yes, the title is correct and not bait 👍
i (22x) have a friend/acquaintance (25m) who is friends with a 13f irl, but people are calling him a weirdo.
he has no romantic relations with this girl and knows her through her dad (40s, m) but people are still calling him a creep and idk how to help besides saying he isn’t. it’s not like he went out of his way to go “hi im looking for 13 year old girls, wanna be friends?”
25m/13f is pretty questionable but I (M) can remember making good friends with adults as a teen through work and just people in the neighborhood. It’s just about keeping things appropriate.
Hell, for that matter I was hanging out with my brother’s nephew a few weekends ago and the age gap was about like the OP’s example but moved up a few years. Cool guy, we played BlOps Zombies. I’m not gonna chat everyday on Snapchat but we’re friends IMO and chat about school/life whenever we see each other