Scarleteen

I'm not planning on dating people anytime soon, but how old were people when they started dating? And does anyone have tips for asking my parents when they think I should start dating?

I was 19. At 18 I had someone that I would have been interested in dating, but he turned me down. Before that, I wasn't really interested in dating anyone: I had crushes, but I didn't really want to approach the person and ask them on a date, and they weren't people I spent a lot of time with to get to know them without going on a date.

Personally, I would not worry about talking to your parents and asking them for an age you "should" start dating. Maybe if you're concerned they wouldn't allow you to go out alone with someone, or wouldn't allow you to do so if you called it a date, it might be worth bringing up to find out. Other than that, I think you might as well wait until there is actually someone you are interested in dating. "Would you be okay with me dating someone?" is a really broad question; "I want to go on a date with Cam, who you have heard about and possibly even met," or "Jess, who you have heard about and possibly even met, asked me to be her partner," is a lot easier to respond to.

I haven't ever dated physically but I've been in several long distance relationships since I was 13

I started dating around 15/16 years old.

I think it's worth asking yourself when you want to start dating as opposed to asking your parents when they think you should start. You know yourself better than anyone else - your emotions, your perspective, your desires. If it's not something you want to do right now, then I'm not sure you need to ask them about it. If you decide you want to, then approach them and say something like, "I would like to start dating someone because I feel [insert reason(s) here] and I would like your permission to do so." I also agree with Kaizen, if there's someone specific you would like to "date" then talking to your parents about it will be a bit more straightforward.

I dated (for a fairly limited definition of dating!) first when I was about 12-13. At the time I was excited to do it, but I was very shy and didn't have great communication skills, or an idea of what sort of relationship I wanted; I made a lot of mistakes when I acted based on what I thought people in relationships needed to do.

I think Kaizen's thought about waiting until you have someone specific TO date before talking to your parents about dating specifics might be helpful! I don't know that it'll hurt to float out a general conversation about what, if any, thoughts and expectations your parents have around dating before you have a partner in mind, but at the same time it can be harder for parents to deal in hypotheticals than to react to a real scenario.

update: I suppose you can say ive dated physically now because my partner and I finally Met in person about a month ago and again on Sunday