Auntie SparkNotes: I Can’t Forgive Myself for Getting Intimate With This Guy

Dear Auntie,

I have a situation that has been bothering me for longer than I ever thought it would. I had a thing with a guy my last semester of college. I was head over heels for him, and though we didn’t talk about feelings always, I was pretty sure he liked me too. We had an amazing romantic date together where we kissed… and let’s just say we, uh, progressed from there gradually on our other dates. Here’s the thing: one night, we met up, and I was really unsure about how far I wanted to go with him. We went to third base…and right afterwards I couldn’t stop feeling guilty and horrible about it. We were both awkward together, and it was absolutely nothing intimate like we said it would be when we texted. After that night, we didn’t talk much, and it was worsened a few months later when I found out he was hooking up with another girl.

So, here I am completely heartbroken. But, much more than that is this huge, disgusting feeling of regret that I can’t shake off. I know it was my decision to get that intimate with him…but it was a huge mistake that I felt horrible about, especially once I realized that he didn’t share the same feelings for me as I did for him. It’s been about eight months since then, and I know I should have moved on by now. But I can’t seem to at all. I feel so terrible about it all the time, and I can’t seem to forgive myself for not realizing that I should have stopped sooner.

I was wondering if you had any advice or words of wisdom to help me overcome the regret and heartbreak? After this long, I thought I would have surely gained a better perspective. But I feel used, so angry, and so heartbroken all the time. I should have known better… but I didn’t. I let my feelings blind me into thinking there was more to the relationship than there was. Yet I can’t seem to accept the consequences of that mistake.

Really, Sparkler? And what mistake would that be?

Because going out on dates with a guy who seemed genuinely interested in you doesn’t strike me as a mistake. Getting physically intimate with him as your relationship progressed? Also not a mistake. And the final unfortunate hookup that didn’t live up to expectations, left you feeling totally disappointed, and was so generally underwhelming and awkward that it destroyed the momentum of your budding romance?

That’s a total bummer, darling. It completely, totally, unequivocally sucks. I am so sorry it happened to you.

But it still wasn’t a mistake. You keep saying you “should have known better,” but how? Why? You had every reason to think that you were taking a normal, natural, reasonable step in the direction of intimacy with someone you loved. You had multiple dates’ worth of evidence that you had a great connection and good chemistry. You even had a mutual agreement in advance, in writing, that it would be intimate and special! Where, exactly, was the obvious, ominous foreshadowing of awkwardness and heartbreak that you keep claiming to have missed?

I’ll give you a hint: It’s not there.

You made a perfectly sound and legitimate decision to hook up with this guy, and to let the hookup go as far as you felt comfortable with in that moment, according to your best judgment. And that decision remains legitimate no matter what happened afterward. Here’s a fun thought experiment: would you be raking yourself over the coals like this if, rather than things cooling off in the aftermath of your awkward sexual encounter, your relationship had abruptly ended because your crush got hit by a bus? Would you be feeling used, and blaming yourself for having wasted your attention on a guy who was doomed to become a road pancake, as though that was a foreseeable consequence of your decision to get naked with him?

Of course you wouldn’t. Because it isn’t, and neither was what happened here. And that’s your problem, actually. This isn’t a question of accepting the foreseeable consequences of a crappy decision. It’s a question of accepting that even a perfectly good decision can have unanticipated, awful results. You can be thoughtful and careful and responsible, you can do absolutely everything right, you can hedge your bets and do your research and have backup plans for your backup plans… and the universe can still respond by throwing a giant load of hot garbage right in your face. Bad outcomes are not the unique result of bad judgement. Some things, and especially the things that require the cooperation of another human being, are not within your control.

So while you may be sad about how things worked out, that has nothing to do with your choices; you made the best decision you could with the information you had. And while the relationship didn’t work out, that doesn’t mean it was stupid to try. I’m not even sure why you’ve been so quick to assume that the guy in question never liked you the way you liked him. You must realize that people who really dig each other can still have disappointing sex, especially if they’re going into it with a lot of expectations and not much experience. It’s entirely possible that the awkwardness took the wind out of his sails just as much as it did yours, especially if he could tell how unhappy you were after the fact.

So when you ask how to get over the regret and heartbreak you feel, a good first step would be to let go of the self-flagellating fantasy that your heartbreak is the result of something that you did. It’s not! It’s just a crappy thing that happened to you—that happens to everyone, in fact—because sometimes things don’t just work out. And while you didn’t specifically mention this next part, I suspect that a good second step would be to let go of the idea that you lost something by getting physical with this guy the way you did, when you did. There is nothing cheap, or cheapening, about being intimate with someone you care about; that’s true no matter how long the relationship lasts (or doesn’t.)

And if that disappointing hookup was what it took to find out that you guys weren’t as well-suited to each other as you thought? Then not only was it not a mistake, but it was arguably the best decision you could have possibly made, because it gave you vitally important information that kept you from wasting your time in a relationship that wasn’t right for you. Even if you’re sad about the outcome, you can be glad for the knowledge you gained. It

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