Men of Reddit who regretted telling someone you dated that you weren’t ready for a relationship, what’s your story with this person?

15 comments

1. She moved on as I wanted to meet other women.

   Kinda regret not giving her a chance.

2. while living with an ex (yeah, this was a bad situation from the start), i started seeing someone else who was rushing a little fast to get into a serious relationship. it was an awkward situation and i had to pump the brakes, she didnt take it well. kicked myself for a while since we had a long history together and a whole heap of sexual tension over the years. we lost contact by the time i was ready to persue a relationship. when we did reconnect later on as friends, she was a hot mess and in a relationship. we dont talk anymore, and apparently now she sells (sold?) nudes on OF.

   im currently happily married, and looking at my life now, i am glad i dodged that bullet.

3. She told me she wasn’t ready and honestly neither was I. Also I think I dodged a bullet in terms of getting into a relationship with specifically.

   The one thing I do regret is that she was moving way faster than I anticipated and hopefully I didn’t hurt her in anyway.

4. I told her, she didn’t believe me and hung around for 18 months before she realised i was serious and moved on. I met my wife about 3 months later. oops

5. I did this a few times and I regretted it cause I wasn’t being truthful. I was a young 21 ish year old in a good situation just having fun. When girls would attach themselves or ask to be exclusive I knew I wasn’t ready because I was a straight hoe. I never lied I was up front I didn’t want a relationship but I felt terrible thinking I gave off signs that I did so I would use that excuse .

   In reality I should have told them hey its not you I told you I just wanted to fuck around and you wanted more. I feel like this could have helped those women learn or grow and go oh when I guy says he doesn’t want one I can’t change his mind.

   Figured that out and it was way better

6. One of my few regrets, I just wasn’t ready. She was awesome though. Last time I saw her was a weekend filled with sex and grilled cheese sandwiches.

   I know, I know, I’m a fucking idiot.

7. I wasn’t, I met her the week after my wife moved out. She actually hung around and we became really good friends. Really helped me across a lot of the newly-unexpectedly-single stumbling blocks. We gave it a stab a few years later but it lasted all of three days before we realized it wasn’t gonna work and we were gonna burn a friendship. Managed to put the genie back in the bottle and stayed great friends. She moved away last month, really been missing her.

8. She wanted sex one month into seeing each other. 🙁 I wasn’t ready and she told me to kill myself.

9. We been together for 5 years lol

10. She persisted and we are now happily married. She was the hunter, and I was the hunted, which is rare. I only didn’t want a relationship because I wanted to live with my mum and play mw3 🤣

11. She got married shortly after and has a baby now. I was in my hoe phase and was hurting feelings while getting mine hurt and i told her I didn’t want to put her in that rotation. We stayed friends I guess cuz I was truthful about it, idk. It always hurt seeing her get a new partner then fiancé and so on but I’m genuinely happy that at least once I wasn’t shitty to a person.

12. I was dating some other girl already and this other girl (one of her best friend’s) really liked me back then and was super nice to me always. Unlike the girl I was dating whom always made me feel bad about myself.

    Anyway, I don’t really “regret” it but the other girl became a really successful realtor or something.

    I’m happy for her to be honest, plus I don’t really think about it until this point with your question lol

13. I dated a girl in my 20s who I really liked but I was young and wanted to be single and play the field, plus I was fresh out of another relationship so I didn’t want to jump into something else…any way I dated this girl for about a month or so, the chemistry was amazing, the sex was amazing, she was attractive, her body was mint but I just couldn’t bring myself to be in another relationship right away….

    So what did I do, rather than be honest with her and tell her that, I said “you and I could never work, we butt heads too much” and she took it as “I don’t want to be with you” after that she kind of faded me, we hung out a few more times, slept together but then she met another guy and she disappeared from my life…about 8 years later we both broke up with the people we were dating and we went on date to catch up, the chemistry was still there, things went amazing, I was completely into her again but we were both in the “I don’t want anything serious, I just got out of a relationship” stage…needless to say she met someone, got pregnant, and now just got married and had a kid lol

    essentially, I fucked it up twice and had I just told her “I really like you but I’m afraid to jump into something” and communicated, we probably would have dated but I’m an idiot and I self-sabotaged like usual…

14. I was going through a divorce. It was bad enough being stuck in that situation, but then I met Tracey.

    She was a knockout. And while I’d had several relationships over the years leading up to that point, I’d never experienced instant chemistry with anyone like I did with Tracey. I got a promotion at work and moved to a new location. She worked there when I arrived and we just hit it off. Started making playful flirty verbal jabs at one another (all in good fun, nothing negative).

    We both had a situation going on. She was engaged, and as I said above I was at the tail end of a divorce and also had my kid to care for. We started having lunches together at work (ostensibly as “friends”). She’d talk about how she was scared to consider marriage, I’d talk about how I liked marriage, just not the woman with whom I’d taken the plunge. It was effortless. We got on so well.

    One night after work I’m sitting at home alone and I get a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was her. She’d asked around and couldn’t find my phone number so she snuck into the office to grab it from the personnel files in the front office. It would be creepy if a dude did this, but I gotta admit it was a major turn on. We talked for literally hours. Long into the night. Mostly flirty, and even some saucy banter. I’ve never considered myself much of a catch or much to look at, but she made me feel like I was a dreamy kind of man. She made me feel like I was on top of the world in fact. And we seemed to have that perfect balance of things in common, but enough differing attributes that things seemed like they’d be really interesting if we had been a couple. It’s hard to explain, but from my experience the best couples agree on the big stuff and have their own separate personalities on the finer details.

    But the timing was just awful. Between my divorce and her cold feet at her engagement, I kinda got the impression she was wanting someone to “run off” with. Or maybe letting commitment phobias rear their ugly head. As much as I wanted her, and as much as I felt she wanted me, it was just a bad time to even consider starting up a new relationship.

    So after a few more weeks, probably a couple months actually, I talked with her about things. Told her how much I wanted her, but also how much I just couldn’t give her what she needed due to my situation. We agreed to “just be friends”, but the truth is I could never realistically be her friend. I was too turned on by her very presence. So I just dipped out of the friendship. I started avoiding her. I’ve never been a cheater and didn’t want to start, even though the marriage was all but over. Plus I had a kid to think about and nothing was going stop me from being a present father while she gave me the impression she wanted to ditch the marriage idea and go back to her home state. I couldn’t leave with a 3 year old child to look after and my X-Wife wasn’t much of a mother (a big part of the problems leading to the divorce).

    I don’t think I made the wrong decision. As I said, everything was working against this. But she will always be my “one that got away”. I wish I’d met her before I met my X-Wife. I wish I’d known her before she met her fiance. But that wasn’t in the cards. I don’t choose to live with regrets because I feel they are ruinous if you let “what-ifs” govern your outlook. But man, if I could change one thing about my life it would be trying to change the situations we were both in and giving it a go with her. If alternate realities really do exist, I hope there is some version of me out there who was able to give it a go with her and make it work, because she was an amazing young lady.

15. I wasn’t in love with my first wife when we got married. My best friend could tell something was off and offered to drive me the fuck out of there on my wedding day. Should have listened. Marriage was good for the first 3 years then 20 years of a dead bedroom and growing apart.. called it quits in 2017.

    Can’t imagine life without my second wife. Love her dearly