Alright so some context first. I an 18 y/o male (July 2006) and the person im talking to, lets call her Gemma, a 16 y/o female (December 2008) met in the start of 2024 when we were 17 and 15 respectfully. We first met in a crazy situation which felt like it came straight out of a movie. It was a day after school and I was waiting for the train to come home, whereas Gemma was already on the trainwith a friend going the opposite way to go to the shops. Her train stayed at the station for a while because there was some problems further along the line. I'm standing waiting for my train, looking at my phone when all of a sudden I see the bright red haired girl slaping the window. I can't hear her but she is trying to ask for my snapchat. We have this hand signal "coversation" for about 10 minutes, then all of a sudden her train starts to move and I can see that she is saying"noooooooo".

After all this has happened I don't think much of it. About 3 hours later while I'm at home studying I get a notifcation that someone has followed me and they've sent a mesage. "Hi, its me the girl from the train" and my head explodes with excitement. We talk for about a week and I start to back off as I find out she is 15 as well as me being in my final year of high school I had said to myself no girlfriends. Throughout the year we don't talk much, on the very rare occasion I would post something on my story and she would say something, e.g on my 18th birthday she replied to my story saying "so you're legal now" I laughed in confusion and responded with "yeah" and moved on. At some point in the year she started dating somebody then about 2-3 months later they had broken up and I had noticed that her instagram notes were said songs or something saying like "I hate you" (a little biut cringy I know but I like that about her). At the end of the year I post a photo of my graduation night at my school and again she responds to it. "You look nice at your graduation" and I say thank you but I ask her if she is alright because I noticed all her instagram notes. And from there things started to take off. After two days I asked her if she felt uncomfortable with the age gap between us and she was fine with it. So from then on we'd be talking day and night, almost non-stop. After about a month of texting I asked if she wanted to meet up, not nessecerally a date but a hangout. I made sure it was okay with my parents and her parents, and her of course. And it was green lights from everyone. So we went out to watch a movie and get some food and it was a lovely night and it was just amazing, we didn't stop talking and laughing the entire time INCLUDING during the movie (it was a crappy horror movie there was no one else there). We now consider this out first date.

Now is where it gets to the AITAH bit. During this time I hadn't told any of my friends because I know a few of them can be very judgemental and I was scared on how they would react (rightfully so I begin to realise). After my end of year exams were over my friends and I decided to go out for a hiking trip to celebrate the end of our high school years. So I took the oppotunity to tell my bsf, lets call him Steve, what was going on in my romantic part of my life. I told him everything, every detail. Even to the point where I told her that kissing on the first date wasn't probably a great idea as it was the first time we met and she was unsure about wanting to kiss me, but when we went on our second date we did and she said "it was so worth the wait". I told Steve this with my whole heart, and at the time he seemed happy for me. About two weeks after I had told him he had sent me a message, "hey can we meet up we need to talk about something". We meet up and eventually he gets to the point where he says that some of our friends don't feel comfortable with the situation that I was in because of the age gap and will stop being friends with me because of it, including Steve. So they gave me an ultimatum, either keep talking to Gemma and lose all your friends OR stop talking to Gemma and my friends stick around. And this shook me, these were 5+ years of friendship with some of these people and they were willing to stop being around me because of this. I spent about 3 days thinking about it and I decided to stop talking to Gemma because these friends were so close to me. I took Gemma out for dinner, I told her that it wasn't something I want to do but I know it was the right decesion to make. This all happened in early december 2024.

After this had all happened I went on a trip to japan with my family until december 30th, arriving back home for new years eve. So I went to my new years party for the night but a few people had seemed off, but I was like okay I'll just move on with my life. Three days after that party I got removed from the groupchat, no reason, no one said anything, just kicked. I try to ask people and no one is saying anything, and ive realised sh*t has hit the fan. And over the first two months of 2025 I realise that no one is saying anything to me, like nobody. Not even Steve. So even though I had done what they had asked they still refused to talk to me. This now leads me to my last thought, considering these poeple don't want to be frineds with me anymore, maybe I should start talking to Gemma again beacuse I really connected with her, so AITAH for going out with someone 2 and a half years younger than me?

Before anyone says in anything, no I'm not breaking the law. We live in Australia and the law for consent is 16 and up as long as you're not in a position of power i.e boss, coach, teacher. As well as between the ages of 12 to 15 you can "do stuff" as long as the two people are within 24 months. Just to clarify thought Gemma and I haven't done anything like that at all. Also there are a few details I am leaving out but thats to keep this post short (even though its already way too long lmao), let me know if you'd like to hear more/update.