So I was writing a scene for a story of mine and it starts off with these two guys who are roomates: Trae; a 17-year-old, tall, lanky guy with a few facial peircings and spiky hair, and Vander; a 15-year-old, short, sarcastic loner. (this story sounds so original summed up this way) Anyway, Vander got into some trouble with a few other kids that day, one of which was a girl that Trae had just recently become aquainted with, and Trae throws in a few crude comments out her--he's a very openly perverted kinda guy when he's with friends--and I was about to right Vander's responce and hit a road block. This might sound pretty bad, but is it too much to assume a teenage boy like Vander wouldn't notice that kinda stuff? I mean the girl he was with isn't particularly attractive or anything. I'm not saying all guys are like that, but at the same time I'm not going to have Vander yelling at Trae about how he should be more respectiful to girls or anything like that either. Would it be too out of place for Vander to call him a perv or something? I know he's my character and I know him best and all that, but I don't know much about 15 year old boys...
All 15 year old boys are not stamped with the same die from the same stock. That's old enough he could pass for an adult in many ways - or he could be completely naive and childish. Know your own character as an individual. Of course, it helps to know, or to have known, fifteen year old boys. Ideally, that would impress upon you the vast range of behaviors to be found among them.
You still haven't really told us enough about them for us to assess. "tall, lanky guy with a few facial piercings and spiky hair" doesn't tell us much about his personality, so all we really know is "he's a very openly perverted kinda guy when he's with friends," which describes probably the overwhelming majority of guys. As much as your question is dependent on the personalities of the two individuals, it is also dependent upon the relationship between the two of them. Vander might notice or not notice. If he does notice, he might care or he might not care. If he cares, he might say something or he might not say anything. Also going into the equation would be whether Trae would care about Vander's opinion, and whether Vander would be willing to suffer any reaction Trae might have. I'm also not entirely sure what this response is that you're contemplating. What, exactly, would Vander notice? I think you're saying the girl in question is not attractive, but Trae makes some sort of sexually suggestive comment about her. Are you asking whether Vander wouldn't notice whether the girl is attractive? Or are you asking whether Vander would notice that the lewd comment was inappropriate? Or didn't make sense because the girl would need to be attractive for him to say such a thing? (BTW: She wouldn't.) What would Vander accomplish by calling Trae a perv? Would that even upset Trae? A 15 year old boy might call a peer a "perv," but the degree to which this would cause offense would vary. I think actually the reaction is almost more important than the initial statement.
Sorry, I'm kinda new at this and I thought it would be better to keep it brief ^^; Trae is a real laid-back type of guy. He used to get picked on and bullied a lot up until he was about 14 when the guys that had been bullying him took him in and taught him how to bully others. He doesn't enjoy it much--or at all for that matter--and for the most part just tries to stay on the gang's good side to avoid trouble. These guys tend to pick on Vander a lot and it's kind of an unspoken thing between the two. Vander knows what Trae was put through before and doesn't want to rock his boat, but every so often he gets on his case for not standing up for himself more. Vander doesn't really like spending time with people. Talking to people wears him out mentally and he's not the best at thinking of what to talk about. And when he does think of something to talk about or someone starts talking to him, he usually gives responses that others might find offensive while he himself does not. Mostly sarcastic remarks and brutal honesty. Trae is one of those people that he doesn't find as tasking to talk to as others. As most things go, I don't believe Vander cares at all about Trae's opinions on anything. But he would be inclined to care more if those opinions were involving him. If Trae were to hint at something between Vander and this girl he barely knows... I guess my question should've been more like "would it be reasonable for him not to notice her that way?" or "would it be believable for him to not joke around about stuff like that?" I know he's my character and all, but I want him to be believable and I don't really feel like I know enough about guys his age to be able to write about them confidently. I don't know what guys talk about, but I'd always heard it wasn't the same stuff girls talk about...
It depends on one thing: is he trying to impress the girl? If he's not attracted to her, or annoyed enough with Trae's antics to snap, then I don't think it's likely that he would say much in her defense. It also depends on his personality. A loner doesn't sound like the type to swoop in to protect people from bullying. It's easier and safer as a teen in high school to watch from a distance. That way your own ego is out of the line of fire. In the end though, it is your story and you have to make the decision. As for what teen guys are like, it's not nearly as complicated as chicks. Guys his age hang with their other guy friends, and they think about losing their virginity, doing stupid things because it looks fun and scoring drugs. That's about the long and the short of it, at least in my experience growing up in a suburb of Los Angeles. Loners tend to be a little more well-learned, nerdy and thoughtful, but they still just want to fit in and be thought of as cool.
Maybe these aren't the characters you should be writing about, then. These are two very different questions. Would it be reasonable for him not to find her sexually attractive? Yes, of course. Different people find different things initially attractive and there are plenty of people one encounters of the opposite sex that don't initially spark that kind of interest. Of course, this can change all the time, and we see tons of stories where this develops, even if it were not initially present. What one finds attractive varies greatly by the individual. As for would it be reasonable for him not to joke around? Again, of course, although this really depends on the characters and their relationship to each other. Without seeing a scene written, it's impossible to assess whether an interaction between two characters is believable. Do teen-aged boys frequently joke around about this subject and in this manner? Absolutely. But 100% of the time? No.
I'd considered that... but these characters are crucial to a story involving many more characters of mine. I would prefer to learn how to write about these characters than to just give up on them. Whenever I picture Vander and Trae having conversations like this, I always see Vander laughing and making fun of Trae for his blatant obsession with girls--Trae talks about girls at nearly every opportunity--but my biggest fear when writing my characters is having a female writer show through a male character. Like Salamander brought up--which was also very helpful by the way--I also wouldn't expect for a loner type to go out of his way to reprimand someone on a subject they don't particularly care about, and yet I've read stories where these things happen and it can feel so out-of-character at times. The last thing I want to do is make it sound like I'm preaching through my characters. I don't want Vander's mockery of Trae to appear as my own, and I'm afraid it might come across that way... Would it still be reasonable for him to joke around in this manner? On a side note, thank you everyone so much for your help. I'm sure these questions tend to get asked a lot...
Again, impossible to say. But, one thing you could consider: you could have him think this thought, consider saying it to Trae, but deciding to stay quiet, or say something else, or maybe even say the opposite of what he really thinks.
