Dear David,

I also have a personal story that is a tiny bit similar to yours in terms of the remaining feelings. You’ll understand more after getting to the end of the story.

Four years ago, I came to an overseas university as a freshman, and it is a custom here for the foreign seniors to organize a simple orientation for us (also foreign) students. I met a senior who was very helpful, and after the orientation ended, we kept in contact. Weekend lunch outings, movie MP4 sharing (wifi was pretty limited in the university at the time), etc happened for like 3 weeks. He then asked me for a dinner out one day, afterwards we ended up walking in a secluded part of a park. We sat down, were playing around, then he kissed me all of a sudden, and I was stunned, completely motionless as it was my first kiss. At that time I could not understand the reason he was doing that (coming from a very conservative family, I was not allowed to have a boyfriend or be close to any guy, let alone kissing one!), so I was utterly confused. He looked at me with such cute, honest face full of remorse, saying,”I’m sorry..It’s just that you look so pretty I couldn’t help it”. I was completely melted by his words, and sat motionless for about 10 minutes trying to figure a word to say and how to react. He kept apologizing for quite a while, saying that he started developing feelings for me the moment he saw me and that he has never done this to any girl before. I said it was okay and that I need some time to think about how to deal with this, as I only thought of him as a very great senior and a good company. He said he will give me time to consider the possibility of a relationship, and that he also needed to think.

He had helped me with my homework, got along very well with my other dorm mates and even helped write my own essay for a scholarship I was applying to. And I actually was very blessed with the scholarship. As for myself, I often would cook for him when he was so tired from assignments and projects that he couldn’t be bothered to eat, or help him with his projects as well. Needless to say, we seemed like a perfect match. He was kind, caring to me, and we had very similar habits and taste. Many of our friends actually shipped us so hard that they got tired of waiting for us to get together.

Since then, we just continued hanging around each other, and things got a little intimate after a while. And because I did not have any experience with a guy, I had no expectation on how things would go. We started making out and I would feel a weirdly addicting, tingling stir inside my chest. He would treat me like a queen and say how beautiful I am, although we did not have sex (it is a taboo topic in the country we are living in). This kept happening everytime he came over to my dorm room every other weekend. After a few months, I ask him how could we move forward, but he told me that he was unsure as we have different faith. He came from a strict Christian family and I am not, so he told me to give him some time to think. He even told his parents about me, and they gave very discouraging response.

I kept asking him for more than a year but he would not give me an answer, putting whatever pride I had left, in line. Everytime I asked him in person, he would just avoid the question and we ended up in quarrels. I had to end the ‘relationship’ for the sake of my own sanity.

After that, I met an amazing guy with whom I am having relationship with currently. I felt a deep connection with him that I have never felt with anybody. However as I am currently in my final year of university, I got into a deep thought of my journey here. Suddenly I thought of my senior (the first guy) and I felt a strong feeling of guilt. Guilty that I had to lie, to convince myself that he is no good for me, and I had to leave the relationship because of that. Of course, he was in fault for making the relationship ‘toxic’ (that’s how he put it as he grew an excessive feeling of lust on me), which I also did in return, making the whole relationship focused on lust and nothing else. I was also in fault for not stopping myself, but at that time, nothing seemed wrong to me, as I had a very optimistic hope that we could eventually grow together. But he went and avoided me every once in a while until I eventually grew sick of it.

I am not sure about what I am feeling right now, but I kind of missed him. I miss him as a close friend without all of the ‘toxic’ stuff. This has nothing to do with my current boyfriend, as he is such a nice guy to me. But somehow I feel nostalgic and craving that kind of connection everytime I think about him, and it just makes me feel even more guilty as if I had emotionally cheated on my boyfriend. I am unsure of what to do, I even get dreams about him nowadays. Although I am pretty sure that i am not in love with him, I can’t put a name on how I am feeling right now.

I hope that you could share how you’ve dealt with the situation as it could probably help me as well.