Is this considered grooming?

[Anonymous]

So I am a 23 y/o female and my boyfriend just turned 19 today. We met when he was still 17 and I was 22 but we were friends and he liked me a lot and he lied about his age (said he was already 18 when he was still 17 for 2 more months) because he was scared of me ghosting him. We met through gaming on a discord with friends in common. He came clean about a month into it and said he had said he was 18 because he didn’t want to scare me off and during the time I thought he was 18 we flirted and such. Nothing sexual but harmless flirting. I distanced myself from him for a couple of days to think things through and decided that he was just scared and told him we could meet up and talk on his 18th birthday. He agreed and after that we reconciled. We were best friends for 7-8 months after that and then started dating. 1 month into dating he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. Was this grooming? I hope not-

[worldscolide]

I mean you're what 4 years at most apart. No it doesn't sound like grooming.

It's when a sexual predator builds a relationship with a child or adult to abuse and exploit them. They build trust but use it to control, isolate, and abuse their victims emotionally, physically, and sexually.

A groomer often comes across as charming, helpful, and kind at first. It can be easy to trust them and lower your guard. But they often use threats, violence, or other coercion to force you into sexual activity you don't want.

They target underage children, or vulnerable teenagers or adults. Here are some ways to spot sexual grooming.

Doesn't seem like that's what you did.

[Kaneki05]

No lol. I assume you be in America which is why you think this would be so because they so strict about age even though there is clear cases that nothing harmful happened.

[Simslover92]

No that doesn't sound like grooming to me. You didn't even know his real age at first and he turned 18 two months later. Grooming by definition is the practice of preparing or training someone for a particular activity and you didn't do that with him from what it sounds like.

[In_Trance]

No it isn't