Reply To: Guy asked me out and now makes me feel bad for saying no.

First, you did the absolute right thing turning down a date with this guy. He isn’t looking for a healthy relationship — he is creating a false ideal of you in which having a relationship with you will solve all his problems. This is pretty common, actually. Crushing on someone and falling in love feels really good. It can be easy to assume it’s “fixing” your depression instead of what it’s really doing — masking it for a while, the same way drugs or gambling would. Once the honeymoon period ended and you showed yourself to be an actual human being with needs and wants of your own, he would get angry with you for failing to fix him and he would turn on you, possibly violently. I’ve seen it time and again. In fact, threatening suicide or implying that another person is responsible for preventing your suicide is considered an abuse tactic. It is not okay for him to put that on you and you are NOT responsible for his mental health. You are still in high school and you are not a trained mental health professional.

You are correct that he doesn’t have a good sense of boundaries. Please continue to trust your gut, do what you need to stay safe, and let other adults that you trust know what’s going on with this guy.