19-year-old college student gets 26-year-old grad student kicked out of their support group because it was meant for students 25 and under: 'She was 25 back when the semester began, so she was allowed to join.'

What difference does it make if she's 25 or 26? Are 26-year-olds that much more mature than 25-year-olds?

Society at large is getting really weird about age. When I was 25, a couple of 21-year-olds told me that I looked "good for my age." You would think that people who would've been in high school at the same time as you wouldn't think you were old, even if you were a senior when they were a freshman, but that's not the case. Young people today see someone even a year or two older than them as ancient, even though they're in the same stage of life. 

It's easy to see this kind of behavior as harmless, something all young people do, but sometimes it's not so innocuous. Sometimes people use ageism towards other young people to try to accuse them of being weirdos. After all, what do a 22-year-old and a 28-year-old have in common anyway? It's not as if they are in the same stage of life and often find themselves at the same social functions. Maybe it'd be weird for a 28-year-old married person living in the suburbs to befriend a 22-year-old single person living in the city, but isn't that relationship just called "having a sister"?