I’m not one to regret things.  I find it a useless emotion: what’s done is done, and you learn what you can from it and move forward.

There are only two decisions that I can honestly say I regret, and both of them were men.

I met Caleb last year.  He was funny and charming, with a twinkle in his eye and the body of a Greek god.  And he liked me.

The downside?  He had a girlfriend at the time.  I found that out after I had developed feelings for him, and was crushed.

We became very close and hung out several times, intent on preserving our friendship in spite of the feelings we had for each other.  I, of course, wished he would end his relationship and be with me.  He was torn, and in the interest of honesty he told his girlfriend that he had developed feelings for me and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

I applaud him for his honesty, but after he told her, she told her friends, and the whole thing became a bit of a scandal.  It estranged me from many of my friends, and some of those people still don’t include me.

The official story is that nothing ever happened between us.  He decided that’s what he wanted, and I certainly wasn’t going to insist that the more humiliating version come out (although I hate lying).  So it’s pretty incredible that, a year later, and believing that I’m just some girl her boyfriend had a crush on for a while and now doesn’t even talk to anymore, she still won’t let it go.  She outright ignores me when I speak to her.  It’s childish.

Of course, the true story is that we weren’t as angelic and restrained as we would have liked to be, and ended up becoming physical on several occasions when we simply could not contain ourselves any longer.  And I must admit, there’s nothing quite like spending an afternoon with someone you know is longing to kiss you and watching him struggle with himself and seeing the fire build up behind his eyes until he just grabs you and kisses you with all the love he’s been repressing all day.  We slept together once, and I was disappointed to find that not only was it not great, I literally could not feel him inside of me.  Talk about a lap pinky.

In the end, Caleb decided to stay with his girlfriend.  It was probably for the best, because if he would cheat on her, he would cheat on me.  And I deserve better than that.

After he’d made his decision, though, he kept wanting to talk about it.  He’d text me or message me and tell me how much he still loved me and how he hoped someday we could be together.  It got annoying—you can’t have both of us, sir.  You chose her, so go be with her.

Eventually that led to a fight and I said some pretty awful things to him, but the bright side is that he hasn’t contacted me since then.  And I like to think that he quit daydreaming about me and gave his girlfriend the attention she deserved.

The fact that I slept with him, though, still haunts me.  I have an alarming lack of self-control around the men I am attracted to.  I’d always thought I would never be the other woman, but there I was.  And it was awful.