Is a 3 year age gap bad?

[RainyOxygen]

Im 15 met this 12 year old boy the other day. We both like eachother but are hesitant to start a relationship because of the 3 year age gap. Could we date or is the age gap weird or wrong

[Heather]

Hi there, Rainy Oxygen. I think that there's a different, and better, way to look at this than looking at it as a numeric age difference. I think the better and more accurate way to assess this is to look at the level of emotional and social development and life experience people have had. We also always want to look at the power dynamics potentially involved.

For example, for someone who is 50 and someone who is 47, three years is really not a difference likely to matter at all, because by those points in like, two people in that spot have usually had pretty similar levels of life experience, and are also both people who will tend to have similar levels of power in the world, so long as intersectionally speaking, they are in pretty equitable positions to each other.

On the other hand, being 12 and being 15 can be pretty different (and especially if the younger person is someone XY chromosomally-speaking and the other person isn't, because XY folks tend to develop more slowly in adolescence). It's very different socially, and often very different emotionally. To figure out how different, you'd need to get to know each other more.

But you can do that without dating. I don't know what dating means to you, but really it just means people getting to know each other but automatically filing it under romance or sex. I'm personally not a big fan of that approach whatever the situation: I feel like I want to get to know people pretty well and *then* decide together what kind of relationship feels right, and if both of us feel like something sexual or romantic (for lack of a better word) is what our vibe feels like or not.

You can certainly do that: get to know each other, but without assigning that context. I think as the elder person here, that's an extra bit of emotional maturity you could bring to the table in this, respecting that there is a power/agency and probably some developmental difference, so suggesting if you want to get to know each other, you do that without calling it dating or assigning the relationship a "kind." Some people call that friends-first, if that language is helpful.

How does that sound?