Excellent post. I am afraid of a future where all non-parent adults are prohibited from interacting with kids. It's the ultimate dystopia. Such a society would stagnate and collapse.

That Johnny guy is a real whimp. His panic and decision to remove any under 18 friends shows a bit of lack of rational thought toward the matter. As long as you aren't writing "hey sweetie do you want to come over to my flat after school" and she isn't writing anything like that back, it really shouldn't be an issue.

What people need to do is just keep pushing the "appropriate behavior" boundary back in the other direction (while staying 100% legal, of course). I have done a fair bit of this. Yes, you run into walls once in a while... but by proving that you have upstanding character first and then showing you can be friends with kids without being "dangerous", peoples' perceptions can be altered in a positive manner.