Dating means different things to different people, and even more so among differing generational groups.
My dad first had sex aged 12 (he was bizarrely proud of it, disturbing as it is that I know this!), and he claims to have had 10 girlfriends by the time he left school at 14 - granted, this *was* around 1970. Whereas for my generation (I'm mid-30s), most of the people I know started dating less physically when they were 12-13, and the physical stuff came later. That said, the average age of a girl's first time in my country has been 17 for decades. So maybe things don't always change that much. Maybe it's more about how we see them.
And I thought m friends parents getting it on at 14 was young... ---