Will the age gap pose an obstacle?
Grunewald here.
So I have met a guy who is 11 years younger than me. We both like the same anime; we both like singing; we are both Christians (in the same way as each other), and we speak the same languages. We are both far from home; he is mixed nationality, but one of his parents is from the county where my granddad was from and there are so many cultural similarities.
It is very clear that he is on the autistic spectrum. I don't mind this at all; many of my dearest friends and the people I've admired are on the autistic spectrum too, and autistic spectrum folks feel like my 'tribe'.
I don't know him very well at all; he is incredibly shy, but also incredibly obvious. I find him beautiful; a lot of people probably wouldn't, but he is my 'type', and his stims and quirks are adorable. And my goodness, when he looks into my eyes and smiles, the fireworks are something else. He asked for my number, and although we aren't from the same church, he asked which church services I go to that aren't at the same time as his, so that we could hope to both turn up to it.
The one red light was that when my married Gen-Xer friends invited him and me to a restaurant he said 'Uhh, I left my wallet at home' and I am wondering if that was his way of saying 'I don't want to pay'. I mean, the very idea of him paying would have been ridiculous and greatly unfair: he's a poor university student, I'm a high school teacher, I don't even really know him and he hadn't asked me out in the first place: my well-meaning friend saw us greatly enjoying each other's presence at the end of a Christmas church service and invited us both. Still, saying 'I've left my wallet at home' was not a magnanimous way of dealing with the situation. But he could also just have left his wallet at home.
Is the age difference going to be an obstacle, do you think? And is the red flag a likely deal-breaker?
| Yes | 7 | |
| No | 9 |