Should I continue this relationship?

So I’m an 18 year old HS senior and I have a girlfriend who’s 17 years old and she’s a junior. Next year I’ll be a college freshman and she’ll be a senior and the college is close to her. We are quite happy together but I wonder should I continue this relationship with her next year. Seeing as I’m in college, I don’t want to be seen as the creepy guy lurking around HS. It’s just a year difference but still, what should I do? In my grade right now, there’s an 18 year old girl going out with a 26 year old, which everyone agrees is pretty weird and I don’t want to be seen like that guy or thought of as a creep.

You won’t seem like a creep but if you are even considering your options, it might be best to have the talk this summer and open up your relationship to other possibilities. Maybe she’s ready for that too. Best case scenario, you find that you were truly meant to be together. Worst case scenario, you both realize you weren’t and are plenty young enough to start anew. Normally I would say you are both far too young for a serious relationship, but I understand that in different parts of the country some get married and start their families much younger than those in the northeast.

No one is going to care that you’re dating a senior.

Really? I’m not sure how common or ok it is.

Depends on how serious you are about this relationship and whether or not you think it will continue. Some people end up marrying and living “until death do them part” their high school sweethearts and some don’t. I doubt any of them ever thought about whether or not they were perceived as a creep when one member of the couple graduated a year before the other.

It’s not really the one year age difference which I worry might be perceived as creepy, as it’s the fact that I’m going to be a college freshman and she’ll still be a HS senior. As I mentioned earlier, some 26 year old creep is going it with a senior in our grade and I don’t want our relationship to be perceived like that.

If the relationship is important to you, brings meaning to your life, and you want it to continue, it makes no difference how it is perceived by others. If it is a healthy relationship, then what others think does not matter. Only what you think, she thinks, and each of your sets of parents think about it.

I see but on a side note, we can all agree that 26 and 18 is inappropriate.

There’s nothing at all creepy about dating someone a year junior & in a different school.

What’s creepy is having the name @Abarekiller

Really? Abarekiller sounds kind of cool. Its the name of someone from a T.V show.

Seriously, if you’re so worried about the perception of your relationship then break it off. Obviously the non-existent judgment of your future classmates is way more important to you than your girlfriend.

This is pretty simple. Do you want to continue dating this girl or do you want to be free to date other girls in college? If you no longer want to date her, spare her the excuse of the age difference. And I wouldn’t tell her you hope to do a lot of dating when you get to college either. Break it off if you want, but be nice.

No I am not that shallow, believe me. I just worry that our locations might be a difficulty with me being in college and her being in HS.

IMO , if you were truly committed to the relationship , the question would’ve never popped into your head. One year age difference should not concern you and you already said that distance of the college that you will be attending is not a factor.

Well it’s the fact that you hear how college and HS are different, so we would be in different life stages I guess.

You are going to be a freshman and in college, she is going to be a senior in high school. If you had been born a few months later, you might have been in her class. If she had been born a few months earlier, she might have been in your class. You sound ridiculous comparing this to an 18 year old and a 26 year old. High school and college are different. But again - I’m not sure how horribly different they are between a senior in high school and a freshman in college. Even so, in only a year, she will be in the same '“life stage” as you again.

Everything you say in this post makes me think that you are looking for what you consider a valid excuse to break up with this girl. Based on what I’ve heard, you are probably too immature to be in a relationship anyway. Most people would be thrilled to be going to college close to their girlfriend so they could see them on weekends and would be grateful they were only a year apart in school. Break up with her - it sounds to me like she deserves someone more mature and committed to the relationship.

Whoa. You don’t sound immature or uncommitted to me. There’s that. But, unless you do want to date your GF exclusively during your freshman year of college, break up now so she and you have the summer to be separate.

This is what usually happens…the couple doesn’t break up…at first there are calls/texts/facetime…but then the person in college starts meeting other people in college…and since they are in a different place in their life…around Thanksgiving they break up. There is a name for it: The Turkey Drop.

I would wait until after school ends…you have gone to proms, you have finished finals, and then break up so she has the summer. Then you can start college fresh with no guilt

You don’t need an excuse, and you don’t need to feel bad. It is normal for things to change. I believe there is a term for all the Thanksgiving weekend breakups that happened (can’t remember what it is!)

Things will be different for her too W/O you there. It is probably better for her too…esp as she starts looking for colleges. Just be honest about it. It is only creepy for you to keep dating her if you are not honest…

  1. You won't be a creep. NOT AT ALL. 2. You say that you both are happy together. If so, then what's the problem? "It's not that bad, especially if you've been going out for awhile. If it's a young relationship, it's still not that odd because it's only a year gap."-my bf

My boyfriend was in your situation. He was 18. I was 16. A two year gap (well technically 1 year and a half). We started dating in May of his senior year and my junior year. And we didn’t break up before he started his freshman year of college. We are in a LDR since he goes to a college ~200 miles away from me. He never regretted being in a relationship with a senior in high school because there wasn’t any problem to start with. I’m happy. He’s happy. We made it work. And now he’s 19, I’m 17. Still together. Still happy. And guess what? He isn’t a creep. And soon we’re ending our LDR because I’m going to the same college as him, and in engineering as well. :))

So in conclusion, you won’t be seen as a creep dude. Still happy together? Then what is the problem?