How to deal with a friend and her bf?

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This is the situation on hand:

A friend of mine and her secret boyfriend have told me they're a couple. Now that took them quite some time (she acted funny since last autumn!) for my friend was panicking I'd react repulsed. I dunno how old he is, twice as old as her maybe? That's why she kinda left it secret to me for ages.
She was still too afraid to tell me, so he had to tell me. I should be upset about her not telling me?

Soo, I normally wouldn't ask, but since this is all (old) adults I'm dealing with and not peers: should I react in a certain way? I mean, should I say something approving to her?

I usually don't mess with the boy-/girlfriends of my friends! When they're my age, I can just get out of it by never ever associating with them. Not that I usually don't like them, I just don't get along with most ppl. I don't get along with their friends/acquaintances either. (Autism is annoying in that aspect.)

I couldn't care less who's dating whom and whatsoever. Or how old they are for that matter. My friends should just be happy right? Not my business then.

I figured that would be rude to tell my friend though! Because friend = must be interested and stuff.

Help please?

Just tell her it doesn't matter who she dates, as long as she is happy.

It's the truth, and it makes you look caring. Some times I know it's hard to care about other people and what they do.

I'll try.

You might be jealous of your friends boyfriend.

Just accept him, what's the big deal?

kip, thank you for that answer! If it really is ok to say just what I think, I'll do when she asks. I do hope she will know that I mean it like that too!

Yes, sometimes it's hard to think of others. My first reaction was thinking 'oh, Sora, you are quite the awesome deductive detective!!' Fortunately, I jumped up from my seat and my head accidentally banged into the wall before I could say this out loud.

That would have been a weird thing to say I think.


I don't know what you are talking about Mr Bogan.

People want appropriate social reactions from you when they tell you something they consider complicated and emotional. I have a little bit of a problem with that.

In this case: getting across that I don't think it's a big deal they're a couple and that I actually have a hard time remembering that other people might have a problem with it! I can't ever remember what other people think is appropriate and what's not.

She is over 18, right? If so, there's nothing much you can do.
I can see how that would be weird, I'd be worried about his friends hitting on me or something. I never went for older guys.

Acting on relationships with a big age difference is difficult. I still cannot understand the thin line separating 'acceptable' and 'wrong'. There is no mathematical formula or prescribed age difference; it depends on the kind of relationship, it depends on the kind of person.

Most of the times I have a similar attitude, Sora, about relationships my friends have. Some of them cause separation and some of them new friendships. But in the case of an age difference I sometimes have an opinion, but having difficulty expressing it in a socially accepted way. It even got me ridiculed two times, for being to strict and old-fashioned. Other times people interpreted as not caring about my friend.
Last time it helped to observe the reaction of other people and taking elements from those reactions and fit them to my personal opinion.

I don't mind age differences. I don't mind ages either, I talk to people of ages 15 to 50 because the people are awesome. And yes, she's over 18.

I'm glad I worried too much and that there was no serious talk about my opinion of age differences. It saved me from the awkward response of that 'I don't have an opinion'. I just asked why she'd think I would react funny or explode and she just said she worried because she didn't tell me about it right away. Oh, I just said I had suspected for months and that it was fine.

I don't get it, does your friend secret boyfriend exist. I mean is her secret boyfriend a real person or just a figment of her imagination?