Cricket, it seems to be just agemates.
The reaction from grade peers is a shrug, usually, and the reaction from their parents is curious awe (tempered by how socially astute they are).
We've tried to not 'force' DD to abandon age peers, but to explore for herself which peers are for which kinds of interactions and friendships. Our reasoning is that we can't possibly know which people have the capacity to meet which needs for her, ultimately.
She doesn't have a
lot of natural interactions with age peers, though, and most of the 'natural' relationships that do develop with them seem to involve those who are technically
not really age peers, but seem that way via placement in extracurricular activities. They often turn out to be about 2y older than DD, but are roughly compatible in terms of overall developmental levels. She has only three friends who are close to her in age-- one is nearly 14, one is 14 already, and one just turned 15. We consider those girls to all be "agemates" for DD, though she just turned 13. The one closest to her in age was 'grandfathered' in by virtue of a work-based friendship among parents, and the others just turned out to be compatible in terms of interests and temperment.
You've perfectly captured how DD sees herself. "Nothing special," basically. Her school almost treats her like a celebrity... but she doesn't really see it, because obviously the teachers aren't talking
about her in front of her (which is good, of course-- she'd be mortified). Similar kind of academic peer group; filled with chess champs, INTEL science competitors, math Olympians, and semi-professional musicians/writers. I actually love that group of kids; they're really great people and they do a lot of community service projects together and as individuals.
She "hangs" with all of them and winds up in about the top 10% of whatever class she's in. However, many of her high school teachers have expressed open delight to me that they've "been waiting for years" to have her in particular in their class, or that "they always hoped that they'd have the chance to work with a student so gifted" as teachers.
Even DD picked up on this last year and was giggling after the school picnic that Ms. {12th grade Brit-Lit teacher} seemed pretty crestfallen that Ms. {Barracuda that has a mutual love-fest with DD} was going to "get" her in AP Lit instead this year. Sweet girl now says to me...
Well, maybe I could take 12th grade Honors after AP, so that I could be in her class... So clearly she
is something different even from her peers in that setting, though she doesn't see herself as being exceptional. She is quite willing to label pretty much anyone older than herself in comparative and favorable terms-- often just taking their words for their competence, in all honesty. If a 17yo friend-of-a-friend tells her that they are a science geek and flash a little of what they (think) they know, well, she's happy to report that the person is "way smarter than I am." In other words, at 13, she hasn't yet figured out that
saying you're a budding Einstein isn't the same as
being one; a lot of these kids are mostly talk.
ETA: Now that I'm thinking about this more, though-- maybe she
has figured out that these people are fulfilling some inner need of their own, and she's calmly-- and typically-- putting that front and center, accepting those statements and even reflecting them flatteringly-- in order to put others at ease. It's one of those things that she does as a social Jedi. Maybe I need to ask her some questions about this particular aspect of things, which hadn't occurred to me. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't really think that someone who "doesn't like to read" and found it "hard to learn" couldn't have actually completed a double grade skip.
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(We tend not to overtly correct her, so much as ask probing 'why do you think so' questions.)
I'm just wondering why her self-image seems to be so vulnerable to this kind of thing. It's mystifying to us.
I've read your own posts about the dating issues here, Cricket, and I agree-- it's rough either way. We were initially really pleased that the agemate thing seemed to be working, and figured that was preferable to a first boyfriend being four years older. (Now, of course, we're seeing the downside of this version of Boyfriend 1.0.)
DD tends to
assume that her classmates will see her as "a little kid" (and maybe that third year in the gap makes the difference), though if it does we've not noticed it. Agemates that aren't academic peers are
really intimidated by her. It's still a taboo to have a girlfriend who is
this much smarter, apparently.
I really wish sometimes that she didn't have sibling-type relationships with the handful of HG kids she knows well. They're a better peer group overall than either agemates (which they aren't-- quite) or grade peers (which they often are). When I mentioned one of those young men to her recently, though, she wrinkled up her nose and told me that "He's like-- MY BROTHER, MOM." (Complete with teen glare of outrage.)
At this point, she's pretty much writing off the entire "boyfriend" thing, though, so that may be an ultimate side benefit to this situation. LOL.
