Crush

[Happy57]

In this episode Dawn was hanging out at Spike"s and that made Buffy angry and then they had this talk and Dawn said something about Buffy"s relationship with Angel . She said this relation lasted three years . Is that correct?

[Lyri]

technically, from the time Buffy and Angel meet in 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' to the time he left in 'Graduation Day, PT2' is three years. but they didn't spend all of that time as a couple, concidering Angel went evil for half a year, and then went to hell for a few months.
plus, there was that time when Buffy was dating Scott Hope...so three years Angel was in Sunnydale, but they didn't spend three years as a couple.

[Joyce Summers]

But if we go from how the two of them were like around each other, even from the beginning and how Buffy just seemed to uber distance herself from Scott, I would say that even if they weren't a couple for the entire three years they were in love for that long. A love at first sight deal. I mean even when Angel was all evil as Willow said in Passion 'you're still the only thing he thinks about' and he seemed so determined to hurt Buffy because, I think, she reminded him of how much love was there or rather how much Angel was in love with her.So maybe you could say Dawn was referring to that- I mean she can be freakily insightful in a spike-like way at times. hehe