I want to expose my 20M ex for dating me when I was 17F and making me hide my age.
Two months after I graduated highschool, I met a 20 year old guy who I initially turned down for friendship because of our 2.5 year age gap and because I seriously only wanted friends. But when he met in person, he pursued me anyways despite my request to remain friends. I felt flattered at his advances and I grew attached.
When we started dating, he made me hide my age and keep our relationship "private", but in reality it was to be kept secret. He didn't bring me around to meet all of his friends until after I turned 18, and he expressed his fear to me that his friends would drop him if they found out we started dating when I was 17.
We were together for 6 months and I broke up with him recently because it was an extremely toxic relationship and he did not always ask for my consent, but also because our age gap started making me feel sick to my stomach.
Recently, I've been talking to people in my life about our relationship and I get mixed reactions ranging from "17 and 20 isn't that bad" to "He's a creep". While I don't think he's purposely going after younger girls, I do think he shouldn't have pursued me when I was 17 while he was entering his 3rd year of college, ignored my request to stay friends, and made me hide my age. I feel disgusted that I might've been taken advantage of and have been wanting to privately message his friends the truth about our relationship, how old I am and that he made me hide my age, but I'm afraid of the backlash I'll face if his friends think our age gap isn't that serious.