POTENTIAL ROMANCE DESTROYED BY MY OWN BIG MOUTH? Please read a play by play of this romance to figure out if there is any hope to fix things!

(Lingo to know before reading: “Pledge” – someone in the initiation period of entering a frat or sorority.)

Quick notes on the type of person I am (so you get a general vibe before reading): I am a 20 year old university student who loves school, books, parties, my sorority, Disney, my hamster, and all things British. I am pretty loud, confident, sometimes funny, and super social. I am pretty flirty and would like to think that I am fun. I love to dance, make new friends, travel, and learn as much as I can.

Now onto the story…

At a frat/sorority mixer BBQ, I noticed a gorgeous blonde guy, who I was told was a new frat pledge. He is exactly my type physically – blonde hair, blue eyes, dimples, big smile… and seemed to have a great energy. I talked to every guy at the event except for him because I was too nervous, but awkwardly said a quiet “bye!” to him as I left the event.

A few weeks later, at a party, he came up and introduced himself to me (which made my stomach flutter), then proceeded to catch my eye and kind of follow me around (in a non-creepy way) throughout the night. Him and I hit it off right away – taking photos together, cracking jokes, playing a game of pong, and singing to all of the songs we knew that were playing. I made sure I wasn’t showing too much interest, and dismissed him a bit here and there when he was trying to get my attention or dance with me, which made him seem to be even more interested. Internally I was freaking out that he seemed as into me as I was secretly into him. As the party came to an end, and we were all leaving to go to a little after-party, he said he wanted to go home, but as soon as he noticed I was going too, he excitedly asked to come along. We became flirtier and flirtier as the night progressed, but both went home without any physical move having been made.

The next week, my sorority and the frat had another event together. Everybody was dressed in fancy suits and dresses, and I was thrilled to see him again. He came over to talk to me multiple times, but I started to notice that he was talking to other girls just as much as me, so I decided that he is just a flirt and I am nothing special in his eyes. As the night progressed, however, I noticed that he would look over at me while talking to other girls, and seemed to want me to notice he was chatting up other ladies. I showed no reaction.

It was my friend’s birthday that night, so a group of the event attendees decided to go downtown for drinks. The boy decided to go home instead of heading out with us, which I was secretly sad about, but knew I would still have a blast. Fast forward to my friends and I at the bar. I get a message from the boy, asking where I was. I told him the bar we were at, and he said he would be there in 20 minutes to join us. Sure enough, 20 mins later he was there with the biggest smile on his face. He told me he wanted to see me, and asked his buddy to bring him to join the little bday party. We proceeded to have the best time together. We traded outfits, danced together, told each other stories, and acted like two peas in a pod. All of our friends were shocked that we were so chummy chummy, since they knew we hadn’t talked outside of the events that everybody was at. He got pretty drunk, and I got tipsy, then everybody decided to cab back home. I cabbed with the boy and one of my close friends, and him and I sang musical theatre songs the whole way home and laughed until our stomachs hurt. The cab dropped us off at my house, and the boy walked my friend home, since her house was close to his friend’s place he was staying at (He often stays at his friend’s house that is in my neighbourhood, since his house is about a 20 minute drive away).

I changed into PJs and got into bed, ready to sleep, when I received a message from the boy asking if he could walk back to my house because he didn’t remember how to walk back to his friend’s place and his phone was almost out of charge. I was quite excited at the proposition of getting to spend more time with him, but jokingly brushed him off and said I needed my beauty sleep. 10 minutes later, I heard a knock at my door. I went and opened the door and there was the grinning gorgeous blonde boy, drunk as ever but seemingly thrilled to see me. I invited him in and got him water and a snack. We proceeded to hang out for the next 2 hours, until 4 in the morning, making jokes in British accents and blabbing about Harry Potter and talking about our dreams and all that cliché stuff. I am a big child at heart, and love tea parties and Disney, etc. etc. I told him this, and he proceeded to sing Disney songs with me and when I asked if he wanted to have a fake tea party on my carpet with my porcelaine set, he automatically agreed and went along with the whole thing (cringe I know, but cute nonetheless). I felt so safe and warm and happy and my inner child felt so content. Finally I told him I needed to sleep (it was a school night!) and walked him out. As I hugged him goodbye, he told me that he did in fact know how to walk to his friend’s house, and that he had just really wanted to spend some time one on one with me. With a smile I said goodnight and he headed off into the night.

The next week I was headed off to Disneyland! I needed a ride to the airport, and since I was owed 3 “wishes” from him after successfully stealing his frat pin (a sorority + frat tradition where they become your genie if you sneakily take their shirt pin) he drove me and my friend to the terminal. As we drove, he played all of the quirky music that I like and smiled at everything I said as I rambled on about my week. He told me that if I bought him a souvenir from my trip, he would pick me up when I returned home. I accepted the mission and went off for the week.

In Disneyland, I bought him a shot glass with a character and his name engraved on it. I felt so cringy and overly bold with the gesture, but hoped deep down he would like it. I got myself one too, so that we would match, and crossed my fingers that he would like it as much as I secretly did.

During my trip, we talked via Snapchat, iMessage, and Instagram non-stop. He sent me funny videos that made him think of me, we had the funniest banter, and I truly became shocked with how similar we are. I had never had such carefree and fun conversations online with someone, and was thrilled that he matched my energy. (I’ve had multiple long-ish term boyfriends of 6 months to 1.5 years so I was surprised that I was bonding even more with this guy than any of the other people I’ve fallen for romantically). I found myself being goofier with him than some of my closest friends, and loved how weird he was, like me.

When I took my flight back, it was delayed, and unfortunately the boy could no longer pick me up, since he had a mandatory frat meeting. To make it up to me, he picked me up for school the next morning, and was thrilled with the shot glass gift. He even told me later that he had shown his mom and that she found it adorable too. We got breakfast together and he walked me to class. It was wonderful.

A few days later, after much more online communications, he came over for a pancake breakfast and we went to school together again. My roommates even commented on how close we seemed as we made breakfast together, which thrilled me even more.

Nonstop that week we were in communications. Hilarious banter hour after hour. I started to feel more bold in my flirting, and he jokingly would talk about how “obsessed” i was with him, but didn’t seem bothered by my interest because he was reciprocating everything back. As an attempt to see where we stood (if it were friendly or romantic attraction that he felt), I proposed that for my final wish (from the genie-pin-stealing thing) he take me out on a date. He pretended to protest in a funny way (it’s hard to describe on a forum but he is a really funny guy who pokes fun at everything and it never very serious) but a few days later, texted me “you, me, thursday, dinner” which showed that he had been thinking about it and consented to the proposition. (again, I was thrilled).

NOW to a juicy bit. A week and a half ago, on a Friday, after a sorority event, my friend and I wanted to go out to “party” but weren’t sure what to do. The boy messaged me and said there was a little thing at his friend’s house near mine, and asked me to come. My friend and I showed up, and it was a super random function with people we didn’t know. The boy was pretty drunk (they had just finished a drinking frat event) but was excited to see my friend and I. After a few hours of all hanging out, we (the boy + me) decided that we wanted to go watch a movie, and I invited him to my place. I was tipsy, but not drunk, so once we got to my house I made him a full pizza (which he ate the majority of), had him right away drink 2 giant glasses of water, and made sure he felt taken care of. We watched about an hour of a movie, just kind of sitting close together on my pullout bed in my living room. At this point, he was sobered up (after continuously eating and drinking tons of water). We decided to put on Shrek 2 (my favourite movie) and he started to cuddle up with me. About 20 mins into the movie, he turned over and we started making out. We have the same kissing style, which was ELECTRIC, and within minutes we were naked. I don’t want to be graphic on this forum, but let’s just say this was the most INCREDIBLE *intimacy* I have ever experienced. It was like an out of body experience. Like jaw dropping, this-is-out-of-a-movie good. Like I think everybody deserves it to be THAT good, kind of good. This man is a trained dancer and a piano player. You can imagine the rest. For almost 2 hours we did our *thing* and I loved every second of it. We both were so comfortable and on the same level and I have truly never felt anything like it. Afterwards, we both were exhausted but happy, and fell asleep intertwined.

The next morning, we went to McDonalds for breakfast, then brought his buddies (who hosted the party the night before) breakfast. When he dropped me back off at home before he had work, he kissed my forehead then my lips goodbye (after we had talked earlier about how much I love forehead kisses). I was on cloud nine. All day I kept replaying in my mind over and over how incredible the night had been. I felt like I had drinken water after months of living in a desert (or some other cliché thing like that!). I was smitten.

Over the next few days, the constant messaging continued. He had a super busy week, so when I made efforts for us to hangout he couldn’t, but would communicate why. (His friends in the frat even talk about how busy he is, so I wasn’t overly worried). Last Wednesday, I asked if he wanted to do something, but said he had his pledge brother’s birthday party. I was worried that he had made that up, but during my Wednesday sorority meeting, I got a text from one of the boy’s pledge brothers inviting me and my friends to go out with them. I instantly said yes, and my friends and I rushed home to quickly get ready. One of the guys, lets call him Bob, said he would come pick us up from my house. There were 4 of us girls, and 1 Bob, so 5 people to fit perfectly in his car. We excitedly waited at the door, opening it when we heard a car pull up, and who walks up but Bob and The Boy! The boy said that Bob “needed directions” and that he knew where to go so he tagged along. Now we had 6 people though, so I had to sit on the boy’s lap to get to the event. He had his hand on my stomach as we drove, sharing his drink with me and commenting about how he liked the way I curled my hair and the top I was wearing. I was so happy. It felt like there had been a shift between us, where we both had this little secret about how *close* we had been. (Our friends knew we hooked up, but it still felt like a special little thing that both of us knew).

When we got to the bday party, it was a small thing with the pledge boys + us. The boy was practically gushing to the guys about this and that about me (oh Brooke likes yellow! Brooke loves British people! Brooke loves Harry Potter! Brooke loves books! All these random things in every conversation ahah) which I was thrilled about. I mentioned how I would love to be brought as his date to an upcoming St. Patty’s Day party, and he proceeded to do a dramatic fake proposal asking me to go with him, which I also loved. We were getting along so well, and were tied at the hip leading up to going to the bar. He held my hand in the cab, and I was just so happy.

At the bar, we started taking shot after shot. I had already drinken at the house we were at, and felt drunk even upon arrival at the bar. I had only eaten toast for breakfast and had a little snack midday, but it was around 11 pm and I hadn’t eaten any proper meals that day. The boy and I were aggressively flirty with each other. He passed his mint into my mouth in a kind of tongue kiss, and was sitting super close to me.

All of a sudden I was a reckless drunk. I started professing my feelings to him and trying to get him to kiss me and was all over him, bombarding him with my affection. After a while of me being aggressively flirty and overbearing, he said “You need to check yourself. You’re trying to get me to kiss you and you’re making me uncomfortable and you need to back off Brooke!” I felt like I had been slapped in the face. (NOTE: I am on his side here. I was being a very sloppy drunk, was being overbearing, and it is always so important to me that people communicate their discomfort in any situation. Communication is key and I always want people to tell me how they feel, so we are team The Boy in this!!!! Also, I am big into consent culture, and it is a fear of mine to ever make someone feel uncomfortable, so this was an absolute nightmare to hear.) I was so painfully embarrassed and heartbroken and in that moment I felt like the world was ending. I proceeded to stumble over to my friends to tell them the embarrassing moment I just had, and they rudely told me to “take a lap,” leaving me to go pour my heart out to some of the other frat pledges. It was like I couldn’t stop talking. I was like “I am so embarrassed I am so embarrassing I shouldn’t be here I need to leave I am so embarrassed” and they all told me it was ok and I just had to relax. I was at the point where I was a “I am going to be sick the world is spinning” kind of drunk. I get anxious when I don’t feel well, so the mixture of embarrassment, my friends having been rude by telling me to “take a lap” (their way of saying “go away”) and the prospect of being sick at a public bar had me sitting, looking depressed, at our table. The boy was clearly avoiding being near me, and I tried to look like I was ok and having a fine time, but eventually I had to go sit on the bathroom floor by the toilet since I felt so sick. My friends came and were taking care of me, trying to get me to come out to a cab to go home, but I refused to leave the bathroom until the boys were outside and couldn’t see how much of a drunken mess I was. The girls got me a puke bag and took me outside and I shook in my close guy friend’s arms (an active frat brother who showed up later) until I was put into a cab and sent off with 2 friends. When I got home, I fell asleep right away.

When I woke up the next morning, my heart hurt. I felt so painfully embarrassed, and knew that I had totally scared off the boy that I was so fond of. Throughout the day I slowly started remembering bits and pieces of the night that made me feel worse and worse. My friend telling me I need to get used to being rejected, the boy looking at me with discomfort in his eyes, my friends exchanging worried glances at the trainwreck I was being. I proceeded to draft an eloquent apology message to the boy, where I expressed my sorriness for making him uncomfortable, my self awareness with how embarrassing and overbearing I had been, and my general apologies. He responded with a very kind paragraph where he apologized for making me feel upset, and that he really appreciated my message. He was really nice about it, and I was suprised with how eloquent his response was.

Remember that “you, me, thursday night, dinner” date mentioned before? Ya, that date was supposed to happen the day after the bar incident. In his nice paragraph, he said that he was not uninviting me to the St. Patty’s day party he did the mini proposal for, but that we should “take a rain check on the date”. He ended the message saying he hoped I was feeling ok and not too hungover. I replied to his paragraph with “ok! thanks – you too” because I wanted to give him his space. He followed up by telling me I never have to feel sorry for how I feel and that he was appreciative of my efforts to message him and that “there is no big loss here” (… maybe not to him, but losing him is a loss to me! **Please let me know your thoughts on this portion too!). He said that my efforts to communicate how I felt were just not gracefully executed because of how drunk I was, but his weren’t either. I took that as this: I was not good at expressing how much I like him, and he was not good at expressing how much he does not at all feel the same way. (***Please give your interpretations too!)

On Friday I was supposed to go to a concert of his, but obviously was no longer going, so I messaged him a simple “good luck” and he replied with “yo thanks my guy” which SHATTERED me. (A lot of teenage / young adult boys say ‘my guy’ as a term for anybody, especially friends, but it just felt like salt in the wound that he friend-zoned me so fast). He ended our snapchat streak, has not reached out, and does not send me funny things on Instagram anymore.

It is now Monday, and since Thursday morning this has all been eating me up inside. I miss us talking 24/7, and am devastated that somebody who I clicked with so instantly is now no longer talking to me because of me being a drunken idiot who couldn’t keep her mouth shut when it was supposed to be a chill bday evening. I apologized to all of the people who were at the bar with us, even buying balloons and a cake and a sign to surprise the birthday boy and show my condolences for being blackout drunk on his birthday, and everybody seems to be super fine with how things went and appreciated my efforts to show my embarrassment. The ONLY person who I don’t know if they are ok with me or not is the boy. I know that I scared him off, and that my drunk professions of adoration were enough to make anybody run for the hills, but I truly want things to work out. Everything was so wonderful for weeks, and I mess up one time and now I am seemingly out of his picture forever. (I still know I messed up, and that he rightfully may never want to see me again, but I still see so much potential with him and desperately want to win back his affection).

This Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we have Greek events that we will both be at. On Saturday I am (hopefully) still going as his date to the St. Patty’s party, but I am painfully nervous to see him. I’ve been having nightmares about it, and have not been focusing on school because of how torn up I am about how I ruined something so good. Within 1 day he went from bragging about me to his friends and messaging me so much to not talking to me at all. I know I messed up, and I apologized, but what more can I do?

I haven’t tried reaching out (besides the “good luck” text) because I want to give him space and not make things worse. It’s been rough not sending him the funny things I see or text him a joke I heard, but I really want to make sure I give him the time to figure out what he wants and respect his space. My friends think its a lost cause and that I’ll just have to suck it up at communal events moving forwards and realize he probably hates me, but deep down I am a hopeless romantic and hope that he will see me and everything will end up working out in the end.

What should I do? Do I play it cool? Accept my loss? Know there’s nothing left there for me? Keep hope? Make sure I look super hot at the events? Play hard to get? Reach out an olive branch? Block him everywhere and move to another country? (Haha!) I know all I can do is wait and see what is going to happen, but I am so devastated and don’t know what to do with myself!

PLEASE TELL ME YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS LOVE STORY GONE WRONG!!! Any and all opinions, ideas, and interpretations are welcome!

THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH!
xx, Brooke