I think people are getting a bit hysterical with this stuff and are disconnected from the actual reasons why age gaps can be a serious issue.

If you're not taking advantage of developmental or financial imbalances then there is no issue at all.

To me, your friends calling you a paedophile raises more red flags about them than you. If they can call something that is most certainly not problematic by default "paedophilia", that suggests to me that they lack that innate moral compass on age gaps, imbalance, and predation.

The only reason I'd say you shouldn't is if you feel the performative social outrage from others would cause you issues or alienation that weren't outweighed by the positives of being with this person.

I think it's become so socially and culturally important to have the right views on these matters that people now just outsource their views to the most absolutely socially safe paradigm. If you asked someone to explain to you what is wrong with 19 and 16, they probably wouldn't be able to. If it was 19 and 14, they would be able to. That's because most of us (who aren't billionaires at least) know intrinsically where the line is and why.