I needed to check the age of US high school and college (we have a different education system). I found that US high school is up to age ~18. Also, sports is not as important here as it is in the US and it’s not linked to education much (you can’t get a scholarship by being good at sports, high school sports teachers get the same salary as other school teachers and sports is generally not in the curriculum of colleges or universities).
In Dutch I’d say boys/girls is appropiate up to age ~16-18 (high school age in the US). From age ~23 it would be usually be women/men.
I think an alleged criminal offender of 18+ years old is usually called a man/woman in the news.
But a young looking male/female of 27 years old might still be called a boy/girl (in the 3rd person) when they’re going out clubbing, or when they’re working as a cashier or stock clerk in a supermarket, or as a waiter/waitress in a restaurant or a bar.
Edit: youth go in Europe is up to 20 years old nowadays. Some 10 years ago it was up to 18 years old.
Clothing also plays a big part on how people percieve/call you. I dress very casually (black sweatpants in winter, black short pants in summer), so in situations like queues where the clerk asks “who is next?” people have said “the boy over there” for me and half my hair is grey for God’s sake
Apart from matching “Girl” with “Boy” for kids, I often match “Girl” with “Guy/Dude” and so would have no issue using it above 20 years old (albeit never in a formal context).
It’s common to mention “a girl at work” like one would say “a guy at work”, for instance.
There are alternatives in Dutch as well, usually more informal and/or somewhat pejorative. And I think we have more alternatives for “boy” and “man” than for “girl” and “woman”.
“gast” (~dude), “gozer”(~dude, guy), “kerel” (~guy, bloke), “vent” (~bloke, guy), “knul” (~chap, lad, big boy, young man), “knaap” (archaic, ~big boy, lad, “Knabe” in German), “knakker” (man, mild pejorative).
“griet(je)” (~girl), “meid” (young woman, big girl, gal), “wijf” (woman, nowadays a pejorative, cognate of German “Weib” and English “wife”), “wicht” (girl, pejorative).
A group of befriended adult women may refer to the group as “de meiden”, so “meid” may be the Dutch female equivalent of English “guy”.
Context, context, context. In familiar usages, boy and girl are common in the U.S. Married couples, especially older ones, often have a boys’ night out (or “poker with the boys”) and a girl’s night out. Boyfriend and girlfriend have nothing to do with age in the U.S.; when my father was in his 70s and 80s (after his wife, my mother, died), he was his girlfriend’sboyfriend. In an ironic use, you may get a visit from a few of the boys if you annoy the Mob (I actually typed that as “Mod”—lol).
When I was in high school, we had boys track, boys gymnastics, girls gymnastics, and girls field hockey. Girls track was added in my senior year. These names were, I think, indicators that the teams were closed to the opposite sex. However, a rival high school had a female cross-country runner who did run on the boys team; she wasn’t quite good enough to make varsity, but she was high among the J.V. When girls track and cross-country were instituted across the region, she became one of the best on the girls teams. She made such an impression on everyone that my teammates and I had many conversations about her, some serious and some lewd (c’mon we were teenage boys).
Consequently, she inspired me to write a short story about her situation. I was 15 (a sophomore) at the time and was fourth best on the varsity, so I imagined her displacing me and how I would feel about it (this avoided the problem of adopting a female viewpoint). I titled the story ironically, “Fourth Man,” because all cross-country runners back then identified themselves that way (“I’m fourth man, what are you?”). This illustrates another context-specific use of “gendered” language.
(Of course, the story was rejected by 20 or 30 magazines, big and small. I still think the theme and construction were good, but the characterization and writing were deficient.)
male over the age of 18 years old living in a constant state of self-destruction
That may apply to some young men, but insurance companies in the Netherlands don’t charge men a higher car insurance premium once they are older than 23.
I suppose this is because insurance company statistics show that men over 23 don’t have a higher risk anymore to be involved in traffic accidents than the rest of the (adult) population.
Perhaps the mental transition from boys (child/juvenile) to men (adults) takes place between 18 and 23 years old for most male humans?
As for me, when I was 18, I was living in a student room. I just learned about go and I was spending most of my time on it.
When I was 23, I was living together with a young woman of the same age and settling down.
(now, 30 years later, our son is a 20 year old, living in a student room)
