I’ve posted about this before (on a different account in a different subreddit) because it is easily the single biggest mistake of my life. I know I probably won’t get much sympathy here but before I get into it, I just want to say that there is nothing I’ve regret more and it haunts me to this day.
About 10 years ago, a friend of mine from a different high school told me one of his girl friends was interested in me and wanted me to ask her to her homecoming. We had hung out before and had a good time, but overall I didn’t really know her that well. However, most of my friends were going and she was cool, so I asked her to the dance.
I texted her before the dance to work out our gameplan for the night. We decided that I would drive us to the dance and then drive us to the after party at a friend’s place. Since I was driving, I wasn’t going to drink but my friend was going to bring edibles so I figured I’d just do that. She texted me beforehand and asked if I could bring her any alcohol, so I filled up a 12oz water bottle with vodka from my parent’s liquor cabinet.
We get to the dance and had a great time. Afterward, her and I start to drive to the after party and I take my edible. She asks if she could have the vodka and starts sipping on it while we drive. During the drive, she starts asking me about a girl we both knew that I had recently lost my virginity to. She asked if I was into her, about how the sex was, etc. she also starts talking about her ex boyfriend (they had broken up recently) and stuff about their sex lives. About 15/20 minutes later, we get to the party.
We park outside and sit in the car because all our friends are sitting in their cars as well waiting to go in. My date and I keep talking about sex stuff and eventually start making out. Eventually, everyone starts to head in and while we’re walking to the door, my date stumbles and falls down. She’s laughing and acting drunk (I have no idea how much of the vodka she had drank by this point) and so our friends say that we need to go drive around for a bit because the party host’s dad was at the door and would be mad if he knew she was drunk. So, my date and I get in my car and start driving around to kill time. While we’re driving, we continue our talk from earlier and eventually, my date asks if I ever wanted to have sex with her.
I was definitely high, but I knew she was drunk and I knew it was a bad idea. I told her that I didn’t think it was a good idea, to which she replied that her and her ex had sex all the time and she didn’t understand why people make such a big deal out of it. I told her that I definitely wanted to, but she was drunk and that’s wrong. She replied that yes she was drunk, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make her own decisions. I told her that she was only wanting to because she was drunk, and she said she had been wanting to have sex with me for awhile which is why she asked my friend to get me to be her date. We talked about it for awhile and eventually I made the worst decision of my life. I parked the car in a random parking lot and we had sex.
While we were having sex, she was moaning and then called me by the wrong name. As soon as I heard that, I stopped it. The whole thing lasted maybe 2 minutes. I said this was wrong and that we shouldn’t have done this got back in the drivers seat. The whole time, she was asking me why I stopped, telling me she wanted me and asking if I thought she wasn’t attractive. I begged her to stop talking and started crying while I drove her back to the party. When we got there, her friends came out and started sitting with her. By now, she was acting VERY drunk. After awhile, her mom came and picked her up and I went home.
The next day, I texted her and asked how she was doing. She said she was feeling fine but her parents were pissed at her, and apologized if she had acted poorly. She also said that she had blacked out and didn’t remember what happened. I was shocked by this and asked if she remembered us hooking up, and she said no. The last thing she remembered was us making out in my car and that was it.
I apologized profusely, told her everything that had happened and that I never would have done anything if I knew she was that drunk. I swear on my life when I tell you that the things she was saying in the car did not sound like someone black out drunk. We were sober when we got into that car and I wasn’t keeping track of how much she drank, and our entire conversation started at the beginning of the drive and continued right until we hooked up. I never made any kind of move on her, never touched her, never steered the convo towards sex or insinuated anything. I had only just lost my virginity about a month before, had only kissed maybe 3 women in my lifetime and had never had a girlfriend. I was not a sexually aggressive person, had never even tried to have sex with someone and always made an effort to be kind and respectful to everyone especially women.
After I told her what happened, she apologized for what happened. She told me that she gets very flirty when she drinks and that she had even once tried to hook up with her dad when she was hammered. I told her not to apologize, that it was my fault and that I was so so sorry for everything. She said it was okay but that her parents were taking her phone away so she wouldn’t be able to talk for awhile. And that was it- I didn’t hear from her for over a month.
About a month passed, and I got an Instagram DM from some guy I’d never met. As it turns out, it was her ex boyfriend who was in college. He told me I was a rapist piece of shit and that the next time he was in town, he would kill me. I told him the entire story I’m telling you now, that i was so sorry but it truly was a mistake and I never had bad intentions. He said it didn’t matter and that I needed to watch my back. So I texted her and told her what happened. She told me she was sorry and to please ignore him, and that he wasn’t supposed to say anything to me. After that, he reached out and apologized but said he gets very protective of her because he knows there are slimy men out there.
Fast forward a few months. I have not seen my friends from the dance because I was so ashamed of what happened and had been avoiding their texts to hang out. I’m in class one day, and I get a call from my friend Alexa. Alexa tells me that she had been telling everyone at her school that I raped her, and asked me if it was true. I told her the whole story and she said she believed me and it wasn’t my fault. And that was that.
About 2 years later, I was failing at college. I had cut off all my friends from that day and developed serious anxiety and shame from what happened. Finally, I got invited to hang out with them (she wasn’t there) and after many drinks, my friends asked me what happened that night. I couldn’t help it and broke down crying and told them the whole story. They comforted me and told me it wasn’t my fault (because they’re good friends), and I guess one of them must have texted her because she called me and asked what was going on. I told her over the phone about how sorry I was, about how it wasn’t truly a mistake and that I never meant to hurt her. Basically just apologizing over and over. She told me it wasn’t ok, that I made a mistake but she never thought I was a bad guy, and that was that. She reached out a few weeks later to invite me to a concert with her and our mutual friends, but I was having surgery for something so I couldn’t make it.
Since then, we haven’t had any contact. Over the years, my mental health fell apart and I ended up in the mental hospital briefly. I lost almost all contact with all my friends from that time and spent many years in near isolation. Eventually, I got out on meds and started therapy to try and move on. I’ve since started a new job in another town, got a girlfriend and made new friends. But still, to this day, the guilt eats me up inside.
The friends who know what happened, my siblings and parents, and my therapist all tell me that it was just a mistake, that I’m not a piece of shit and that I need to let it go. But I just can’t bring myself to believe that. Yes, she did everything she could to initiate sex that night. But she was drunk, I knew that, and at the end of the day it was my choice to do it. She didn’t force me- I made the call myself and I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I sometimes want to reach out to her, to apologize again, but it’s been 10 years and I’m sure her life is much better now. It’s not my place to reach out just to ease my own guilt. But wherever she is, I hope she somehow knows how sorry I am and that if there’s anything I could do to take it back, I would.