I had something like that happen at the one frat party I ever went to. Next day I called her and left a really awkward message on her voicemail saying I’d like to hang out with her sometime. She never called me back.
So that was it.
She didn’t humiliate me: she just didn’t respond. Sure, she could have been blunter, but where’s the percentage in that? I was blown off in a lot more humiliating ways in my youth, and it just built character.
I don’t think you have anything to apologize for.
This.
I’m thinking of all the times I drunkenly (or not drunkenly) made out with someone at that age and never followed through. Or they didn’t. It was perfectly appropriate at that age to not follow through. I can’t even remember names. I can remember a couple of times where I hoped “made out” had resulted in “phone call and dating” and it didn’t - can’t remember those names either.
(Andy…there was an Andy…and a John? The one I want to remember and can see in my head I can’t pull a name out of my brain at all - nice guy, if it wouldn’t have been a “he was just visiting friends on campus and lived four hours away” that might have been something. And several others that I can’t even pull a face or first initial. Kids, this is why you keep a journal…so you can put names with those vague memories of a misspent youth).
Yeah I’m with those who didn’t think you had to apologize in the first place. Maybe if you had actually gone on a date or had been talking on the phone, then he could say you owed him a reply. But for someone he knew for all of a few hours at a party? If you can’t handle that kind of rejection then don’t make out with college students at parties.
And really, if you had turned this guy down directly, do you really think he would have said “Ok, well, thanks for a nice evening.” Because a lot of guys don’t do that when they hear “no thanks”, and I’m guessing he’s in that group of men.
Preach it, brother.
Or sister.
mmm
This guy is not right in the head. FORTY-ONE YEARS OLD and still obsessing over a romantic disappointment from FIFTEEN YEARS AGO?! Hell, the average fifteen year old is more mature than that.
Have nothing more to do with him, and watch your back.
Wait, you hooked up with him or you kissed him? In the common vernacular, “hooked up with” = sex.
Per what the others have said, even if he was humiliated at the time, even if your behaviour was more cowardly than it should have been in getting him to back off, what man with the smallest speck of pride would be bellyaching about it 15 years later to the woman? It’s not like you left him at the altar.
This is not normal male behavior, this is the behavior of a borderline obsessive who has no sense of boundaries. Feel sorry for him all you want, but do not engage him a dialogue about the past. He is no more grown up or clued in today than he was then.
I too, was wondering about this. Once you kiss them, they stay kissed!
That’s how I see it.
Run to the hills.
it’s not a strange situation at all, unless there’s evidence of unhealthy obsession, the kind that makes the thread strater want to transfer to another city. the thing about one’s young years is you experience all sort of new things, some of which can affect you deeply. a single instance, as the TS explained, is bound to be remembered by anyone. the long intervening years and greater maturity that come with it may not extinguish the emotions aroused.
the closest anecdote i could correlate the TS’ story to is that of an old retired athlete. he’s had his time, his glory years. now he’s just carrying on with his life. his main aggavation is the number of middle-aged men he meets, many of them saying variations of, “why didn’t you give me your autograph back then?” in all of them he saw a disappointment kept alive for more than 30 years.
so if the TS is asking us how to deal with her problem, the answer would be to continue living. and try to treat people a lot nicer, if she could help it.
would it help to just drop him a line like, “for what it’s worth, you were the hottest guy in the house and i don’t regret kissing you?”
Exactly. Why are you guys obsessed with right or wrong here? Someone is hurt. What you do with hurt people is try to make them feel better, as long as it isn’t too big an imposition on you.
Who the fuck cares whether the guy was justified or not? Why does that factor into your compassion?
The guy was obsessive fifteen years ago when he called you over and over and over until his own friends told him to cut it out. That he called you again fifteen years later suggests that he hasn’t changed much. My advice is not to engage him at all. Any response you give is likely to reinforce his behavior.
I’ve changed my mind. You are right. There is no way that sage advice could go wrong with this guy.
You never owed him an apology in the first place, and the guy’s an absolute freak to still think about this after a decade and a half. Block him if he attempts to contact you ever again (but save his messages first).
You might also want to share your current address and telephone number, just in case he wants to send you flowers to thank you for your belated compliment.
Seriously, did you read the OP? The guy sounds like perhaps he calls his fifth-grade teacher once a year to complain about how the D he got in math has “humiliated” him for decades. If he hasn’t figured this shit out in his 40s, he should be given a wide berth.
If you don’t think that the guy is the OP has an unhealthy obsession, you need to have your obsessometer recalibrated. The OP is someone he made out with once during the Clinton administration. A blowoff in the case should be way down on the “hurt” scale to the point where it is barely recalled.
I think it’s okay that you apologized to him, you said yourself that you felt some guilt about the way that you treated him, and hopefully by apologizing you have assuaged some of those feelings. I don’t think it’s necessarily an indication that he’s a crazy psycho stalker now, it’s very possible that he just saw your page and remembered the feelings he associated with you which was probably hurt, embarrassment, and anger. Maybe he’ll be over it now, seeing that you recognized that you hurt his feelings and felt bad about the situation even if you were not mature enough at the time to handle it better.
Because if it turns out he’s crazy and he escalates the situation, you’re going to have to hurt him a whole lot worse before it’s over. Anger and hurt fifteen years after such a minor episode is way off the normal meter. It’s probably ok, but if he hasn’t been able to find closure on his own with 15 years to work through it, it seems not impossible that this apology also won’t be whatever elusive resolution he is looking for and he will keep pushing for it. Which will end in much, much more cruelty.
If he’s showing up on her suggested friends list, she’s showing up on his. That’s an ongoing reminder of an embarrassing period of his life, hopefully the apology and explanation will help him to move on.