Yep.
Something quite similar happened to me in my twenties. We had a pretty close-knit group of friends in university and in the second year one of the girls started to show signs of romantic interest in me. I was oblivious, of course, so my friends had to point it out for me. I was single and quite unexperienced with dating, so I thought “what the hell, why not?” So we ended up dating and I was starting to slowly fall for her.
Then we went to this student party together and we hung out with people as always. I went for a swim in the pool and when I came back, she came to me, looking extremely happy and said that she had just met this amazing guy and wanted to try things out with him. I stood silent for a few seconds and said “OK, it’s cool with me” . She smiled and ran off to her new man.
I got dressed, finished my beer and walked home. It was a long walk, but instead of disappointment and sadness I remember feeling immense relief, as I had just learned what “dodging a bullet” truly meant.
She and the new guy dated for maybe a year, before she lost interest in him - he really was a great guy, right at the start of their relationship he wanted to talk with me and he was genuinely sorry for “stealing my girl”. I assured him that I held no grudge and we became friends after she dumped him.
During their dating she quickly drifted out of our circle of friends by her own choice, so I got to keep things pretty much like they were before. I was always friendly towards her when we met and she did likewise. My friends were surprised that I wasn’t angry at her, but I told them that this was for the best and that I was happy how things had turned out.
Next year I found a wonderful girlfriend and I was happy. Few years later I happened to meet this “ex” of mine in a work-related seminar. When the seminar ended, I walked to the bus stop and saw her standing there. Turned out that we lived along the same bus route. Then she suddenly said “wouldn’t it be nice if you came home with me?” Like, WTF? She knew very well that I had been in a steady relationship for years and she had even met my girlfriend a few times.
She looked at me seductively and said “so, how about it?”. I’d known that she wasn’t stable, but at that moment I realized how truly fucked up she really was. “No, that’s not going to happen now or ever”, I said and walked away.
That was the last time I saw her. Few years ago I heard that she had been married twice or thrice before she was 40, and was single again.
BreakerSwitch@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Yeah I super get this. Back at the height of the whole “friend zone” thing I had been hanging out with a friend one on one very regularly and began crushing on her, asked her out at some point, she said she needed to focus on other things. A semester or two later, I asked if that had changed due to different circumstances in her life and she gave me a more direct no. She was pretty integrated into my friend group and my feelings were pretty badly hurt because we had been very close. Friends in that group would go on to ask why I’d never asked her out, under the assumption she was interested, and when I did eventually start dating someone else she tried to “talk me up” to that girl in a way that felt like sabotage to me. It’s hard to balance those feelings while remaining friends with someone. I was definitely at risk for falling down an incel hole around that time. Glad I didn’t
AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
I’m also glad you didn’t fall down the incel hole, because then it’s likely that we wouldn’t have you here with us