Hi, I'm in a bit of a jam here and I was hoping to get some good advice.
When I was 16, my aunt introduced me to a guy who was 23. We hung out for the night and hit it off really well (not romantically). He's cute, funny, so sweet, and we had fun together.
That was two years ago. Over the past two years we've become even closer friends. We have so much in common it's almost scary. He's still as funny, nice, respectful and cute as ever. Our conversations range from our favorite songs to deep things like our future plans of marriage and things like that (we're not talking about marriage to EACHOTHER, just in general).
In case you can't tell, I really fell hard for him, and I do know that he feels the same way.
The only problem is the age thing. I'm 18 and he's 25 now. Never once during our friendship have I felt like he was older. He still acts very much like guys my age. My friends really like him, and I think my mom is even coming around, though she didn't like it that I was friends with him when I was only 16.
I guess my questions are...if I got up the courage to ask him out, is there something gross or wrong or immoral, because I'm so young and he's 7 years older? We don't look like we're 7 years apart, don't act like it...but we are. And I feel like we would be judged or criticized or that other people would think it's wrong.
I'm trying to be an adult and say "Who cares what others think? I'm legally an adult now, I should control my life." but I've always been the kind of person who cares about what other people think of me, and I would prefer not to be judged because I want to date an older guy.
I guess I'm lucky at least we look the same age, so I don't necessarily have to deal with criticism from random strangers. I'm just a bit worried that if/when others ask, "How old is he?" they'll cringe at the thought of a man dating a teenager.
I don't want anybody, strangers/family/friends, to get the impression that he's some sex-hungry creepy older man, because that's completely the opposite of who he is.
Please help!
