How much does age and distance matter?

One thing I can answer for you is: it's not weird to fall for a girl you haven't met in person yet. Just be careful not to make up a different expectation of her in your mind, and fall in love with that idea of her rather than the real person. hope that makes sense!

 

A lot of people here say that age and distance don't matter, that you love who you love, and to a certain extent, that may be true...

But five years age difference as young as you and her are is a big difference. You probably have a lot more life experience than she does. It's not about the number of years when dealing with age difference, it's about stages of life and amount of life experience. I'm not going to sit here and tell you not to date someone that young, but I do know that it can get very complicated and very painful when you realize that she is very likely a lot younger, emotionally speaking, than you are. It sounds like she's pretty young when you say that she says that age and distance don't matter and you can't help who you fall for. It's true that you can't help your feelings to some degree, but distance and age do matter, especially as young as you both are.

As for distance, again, I won't say that long distance relationships don't work. In some cases they do. That being said, I don't recommend them if you cannot see each other in person. I firmly believe that you have to actually see each other before very long in the relationship. I think there is a lot that we forget we need to know about people that we can't get through screens. Lots about the way people move, how they are in public, how they smell and carry themselves (as weird as that sounds), how they interact with other people than you, how they are when they're not specifically interacting with you (like when they're just hanging around and you're doing your own thing too) etc. Those kinds of things are extremely important in a relationship. If you can't or won't be actually meeting in person for as long as you make it sound, I don't think it's a good idea to have that kind of relationship. You two won't really know each other in the way that you would have to.

It's completely not weird to fall for someone you meet online! And I would never say that it is weird or that it's not possible to have feelings for someone you meet online. That's definitely a thing, but be careful how much you invest into this girl. She is very young and if you two cannot meet for a really long time, getting into any kind of serious relationship might not be the best idea.

HOwever, if you two do have a lot in common like you say you do, and you like talking to her, then it doesn't seem like there's any reason why you can't be friends.

 

Age and distance matter more than people like to admit. With that large of an age gap, you are in different life stages. I'm assuming that she is still in high school, while you are out of it. This means that you are going to be dealing with very different life issues. The distance adds more complications to this. It's hard to keep a relationship alive online. So, I think that you two can remain friends. A relationship would cause problems for both of you.