So I was talking to this girl through Instagram— not like anything major but just like “oh you’re cute haha” and then I found out she’s 16 and immediately told her I can’t flirt with her anymore but now I feel awful for even thinking like that before I knew :( I feel like a predator or criminal

Hey, so I wanted to ask about something that is trying to bother me right now. I just thought to come on here before letting my mind ruminate over and over and over. So a year ago when I was 22, I did not have many people to talk to aside from my roommates who were either not home during the summer or just to themselves so I decided to try out Omegle. I talked to a few different people on there, but there’s two people in particular that kind of made me worried. There is this one girl I was talking to from Canada and she told me the story about her and her friends smoking weed, and I told her about how my female roommate used to sleep in my bed. But the way I told her that was by asking for her Instagram so I could DM her that rather than say it out loud because my roommate was in the next room. At some point during our conversation, she told me that she was 16, and I’m not even sure how we came about that but she told me. Before I continue, we were not flirting at all. We were just sharing stories, that was it. My intention was to not flirt at all with anyone because of age and the fact that they probably nowhere near me. Also, I just kind of thought it would be weird too. But now I can’t remember if she told me her age before I told her about my roommate or after I told her about my roommate, but I feel like it was before because I kind of felt like I should’ve unfollowed her after. And what made it worse is that somehow my roommate saw her Instagram handle and followed her as well. Another instance was when this girl was being very goofy and playing the character and I was joking back and I ended up being invited into their Instagram group chat, where I found out they were also 16 so without saying anything, I left the group chat. So my worries if this was inappropriate or was it just a conversation that I probably should’ve cut short. I’m not sure but it’s starting to worry me. And just for context, I have no idea that girl or anybody else since that day and it NEVER went sexual at all. So yeah, that’s the story

So one day a couple months ago I saw some posts on threads pop up on instagram and they said I’m 17 and horny and 18 and horny or I think I even remember see a 16 year old one. I’m 20 and I remembered that when those popped up I clicked on them and I don’t know if I did it out of true attraction or out of the urge to make my anxiety go away. I feel like often times if I see something that says any number under 18 even if it has nothing to do with age it could be talking about season 17 of a tv show my mind immediately goes what?? 17??? And then I click on it to make my anxiety go away. So when I remembered all of this I downloaded the threads app because I wanted to see if I could get reassurance and see if I could rekindle how I felt in these moments. When I opened the app all I saw was posts like that but everyone claimed to be 18. The only problem is none of the girls looked 18 they looked like 14-16 so I started to panic I and worry that because I clicked on the threads in the past it popped up more and I was a pedophile for that. All of the accounts all pretty much had only fans links so at that point I was like well they have to be 18 then but now I’m worried that maybe it’s a scammer and they are using underage pictures of girls and putting them on onlyfans. Which I know is out of my control but I just feel like a Pedo and like I did something wrong. Does anyone have any advice? Or have any similar situations/ similarities with this?

when I was 15 soon to turn 16, I met this girl in a IG group chat made by our mutual friends. We started talking and eventually we started flirting and talking sexual towards each other, though eventually we stopped talking because she was being really weird. A couple months later In July of 2024 my friend found out that she was actually 13 and that she lied to me about her age. It's been 10 months since l've found out and I still feel so disgusted in myself. I had my suspicions at the time but I let them go since she said she was 16 turning 17. I was completely oblivious trusting someone I only knew online especially since i've never seen their face either. i'm struggling on what to do since i've been suffering with POCD since I was 15. Till this day I still feel weird and disgusted in myself because of that. But it feels ironic since i'm sexualizing someone that's 2 years younger than me and I waited to confirm she was around my age range to sexualize her. I feel so weird and guilty about it idk what to do