saying she doesn not like pural marriage, it is wrong for her. She's surpressed it for a long time, but we're starting to see it.

That's part of the attraction of Big Love, it's starting to show that people are doing things because they always have, NOT because of their beliefs or morals. The push has been so strong, they've lost sight of the reason and the push is now it's own dynamic apart from the reason.

Well of course there are differences between different ages. And of course comparing age IS very different than comparing race or religion.

Scientists studying brain development have continuously shown that humans don't mature til mid 20s and there is a LOT of difference between a 19 yo and a 40 year-old. The 19 year old's brain has not finished developing. The synapses connecting the critical decision making parts of the brain haven't connected yet.

In contrast, we'd all agree that medical research has shown there are no differences in the brain structure or capabilities between races or between religions.

The government has no right to legistate marriage between different races or religions, but DOES has a right to limit marriage with age requirements.

Visit any medical research site and do a little searching. The latest MRI research of brain strucure and synapses (the nerve connections) reveals that the final connections and ultimate function don't mature til the early 20 to mid 20s. And the last part of the brain to develop is the critical decision making section. I didn't base this on what I think or feel or observed among friends, but research at medical and physiological web sites.

Is 37 and married to a 42 year old man.

To write a math book trying to make math interesting to girls my saying they can use math to buy purses. That's just giving into the myth that math is boring.

Math is exciting and we can get more kids, boys and girls excited about it by being honest. The payoff isn't getting a new purse, it's cracking a complex puzzle. In science and math, the ultimate goal is not to use that knowledge to acquire more superficial material items, but to cure cancer, save the fish from overfishing, end air pollution, stop poverty. THAT is the payoff of learning curiosity, exploration, theorizing in math and science: feeling good about making the world a better place. Getting a new purse? Highly overrated, expecially in this world.

yeah ,but...

She IS married, to a guy 'bout 5 years older than she.

She's just talking for the sake of selling tickets to her movie. She IS married to a PEER, agewise. so all that "20 year her senior" stuff is just made up to sell hollywood tickets.