In April ‘23 I,(F21), met John, (M20), at a birthday party we both attended. At the party we both had a couple drinks and played a game of “We’re Not Really Strangers” a card game to get to know your friends on a deeper level. Because I was intoxicated, I let people know my past. I was abused when I was younger and have a hard time with relationships and letting people in. I get terrified, I have a fear of people using my past against me to hurt me. After the party, John messaged me and let me know that he liked listening to me and wanted to get to know me more.
I decided to move forward with letting someone get to know me. I am in counseling now and was in counseling then and my counselor thought this was going to be a good idea for me. This was a good opportunity for me to grow and also an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone. It was very uncomfortable for me and I often felt like I was being asked constantly to explain my past. Even when I didn’t want to talk about it. I felt emotionally exhausted and actually told John this. He reacted well and decreased his interest in my past.
At the time, May, of me asking him for some space, we also went home for the summer, we’re in college (however he dropped out), and during the summer my interaction with people online greatly decreases. I spend time with my family, I spend time with friends in person, and I also take the time to be by myself and really center myself. It can be hard to be at home for an extended period. I let John know this, and he continued to talk to me for a majority of every day. I felt overwhelmed and quite frankly was upset at him. He had started a friendship with people in a community that I did not like. They are nasty about women and have track records of being “incels” in our community.
I had previously discussed my disgust with John, about these people. I believed that his friendship with them had changed his personality and was the reason he started caring less about school and things other than a video game we all play. I had also learned from my interactions with these people, in a server we were all in, that John had told them about his interest in me and I was terrified that he was telling them the details of my life. We had never put a label on our relationship and he never took me on any dates, so I am hesitant to even call this a relationship. Upon realizing that he was truly friends with these people, I pulled away and decreased my conversations with John, in July. He noticed and asked me if he had done anything wrong. I said no, because really those are people he considers friends and I knew I couldn’t change his mind on them. We continue to talk a couple times in July, mainly initiated by him, and we never talk about my past again after my decrease in communication.
In August, John’s friends were complaining in the server about not being able to get girlfriends. I chose to reply to them and tell them why they can’t get girlfriends. It was really summed up to: you don’t shower, you don’t have a job, and all you care about is being good at a video game. They did not like this and John decided to reply to my message and bring up my previous lack of relationship experience. I was hurt by this. I genuinely did not think that he was capable of being mean to me in that way. He knew of my past issues and barriers in relationships. I decided then, August 8th, to cut all contact with with John and his associated friends.
No contact was going well until, November 1st, when an (unrelated) incident had John and his friends temporarily banned. I had to deliver the news, because of my position in the community they were banned in. Delivering the news to John was incredibly awkward for me. I made small talk and he asked me why our communication stopped. I explained to him why, for all of the reasons I discussed above. He told me that his intention was never to hurt me and that he had not discussed any details of our involvement to his friends.That the most he did was ask them for advice and told them that he really liked me. I do believe that his intentions were to not hurt me when he brought up my previous relationship. Mainly because he had always been kind and had supported me through talking about my past. I knew that he did genuinely care for me but I was clouded by my assumptions and fear. I was made aware that I really hurt John by cutting all contact and not giving any reasons or warning. He told me that he wished I had talked to him about being upset instead of ghosting him.
This has been eating away at me mainly because our interaction online has slightly increased and has me remembering the way I treated him. I wasn’t always the best towards John and have said things to him in the past just because my trauma was being triggered. I apologized to him last night, November 29th. I told him,” I’d like for you to know that I am not proud of the way I treated you. I knew you liked me and had a genuine interest in all parts of me. And it terrified me. Clouded by my fear, I believed that the only way to get rid of my fear was to get rid of you. I’m terribly sorry for that. And I want you to know I have felt guilty about it and it has eaten away at me for a while. I genuinely do miss your presence and kick myself for ***ing it up. I really enjoyed talking to you even though I know I didn’t show it and left you questioning. I feel terrible about it and have thought a lot about reaching out. I don’t expect for you to give me grace or to even care for me at all. I just have to get this off my chest.”
He accepted my apology and acknowledged that it was something hard for me to do. Which it was, it was extremely hard to talk about my feelings. He told me “I'm down to be friendly but my feelings have definitely changed w everything thats happened since we stopped talking and I'm not going to go back to talking everyday or anything like that, not that thats something u would want either. I'm willing to look past everything tho and give u the space to not make the same mistakes in the future.”
I am posting in here because I don’t know how to move forward. I am unsure if I still have romantic feelings for John. I genuinely do miss having someone to talk to about my feelings. But I also do not want to disregard my previous feelings. Because I was upset and I was also uncomfortable with his insistent interest in me. Really I just don’t know what to do. My friends are not helpful, as we’re all relatively young. I would just like some advice and thoughts from people older than me.
