Dinner: made by me steak, potatoes and yoghurt topping with garlic and lil tomato heart
TLDR at the end
My(21F) first official date with my(22M) high school crush ended with me crying in public, i realised the person I trusted to make me feel safe was also the person who made me feel like dog poop on the street.
I don’t even know if I’m writing this because I want advice or because I just need to put this somewhere outside my own head. Advice and opinions are welcome because honestly I’m still trying to understand how I went from feeling so hopeful about someone to feeling this hurt.
A few years ago, in high school, I had a crush on this guy. We never dated, but during our last year of school we talked a lot through chat. We stopped communicating and after that, we basically became strangers. We were both at the same university and would occasionally see each other on campus, but we avoided eye contact and didn’t speak for around three years.
Then last year, he found my Instagram and followed me. A while later, I replied to one of his stories, and somehow we started talking again.
At first, it felt unreal.
We started hanging out casually. We would run errands together, go skating with friends, talk about random things. Then earlier this year we admitted something: we had both actually had crushes on each other back in high school.
We started flirting more and eventually became intimate. And now I wonder why he let us become intimate before a date.
For me, this was not casual.
I had never kissed anyone before him. I was a virgin. Because of my background and family expectations, becoming intimate with someone outside of marriage was a huge personal risk for me. If my family found out, the consequences would have been devastating.
I took that risk because I believed this was someone who cared about me. Someone who had liked me for years. Someone I thought could potentially be my future. I was mistaken and naive, I know.
We talked every day. We had our first experiences together. He was also a virgin, so this was something new for both of us.
Then he went away for three weeks on a trip, we continued messaging every day. He brought me back a cute gift from his trip. He talked about wanting to travel with me, and have other experiences together, but I made it clear that I wouldn’t travel outside the country with a guy who isn’t my bf. I wasn’t trying to be mean, I only mentioned that we never verbally established that we’re a couple. He said that he assumed we were kinda a couple alrdy but that he would make it right cuz he understood we are in fact not a couple.
Then came our first official date. He was very excited and invited me to a theatre play evening. I was genuinely excited too because I thought it was such a sweet and romantic idea.
But the entire evening felt like I was alone while sitting next to someone.
He is naturally quiet, so I already knew he wasn’t the most talkative person. But that night felt different.
At dinner before the theatre, there was barely any conversation. At one point I went to the bathroom and some tears came because I felt so unwanted. I was mostly disappointed and confused.
And when I passed him to get to the toilet, I noticed he had a Twitch stream playing in a mini player on his phone on his lap. When I asked about it, he said it was from something he had been watching before we met. Maybe it was true, which I highly doubt cuz who has a MiniPlayer on the whole time during a DATE nonetheless? but in that moment it added to the feeling that he wasn’t fully present with me.
I kept telling myself I was probably imagining everything.
Maybe I was being too sensitive.
Maybe he was nervous.
Maybe the feeling that I wasn’t wanted was just in my head.
So I stayed.
The biggest issue of the night was getting home.
Before the date, I had told him that I needed him to bring me home because I don’t feel comfortable travelling alone late at night. I told him that some weird men roam my neighbourhood and made me feel unsafe. He agreed and said it wouldn’t be a problem.
But during the evening, the conversation kept returning to his own transport situation and how he also needed to get home.
I understand that he had his own difficulties ( his current beginner drivers license doesn’t allow passenger without a license and being on the road after a certain hour. These are rules of the country we are in. I’m not in the USA). I understand that everyone has to think about getting home.
But in that moment, I didn’t feel like someone he was taking care of as he promised he would.
I felt like a problem he was trying to avoid not solve.
After the concert, he told me we had missed the train and that if he had to take me all the way home, he would also have trouble getting back himself because our public transport runs less after 11 PM, which would be the time by when we arrive at my home. But he would still be able to get home for sure. Our transport only closes after midnight.
He suggested leaving the performance early to catch an earlier train, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing that. I felt embarrassed at the idea of walking out early. It was my first time in such a formal setting.
So we stayed. (Edit: a lot of ppl are giving me comments abt the transport situation, so a little clarification: I suggested we take the metro and tram to which he said would take longer but he did agree to it)
After the play, we walk outside and he asked me: “So how are you going to get home?”
I remember looking at him and thinking: “What do you mean? Aren’t you coming with me?”
The look he gave me felt like a mixture of annoyance and “I already told you.”
And that was the moment something in me broke.
It wasn’t even just about the transport anymore.
It was about the fact that I had trusted him and he dropped his promise.
We took a bus together, and I had to exit at a station before him, a station that in my city is notorious for having dangerous people roaming around there. I wasn’t even home after the bus, I had to take another metro to a station which is also notorious for its criminal activity and there I had to take a tram to the station closest to my house where yet again it is dangerous at night. ALSO ALSO, at the station closest to my house, I was stalked by a creepy man one time, it ended with my filing a police report cuz he had done disgusting things while stalking me, I told the guy that story and he seemed to have forgotten it or not care.
I cried on the way home cuz of how betrayed I felt. I realise now I shouldn’t have let that situation make me cry.
When I got back home, full of tears and hiding in the bathroom to not show my parents my red eyes, he messaged asking if I got home safely. I didn’t open the message because I was too upset.
But after that, he didn’t call. He didn’t check again. He didn’t seem to understand how deeply hurt I was.
And that was when something changed for me.
Because whether he loved me or not, whether he had feelings for me or not, I realized that I could not rely on him to show up for me when I was vulnerable.
Eventually, I reached out and we talked face to face about what happened. I told him how hurt I was.
He apologized, but the conversation also shifted toward his mental health struggles and how he wasn’t sure he was ready for a relationship.
I believe his struggles are real. I genuinely hope he gets the help he needs.
But I also realized that his struggles do not erase the impact his actions had on me. Like why is it that his undiagnosed depression made him an anti gentleman suddenly. We stopped talking, he would occasionally send me memes or smt but nothing else.
A few weeks later, I made the mistake of thinking maybe we could just be friends with benefits because I still felt safe with him physically and I just wanted to have the experience.
But I couldn’t do it.
The moment we became intimate again, I realized how much hurt I was still carrying from that night. My body remembered the pain before my brain could pretend everything was okay.
As a last attempt to understand where he stood with me, I asked him what he actually wanted in life, what he imagined for his future, what he wanted from me.
And he couldn’t give me an answer.
So I left.
The hardest part is that I don’t know what hurts more:
The possibility that I was wrong about him…
or the possibility that I was right that he cared about me, but he still wasn’t capable of treating me the way I needed.
Or maybe I really did get played. I honestly don’t know anymore.
I don’t think he is an evil person. I think he has his own struggles, and I think there were moments where he genuinely cared about me.
But I also know that I deserve someone who makes me feel safe, valued, and chosen.
Ugh. I hate how much this situation has drained me the last few weeks.
TLDR: Thought I was living the “we liked each other all along” romance trope. Instead, my first official date with my high school crush ended with me crying on the way home because he made me feel like a burden, and completely shattered the trust I’d built after becoming intimate with him.