A Letter To: My Biggest Mistake

A Letter to My Biggest Mistake,

It took me two years to realize that involving myself with you was by far my biggest mistake. 

It was two years ago I entered UMass an innocent girl.  I rarely partied in high school and I was a virgin.  Meeting you within the first few weeks of freshman year was one the worst things that could have happened to me.  I instantly fell for your charm and good looks.  I remember the first night we went to a frat party together.  I was excited and nervous that a cute guy I barely knew invited me out with him on a Friday night.  You made me feel really special and as if you really liked me. We started hooking up in the basement of that dirty frat house. Maybe I should have looked into why, exactly, an angry girl tapped you on the shoulder and yelled the words “real nice.”  I wish I had known then that she was a girl you had befriended and slept with the weeks prior to meeting me. 

After the party, you asked me to come back to your room with you.  It was something I had never done with a guy before and the only question I could ask myself was, isn’t this what college girls are supposed to do? What happened when we got back to your room is what I regret the most. No, I didn’t lose my virginity, but I did do much more than I was comfortable with.  For some reason, I couldn’t find the voice in me to say no to you.

You were the first attractive college guy that had given me attention and I wanted to please you.  The next morning I did my first walk of shame back to my dorm room at 9 a.m.  After a week of casual, meaningless texts, the next weekend had arrived.  I really wanted to see you and I thought you felt the same.  Instead, I arrived at a party and was barely acknowledged by you.  Maybe it was because you had already laid eyes on a new girl to pursue, a girl you decided to grope and make out with just feet away from me later on that night. 

I guess I was invisible to you that night, standing in the doorway of that kitchen.  I think you knew I was watching but you just didn’t care.  As my heart broke for the first time, I came to the realization that I had been successfully played and the girl who tapped you on the shoulder at the frat house probably experienced that same kind of hurt. What I don’t understand today is why I was never angry with you; I was sad but not angry.

Well, I’d like to inform you that the anger I didn’t feel then, I am experiencing now, two years later.  I’m angry at myself for being friendly to you for the remainder of freshman year, even after everything you did to me.  I don’t understand why at the time I had cared so much that you still like me, even after you used me.  Looking back now, you did not deserve a second look from me, a hello, or even a smile.  I can’t believe I accepted that level of disrespect from you. To make me feel even worse, weeks later, I found out from my roommate that you talked to your friends about what we did together during the night I spent in your room.  You lied about what we did. Let me say this so it’s now clear to you: we did not have sex. 

In general, the fact that you found it O.K., to publicly talk about something that should be a private matter, just shows how pathetic you are.  I hope the reaction you got from your friends was enough to temporarily boost your ego.  I can say now, two years later, that I am infuriated I did not defend myself at the time. 

I couldn’t find my voice and I was embarrassed.

What was I supposed to do? Find your boys and tell them my side of the story?  Who knows how many people your bullsh*t reached.  I stayed quiet because I felt nothing I could have said would have changed people’s minds. I felt the damage had been done, that there was no undoing your lies. 

To this day, it still angers me to think there are people at UMass that may think of me a certain way because of the words that left of your mouth.  It was always something that I kept to myself, that bothered me, and that I felt powerless to defend.  Well guess what? It feels good to be angry now. 

In two years I have grown up, I have matured, and I have fallen in love with a guy who has showed me what it means to be respected and cared about by a man.

My anger towards you and my concern about people’s opinions of me will eventually fade, but as time goes on you will always be remembered by me as one big mistake.  I guess I could thank you for one thing though, because of you I will never let a man use and disrespect me again.

From now on, I will ALWAYS find my voice.

Sincerely,

One of the girls you used 

• anonymous
• Boy
• girl
• mistake
• sex