Dear Panel,

We Met In A Chat Room

Okay, I know you may hate to hear this, but we met in a chat room. Neither of us could be hardly considered chat regulars, we just happened to be cruising to escape ennui and bumped into each other.

There was no immediate conflagration leading to sexual passion really, but we became very open friends, and the romantic feelings evolved over the next 8 months or so, when--gasp--all of a sudden, the oh-we're-so-madly-in-love-with-each-other-ness sneaked up and smacked us both over the head (hard!).

She's A Mature 14-Year-Old

Now, she is very mature for her age (we met at ages 13 and 17), but the 4-year age difference has forced us to look at the relatively harsh facts: no sex until it's legal, and/or moral if we want to preserve our promising future together.

I've already received plenty of negative reaction to the 14/18 age ratio, but I wondered if this love could actually see us through to a safer point later on down the road.

I'm Willing to Wait

We are happy together, we seem to survive quite well knowing sex is a great thing to be had later in our future, and we keep it to dating and milder activity right now. We've known each other now for 17 months, and I feel lucky and blessed to have found someone who respects and shares my moral reservations...even if she is milestones behind me yet. I promised her I'd wait for her.

Can we really work out? I'd love to more than anything else, but I'd also appreciate some added insight on this.

Thanks for being there.

Male, age 18, Oregon

Jimmy, Kalia, and Ray answer this question.