How do I stop hating other teenagers?

[BrokenBoy]

As long as I could remember, I have always got along better with adults rather than people my age. Adults are more understanding and interesting than teenagers. Other teens extremely annoy me and I can't stand them. I can't relate to them at all. I only have 1 friend in the whole universe and he is a internet friend and a adult. Though I keep getting told by various adults that i have to stop hating all of the other teenagers.

1. Why should I? Why should I have to put up with these stupid morons!?

2. If I do decide to stop hating the others, how? It just seems impossible to forgive them.

 

[SunnyDay16]

Just because someone happens to be in your age group doesn't mean you're obligated to like them. Your interests and values might just relate to more adults than teens, which isn't a bad thing. However, it's also not good to generalize people. Not all teenagers are the same and not all adults are the same. *Generally* speaking, crappy teens grow up to be crappy adults.

It's good to find people who are similar to you in some, or even a couple, ways as that is how lasting friendships are built. Even if they have only one or two related aspects. Age doesn't matter. If you surround yourself with people that you have little to nothing in common with and don't enjoy conversations with, they're probably not people you will be able to connect with.

 

[BrokenBoy]

Just because someone happens to be in your age group doesn't mean you're obligated to like them. Your interests and values might just relate to more adults than teens, which isn't a bad thing. However, it's also not good to generalize people. Not all teenagers are the same and not all adults are the same. *Generally* speaking, crappy teens grow up to be crappy adults.

It's good to find people who are similar to you in some, or even a couple, ways as that is how lasting friendships are built. Even if they have only one or two related aspects. Age doesn't matter. If you surround yourself with people that you have little to nothing in common with and don't enjoy conversations with, they're probably not people you will be able to connect with.

Why do people keep telling me to get teenage friends then?

 

[SunnyDay16]

Why do people keep telling me to get teenage friends then?

It could be that they feel that by getting friends who are teenagers, you will be able to overcome your hatred for them. Of course, you'd have to find the right friends who you like being around, which means trying to find teens who maybe annoy you less than others and you have in common with.

 

[pamelaperejil]

I kind of think you're justified in hating teenagers, really. Stick to your guns.

 

[SunnyDay16]

I kind of think you're justified in hating teenagers, really. Stick to your guns.

Eh I would say yes and no. He absolutely entitled to hate what and who he wants, but since he's asking how he can stop hating other teens I've got to give my two cents.

The hatred is based off generalizations of an entire age demographic. Generalizations can be formed from our own experiences and I'm not invalidating his experiences. It's normal as humans to use our experiences to change how we view others, but writing off an entire group of people from generalizations isn't a good idea because there's got to be teens like him who have similar interests and are understanding/compassionate. He's not seeing them though or giving them a chance because he's expecting teens to be uninteresting and moronic from the get-go.

 

[Autistamatic]

From an adult perspective, most teenagers appear to be idiots, but there are rare exceptions and you may be one of them. I always got on better with people older than myself than my similar aged peers, but I also wanted to have a "normal" life. The only way I managed it was by learning from my observations and adapting. It's an NT dominated world right now, and we have the choice of doing our best to live by their rules, or ignoring those rules and being alone.

 

[pamelaperejil]

e. He's not seeing them though or giving them a chance because he's expecting teens to be uninteresting and moronic from the get-go.

Unless he is giving them a chance and they're proving themselves uninteresting and moronic on their own merits. Which doesn't seem to me to be outside the realm of possibilities.

 

[SunnyDay16]

Unless he is giving them a chance and they're proving themselves uninteresting and moronic on their own merits. Which doesn't seem to me to be outside the realm of possibilities.

Of course that's also possible and that's why I said earlier that he has to find teens who he actually likes being around. For that he has to figure out what he wants in a friend and find people who share things with him in common.

 

[ZebraAutismo]

Don’t bunch them all together some aren’t bad I have some awesome friends who are teenagers a couple or even NT. After today I do distain at SOME teenagers. BTW I find adults easier then teenagers as well.

 

[Streetwise]

As long as I could remember, I have always got along better with adults rather than people my age. Adults are more understanding and interesting than teenagers. Other teens extremely annoy me and I can't stand them. I can't relate to them at all. I only have 1 friend in the whole universe and he is a internet friend and a adult. Though I keep getting told by various adults that i have to stop hating all of the other teenagers.

1. Why should I? Why should I have to put up with these stupid morons!?

2. If I do decide to stop hating the others, how? It just seems impossible to forgive them.

Hate will cause physical illness it took me 40 years and severe stress to learn that

 

[Streetwise]

it's not necessarily just teenagers it's a selfish attitude that can be any people group ,I don't like what people do in general.
forgiveness is hard !!!!!!!!!!!! but it helps !!!

 

[Iamnotarabot]

I dont know your age exactly but I can relate to that.

In a lesser degree , but when I was younger I always interracted more with adults, I thought that many people of my age were immature and at hightschool the last year I realy thought I was with apes in class, I used to think that many people had no soul etc... I only have a very few friends aswell.

But at the same time I managed to know some nice people and interesting ones, so I am not as one sided.

And I guess at your age I wouldnt listen to any advice.

But I will try to give some anyway:

Try to find people that share some of your interest, that's a great starting point.
Sometimes people that are more quiet and not extrovert are also interesting and less interested in the meaningless social stuff only related to apperance and all of that.

In addition, maybe you also hate yourself as much as you hate other, and the fact tha you might be sad at the moment can cloud your judgement, I know that aswell because that year when I felt like I was surrounded by apes, my mental health was realy lower than it is now.

Now there is still a possibility that you are surrounded by idiots, I mean, that can be possible, thats very unlikely thought, and even if they are, hating someone at first glance is useless, you might learn that later that hate is bad for your health , trust me.


In addition asperger doesnt relate to their peers, I still didnt understand why but that's a common thing, so we are closer to older people when we are kids, maybe you hate them in order to protect yourself and not even try to interract with them.

And the irony is that now I am less mature than my peers, I guess we need to interract with people of our age to some degree, I dont know.

 

[onlything]

I could never relate to any of my peers while in school either. It only changed a bit before my senior year in high school when I changed schools and found people I surprisingly liked. I keep in touch with some of them even now. I would say, try to connect with other teenagers but if it's not working, don't force yourself. Right people will come in the right time, not sooner and not later. You may be told to keep trying to get along teenagers because people are worried about you - that you won't find friends and be lonely or won't be able to learn how to socialize properly(and also that it's a basic requirement in society to get along with people you hardly tolerate). But all this will come in time and there's no point in forcing yourself too much out of your comfort zone.

Your general dislike towards your peers may even last late into college years if you're going to go to any. Students can be as flighty or even more so than teenagers.

That is to say, people are people. Everyone has an individual personality and putting all people in the same brackets based on age or what-not is pointless. There are some people you will be able to relate to, although they may come later than you'd expect. And if you feel better talking to adults? Then talk to adults. There's nothing wrong in that.

 

[Pats]

When I was a teenager I didn't like people in my age group and my one friend was an adult. I preferred to sit in my room and listen to my music and paint posters. My mom kept insisting I go out with friends and the only kids that would give me a chance were the 'pot smoking hippies', so guess what I did whenever I went out!

 

[Adora]

I was the same while growing up and felt like I didn’t have much in common with others of my age group,even now at the age of 35 I still feel like I don’t have anything much in common with people I know in real life,I always had this feeling of being alone even when I was around other people and it’s been something I have lived with for a long time,another issue I had while growing up was I wasn’t into most of the trends the other kids were into which made me stick out even more and it didn’t help in the bullying apartment.

 

[OlLiE]

(1) you don't have to like them, just to tolerate them, they are there, it is going to be hard to avoid them entirely, there will be plenty of people in life that you won't like, learning to tolerate them will be a useful skill

(2) even getting internally 'worked up' when around other teenagers will create a 'mood', people will notice and find you weird/hostile, but worse than that the tension it creates inside you will wear you out, hating is tiring, so beyond tolerating other teens, you need to learn the art of 'not caring' and not letting it effect you

(3) be careful with befriending adults, despite what a lot of kids think these days, you are not our equals, adults have more life experience which means they can easily manipulate many younger people, especially those looking for affirmation of friends/adults

(4) externalising/projecting internal issues, i never really got on well with many people my age when i was a teen, i experienced it as a failure on my part, until one day i started blaming everyone else for being inferior, while it made me fee better in the short term, as described above, it has introduced a degree of negativity towards other people that has persisted and become ingrained in my personality 30 years on,

i am sure i would have been a happier person if i had learned to just accept that i was different and just made the best of it, there are people your age that you could get along with, that is just a statistical fact, by removing all your age pears you are doing yourself a disservice

 

[Major Tom]

Teenagers can be a challenging beast to tackle, but I've met a few on here that have blown my perception of teens completely out of the water. (At least in the cases I've mentioned). This really opened my mind and give everyone a fair shot, regardless of age or anything else.

 

[Progster]

Watch and observe people, some will stick to the main pack, but others will stand out as being different, or, in the case of teenagers, more mature, or deeper thinkers. Be friends with those who are most like you, and just ignore the others - don't hate them, they can't help being who they are any more than you can help being who you are - and leave them alone, hopefully they will leave you alone, too.

 

[Suzanne]

I guess when facing the truth, that the issue is with "you", rather than with them.

Most teens have it hard anyway, due to not being quite and adult, but not being quite a child either and hormones raging and thus, emotionally charged and when that happens, teens stick to teens and anyone different, is considered not worthy of their time.

I also, could not cope with my peers and today, as a much older person, I still cannot cope with my peers. My really good friend is in her 70's and I am 48.

I have always felt more comfortable talking with ones older than me, because like you say, they have substance about them and generally teens are just not like that.

I would shudder in horror, when I see teens together. I would avoid bus stops at school time, because of the fear of seeing them and yet, lol I was a teen too! I guess I felt at odds with them and this highlighted my own inferiority complex.