Pretty straightforward question, I suppose. Being a normal person, I imagine that you do. However, I don’t think it happens with the same frequency and intensity that it does with us guys. I know it’s not nearly as common a question on these boards. I’m just curious as to why.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I think when there’s a mutual attraction taking place, most girls know they could have most guys if they wanted too. If they took the initiative, most guys would acquiesce.
But it doesn’t work like that. Guys usually take the initiative and the risk. And, a lot of times when it doesn’t work out, it’s cause the guy screwed it up somehow.
Anyways, I just like to hear your thoughts on this topic.
I have had quite a few ladies tell me that they regret letting me slip away. I do not take that as a compliment in most cases. They might have ended up marrying a drunk, or a gambler or someone who was a poor provider and now they find themselves alone and struggling. I feel bad for them but thier change of heart certainly does not tempt me in any way.
There is one guy I kind of regret letting him get away.
He is a great guy and a wonderful man, treated me like gold and had I ever said I was going to marry him my 250 pound father would have done cartwheels across the floor.
There was no sexual attraction, but I think because I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship I didn’t allow my feelings to go that way.
It was kind of strange because he told me another woman had asked him out and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go out with her, she was 21 and he was 28 (the perfect 28 / 2 + 14 equation). I said just because you got out with her doesn’t mean you have to marry her.
Well he did.
I went to the wedding and his mother said she wished he was marrying me.
I knew I could have stopped the wedding if I had said I wanted him but I didn’t because I didn’t love him that way and I thought he deserved a woman who did, I knew it was just a little jealousy and I really wanted for him to be happy.
I should have stopped it, it turned out to be a disaster and he is still recovering from the divorce.
Then again the two of us could have been a disaster.
Now I look back and think how could I have been so stupid?
I didn’t realize what I had when I had it.
We still talk from time to time and now I think he’s sexy. He hasn’t changed, I grew up.
No. I’m realistic to a fault, though. It’s very easy for me to be practical about these things. All of my relationships (whether it was my idea or his) have ended for very good reasons.
The only relationship I’ve been in that *might *have turned out that way was my mutual high school crush. We liked each other and held hands and hung out after school, but he wasn’t ready to date seriously yet (abandonment issues, shitty home life). And honestly, neither was I, for similar reasons. We drifted off after high school, and that was that. I caught up with him recently on Facebook… found out he went through therapy, got married, and is expecting a child now. Never for a second have I regretted letting him “get away.” He wasn’t ready, neither was I, and that’s just life.
It doesn’t hurt that my current boyfriend is the best person I’ve ever dated. If I had done anything differently, I’d likely never have met him.
I met him when I was 14, and fell hard. He was the first guy I asked out, and I still have dreams about him. Had one just last week, in fact.
We spent literally 10 years dancing around our mutual interest. We were sidetracked twice by short relationships with other people, but we always came back to each other.
He got away in the sense that I realized I was done waiting. By then, we’d established a real friendship, and seemed on the brink of making the jump to a real romantic relationship… but I’d lost whatever fire I’d had for him. It did break his heart when I let him know (on what I later realized was a date, no less), but thankfully, our friendship recovered from that.
A few months later, he met the girl he’d eventually marry and have two kids with.
Just before he moved out of state, we had one last get-together. It was bittersweet, but so, so preferable to the way things could have ended between us.
I wouldn’t change a thing. I’d much rather look back fondly on him as I do and not know how things would have worked out than have discovered we were terrible together.
I kind of do, because it always seemed like it came so close to working, but just wouldn’t quite. Like, he had trust issues and couldn’t believe that I could really wait for him while he was deployed, and I really really would have been fine with that and never would have cheated, so it seemed like if I could just find a way to convince him of that, we’d be fine.
He would never deal with his feelings about anything like that though and didn’t even want to talk about it because he “didn’t want to argue” so eventually I broke it off. But probably because of how fucked up some other relationships I’ve had have been, it sort of seems like that wasn’t quite enough to break up over and we should have worked it out, even though that’s probably not true. I know he still hasn’t changed because 6 years later he still tries to get back together and still won’t discuss anything.
I certainly do, and sometimes wonder how it all would have ended up if he had just tried a little harder. I was dating him when he introduced me to my now ex-husband. They were best friends. He had WEEKS between that time and the next time I bumped into That Guy to keep dating me, solidify the relationship, declare his interest…but he had been recently hurt and was trying to not come on so strong. So when That Guy ran into me in the hallway after a lecture, I didn’t think I stood a chance with The One so I went out with That Guy and three days later he proposed…
The One went on to start dating another friend in our group, and married her, and had an awful divorce. He was the best man at my wedding and volunteered to marry me when That Guy missed his flight and was late for the wedding rehearsal, we named our son after him, he met and married a wonderful girl and has a happy family, and he absolutely shut That Guy out of his life when he cheated on me and left (That Guy used him as a reference for a job, and The One was enraged…called him up and said he could never recommend him for a job ever after the way he had treated me and our children, and has never spoken to him again).
So now that I am all alone, I sometimes think back and wonder what might have happened if he had only asked me out for that fourth date, or called me more than once or twice…he told me later he really regretted not fighting more for me, but felt honor-bound to step back when That Guy asked for my number.
Damn it. Wonder if he’s on Facebook. Wonder if he is still married…
When I was a young woman, there was a man I knew from high school who I pursued for several years, and finally realized he just wasn’t interested. In the late 1990s, about 15 years after we graduated and maybe 10 years after I last saw him, I was pulling weeds in my backyard and thinking about him, and all the pieces came together and it was like, “PLANET EARTH, CALLING NEARWILDHEAVEN! HE’S GAY!”
:eek:
I don’t know for sure if he is or not, but looking back, yeah, I think so.
I did, for a long, long time. Scott and I met when he was 16 and I was 14. We dated a bit in high school, were good friends, had lots in common. (And, if his parents had stayed out on their dinner date a little while longer, he would have been my first when we were 17 & 19.) My senior year, though, he was away in the Navy, and we were no longer a couple - neither of us was really mature enough to make a long distance relationship work. When he came home on a long leave, he asked my best friend out, and that was that. (When she started telling me all about the physical side of their relationship, the friendship cooled as well, but that’s a whole 'nother story.)
Eventually, we each married someone else, and both marriages ended in divorce. We ran into one another, had a brief relationship that I’d have been glad to continue, but he wasn’t ready for anything long-term, so he shipped out yet again. Seven years later, same thing. He eventually retired from the Navy, took a job in my hometown, and took an apartment a mile from my house. We dated again, it ended again because he didn’t want a long-term relationship. And finally, although it took me a quarter of a century to figure it out, I realized he didn’t want a long-term romantic relationship with me. We’re still friends. Fond of one another. I wish him nothing but the best. But even if there comes a point when we’re both single again, I have no desire to be his Ms. Right Now.
I do, sort of. I didn’t really “let him get away”, though. We got along really well, had amazing chemistry, the sex was awesome, etc. He was my best friend, a fantastic man all around, and I fell in love with him which I think he always sort of suspected would happen. I always thought he loved me, I knew he did, but for whatever reason… I don’t know. He wound up never actually telling me that, never actually telling me anything, until I had already clearly moved on for a variety of reasons and then I got this “I love you and we totally should have been married, and I’m stupid and sorry for not telling you before, etc.” email from him which wasn’t really a surprise (his love for me was incredibly obvious and was never a problem; it was his refusal to allow progression in our relationship, really) but was shocking in a, “Hey, thanks for telling me all of this when it was relevant!” sort of way.
Not that I’m not happy with my life now because I totally am. I still love him though and that’s kind of a bummer. I honestly believe that I always will, that I can’t NOT love him. And it’s almost like I have to wonder sometimes how things would have turned out if he’d only just LET ME be with him. It’s rare that I think about it at all these days because it’s so useless; I don’t even know where (or if, for that matter…) he’s living or what he’s doing anymore so I can’t even fantasize or guess effectively at this point about what, if anything, I might be missing.
Nope. Got back together with him after a couple of years of regretting our parting, realised we bring out the worst in each other, clung to the relationship long after it was dead, finally broke up, found a sort of distant friendship with each other, and ended up with partners who we’re happier with, fin.
Nope. I just haven’t liked many people, and those I have I’e had relationships with, and my exes are both my exes by my decision and solid reasons.
Now, my current BF and I, we are quite hung up on each other, broke up for a time (his decision) and got back together as soon as I’d see him again, because we both missed and still loved each other, and he had worked out a few things he needed to. But if we break up again, after this much effort (we’re long distance right now indefinitely), I hope we will both be able to accept it, move on, and someday be friends.
The only regret I have is that he is wasting his life as an alcoholic narcissist. He knows it too, but he doesn’t want to try to change. He just believes he is doomed to be unhappy. Which is sad, because he has the stuff of a good person inside him. Just not enough, I guess.
I don’t regret not being with him, at all. He is the reason I can fully appreciate all my sweetie’s great qualities, though.
For a while I regretted letting one guy “get away”
Except “getting away” meant that we simply stayed friends. The timing was all off - I wanted to make a move first but he was involved at the time, then when he was free and wanted to make a move I had gotten involved. So neither of us did anything but we both had an understanding that if we’d both been free at the same time at any point we would’ve fallen in together. After a couple years of mulling over "What if?"s I realized that he and I were not a match at all, and I would’ve been miserable with him in the long run. Emotions very much made me blind to his faults for a long time. He always said that people shouldn’t hold on to regrets, and that’s exactly what I’ve ended up doing.
Still best friends though. Great not to have that “What if?” hanging over my head all the time, too. Very liberating.
