Just heard from a guy I drunkenly hooked up with 15 years ago

In My Humble Opinion
1

Fifteen years ago I was 19 years old and in my sophomore year of college. I was really good friends with a guy who was a member of a fraternity, so I ended up making friends with a lot of the guys in the frat, and that was my crowd for those few years. Just so you get an accurate picture in your mind, these guys were the “Revenge of the Nerds” type of fraternity. No polo shirts to be seen.

Anyway, so one night at one of their parties I had a few too many and ended up making out with one of the older Frat guys. He had graduated already, but just came back to hang around sometimes. (Should have been my first clue, right?) He was I think 26 at the time. We kissed and not much more for a couple of hours, and then he drove me home.

Next morning I woke up hung over and completely embarrassed by my behavior. To cut things short here, he tried to turn the hook-up into a relationship, and I did not reciprocate. Now, I did not behave as I should have. Instead of just being completely honest with him, I tried to blow him off hoping he would get the hint. He didn’t, not really, until a couple of the frat guys had to tell him to stop calling me, etc. I’m not proud of this at all—I was just stupid and nineteen and terribly shy and afraid of confrontations, so I was not so kind in the way I handled things. And things were made more awkward by the fact that we had so many mutual friends.

I hadn’t really thought of this much over the years. Every now and then he would show up on my “suggested friends” on Facebook and I would feel a little pang of guilt, but I never realized it was such a big deal until I got a message from him today.

Apparently he is still very, very bitter. He didn’t cuss me out or anything, but he says I humiliated him and that I should be ashamed of the way I treated him.

My first reaction was geez, get a life! It’s not like we had some torrid affair and I jilted him at the altar. I drunkenly kissed him at a frat party fifteen years ago and he’s still hung up over it!

But then I thought about it more and decided that I really *was *sorry for the way I had treated him, and maybe it would make him feel better to know that. I know there are a few people from my own life I wouldn’t mind getting an apology from. So I wrote him back an apology and an explanation.

Now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have replied at all. He did kind of sort of stalk me for a while back then—even after I had been out of school for about three years he was calling me. He once thought he saw me on the highway (couldn’t have been me, I was out of the state) and called my parents’ house trying to get ahold of me. Anyway, I guess I’m just a little concerned I might have wakened the crazy a bit.

Anybody else have this happen to them? Were you the one sending the cathartic note or the receiver? Do you think I responded appropriately?

2

You really should clarify the title.
I thought “OMG - you had a drunk hook-up with a 15 YEAR OLD?!”

:smack:

3

Holy shit, you’re right! Ahh! Mods, help!

4

Yeah, you should have ignored him - and possbily blocked him. At this point, I’d probably still block him if I were in your shoes (but I’m a dude so take it for what it’s worth).

5

Or “OMG - you were drunk and hooking up for 15 years STRAIGHT?!”

:highfivesmiley:

6

I would say that guy is super creepy. You KISSED him FIFTEEN years ago. Who the hell cares? Honestly even if you slept with him 15 years ago and didn’t date him, who the hell cares? People are allowed to do that. Yeah maybe you weren’t nice but you were also 19. People are still learning how to handle those situations then. He’s acting quite weird about this, to be perfectly honest it’s a bit odd he still harbors any non-neutral feelings about the situation. Even if he liked you quite a bit, time heals those wounds unless there’s something off.

I’d watch out.

7

My opinion? That’s totally fucked up. Ignore him, have nothing to do with him. That’s crazy with all the warning bells and lights.

8

I was on the receiving end of a heartfelt apology for a terrible incident that happened 20+ years prior. I had forgiven this person years ago for my own personal well-being, but it was healing to hear that they were truly sorry and to know that they had spent some time regretting their behavior and tracking me down to make sure I heard their apology.

But … this guy looked you up to try and get you to say you’re sorry? If you had run into him at a party or your kids are on the same team and you were having a conversation and he decided to bring up what happened and the social repercussions of your relaying the “I’m not interested” message through mutual friends in hopes of an apology, well, that would be different. What he did was red flaggish. I’d stay away if I were you.

9

I think it was right for you to apologize. Now he finally has closure on something that was obviously very hurtful to him. Maybe that will allow him to let it go.

If I were you I would not engage in any further discussion of the issue, but I do think that giving him some closure was the right thing to do.

10

The correct response is: “What the fuck is wrong with you? Thank you for reminding me why I didn’t go out with you in the first place. Jesus Christ. . .”

11

Changed title from “Just heard from a 15 year-old drunken hookup on Facebook” to “Just heard from a guy I drunkenly hooked up with 15 years ago.”

12

This sort of thing is why I still haven’t joined Facebook. There are some people from my past I’d just as well don’t find out how to reach me.

13

Thanks, Czarcasm!

I guess I’m just hoping that maybe some crisis in his life is causing him to look back through his past on his regrets and hurts, and like **lavenderviolet **says, get closure. I can’t believe I even rank up there, but apparently I do.

At least I feel better for having apologized.

And no, if he contacts me again I definitely won’t engage in any way.

14

wait - you’re 34?

15

Look on the bright side, he could have contacted you and told you “See this 14-years-and-3-months-old boy in the photo? He’s YOUR CHILD, you’re THE MOTHER!”

16

Yes, simster, why?

17

Maybe I’m behind on the kids’ vernacular, but I thought hooking up meant fucking.

18

Depends which college you went to, but the fucking sense is slowly displacing the make-out-and-maybe-other-stuff sense.

19

Yes, he’s a clueless idiot. Drunken kissing is not much of a social obligation. While you might have handled it better at the time, it sounds like his social ineptitude and inability to recognize it for what it was is the real culprit.

I’d call him out on it. He’s the one with the issue.

20

If I read the OP’s post correctly, this guy was 26 at the time of the party and kissing incident? Sounds like a socially incompetent person to begin with. What 26-year-old hangs out with kids who are still living at the frat house, and not with brothers his own age? So, yeah, this guy’s got issues and it sounds like he never would have gotten a hint, he’s one of those who needs to be sort of humiliated in order to “get it” when a woman tells him to leave her alone.

An apology now might just re-kindle the old obsession, but maybe not. If he starts to persist, just send him another message explaining this is the sort of behavior that landed him in humiliation in the first place and to knock it off, then block him. I think an apology is fine if it makes the OP feel better.

As to “hook-up,” I’m 40 and it’s always meant intercourse to me, just like “booty-call,” with different circumstances.