I am very sad to hear about your situation. I am fortunate to have a good relationship with MayaÂ’s parents. I have actually known her parents longer than I have known her. Because of that, I have not really had to worry about coming off as a predator. MayaÂ’s parents introduced her to me. On the other hand, I could NEVER tell them that I was romantically interested in their daughter. They are far too conservative.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I would even introduce myself to a young girl’s parents. “Hello, it’s nice to finally meet you. I am a friend of your daughter’s.” To me, that seems to send out red flags right off the bat, and that’s about as tame as it gets. Parents don’t like the idea of adult men befriending their daughter regardless of how good or nice that man is.

Now that JoyÂ’s parents have become suspicious of you, you have a hard (if not impossible) road ahead of you. Even if you can theoretically get them to let you keep seeing her, and convince them that you are probably a nice guy, they will always have that dark corner of their mind that fears that you are after their daughter. It doesnÂ’t help things much that you are actually romantically interested in Joy (something that will be hard to hide). It is extremely unlikely that you could tell them you wanted to date their daughter or be otherwise engaged in a romantic relationship.

If you are going to continue to pursue a relationship with Joy, I think that you must keep her parents in the loop, but not tell them that you are interested in her romantically. Trying to maintain a secret relationship with her would be far too stressful for both of you, and it could seriously jeopardize your life. Plus, if her parents found out about that, they wield enough authority that they could cut her out of your life completely. I donÂ’t know a ton about restraining orders, but I wouldnÂ’t be surprised if they could get a judge to sign something saying you could never see her and/or communicate with her again (or at least until she turns 18). Just look at what happened to Jack McClellan a few years back. I hate to be too negative, but if you try to talk to her parents and it seems like they are just getting worse or more protective, you may have to call things off or cool things down. Just be careful.

One happy thought though: at least you know that she has feelings for you too. You can always hold that with you. I wish you could have found out in better circumstances. I am happy for you in this respect.

Best of luck,

~The Captain~

P.S. Feel free to ⛓️‍💥[Removed] if you feel so inclined. Let me know that you have via a post on GC though, so I can verify your email address is authentic. Anyone else can email me too, but again, I would like you to let me know with a post from an official GC account. Otherwise I will not read your mail. FYI, I will maintain the same rules by email that I do here, so nobody should think they can start milking me for personal information off board.