u/Boring_Math5221

A few months ago I met a girl, I’m going to call her H, and we hit it off immediately as friends. The circumstances around us meeting each other and hanging out involved both of us losing a lot of friends and really being the only ones either of us could trust or heal with in the situation. When we began talking, we went in with the decision to not look for a relationship because neither of us were ready, both for our own reasons. After a while of dates and concerts and just night after night of hanging out with each other, it clicked how naturally we formed a connection and then we started trying for a relationship, harder on my end because I saw how perfect she was and is.

These last few weeks have been really heavy and really fun, and I would say outside of the bad, one of the best times of my life. We were going to event after event, telling each other we love each other, and just generally having an amazing time. Then some mental health crises began happening on her side and her best friend and I were able to get her to the right resources and inform her family and she is now doing better.

This brings us to about two weeks ago. I was a college student who lives in a different state and had just graduated, with plans to move back to my hometown while I look for work because my apartment lease was done. At this point we were talking about long distance and what our future could look like.

One night I go to her work to surprise her with some presents and flowers, and end up going out to the bar with her and her coworkers. Everyone is drunk by the time the bar closes and no one wants the night to end so I invite everyone back to my apartment. Everyone is drinking and I progressively get more and more drunk to the point that I black out. Every point after this is H’s recollection of the event. One of her coworkers, I’ll call her M, is refusing to get out of my bed when me and H are trying to go to sleep so we decide to sleep next to her. M and I end up having sex with H in the bed. I woke up the next morning with no memory of anything after a certain point in the night, immediately calling and texting everyone trying to figure out what happened and why H wasn’t there. I didn’t fully understand the scope of what happened until late that night when H told me everything.

Here is where it gets complicated. M also claimed to have no memory of what happened. However H was awake the entire time and witnessed everything. H later told me that if she believed anyone was not blacked out, it was more likely M, not me, because at that point M had not had drinks for multiple hours. M showed no distress the morning after. She shrugged when I asked what happened, said she didn’t know, and left with someone else. She had a two year long term partner and a young child, giving her significant reason to minimize or deny her participation. On top of that, she has not reached out to or said anything to H about the situation. H also mentioned M had touched her without consent and tried to touch others throughout the night before we went to sleep but we were all too drunk to think to do anything about it.

I’ve been talking to my friends and parents non-stop about the situation and a friend of mine who is a therapist told me that in this situation, both H and I were traumatized, but that my being taken advantage of while unconscious constitutes the primary trauma, and that my continuous apologizing without acknowledging what may have been done to me has framed me as a guilty and conscious participant in something I had no awareness of.

Since everything happened I have been experiencing what I can only describe as trauma responses. I can’t sleep without seeing H’s face. Music we listened to together is painful to hear. Silence is worse because I hear her voice and the memories we have together flood back. Seeing any affection between people in real life or on TV makes me physically sick. The more I sit with the possibility that M was conscious and initiated this while I was blackout drunk in my own home and that I lost the relationship I was building because of it, the worse the feeling gets.

H and I have been in contact since. She has been honest that the romantic connection between us was something she was forcing herself to be ready for and that it never fully felt right for her. She has said she is much happier on her own and is not willing to pursue anything romantic. At the same time she has reached out, we have talked for hours, she has given me advice about healing, she still texts me regularly, she still flirts with me, and there are moments that feel like the connection is still very much alive even if she won’t name it that way.

I love her and still care about her deeply. I know what we had was real even if it existed in an undefined space. I lost her, my social life in that city, and my sense of safety in my own skin all in one night. I lost everything over something I have no memory of in a situation where I may have been taken advantage of.

My question is this. Is there any realistic path forward with H? Is there any version of this where time, growth, and the work I’m clearly going to need to do on myself, especially with substances, could lead back to something with her? Or am I holding onto something that her own words have already told me is gone?

I know I’m likely not going to get the answers I want, this is moreso for me to try and process everything that happened.

A few months ago I met a girl, I’m going to call her H, and we hit it off immediately as friends. The circumstances around us meeting each other and hanging out involved both of us losing a lot of friends and really being the only ones either of us could trust or heal with in the situation. When we began talking, we went in with the decision to not look for a relationship because neither of us were ready, both for our own reasons. After a while of dates and concerts and just night after night of hanging out with each other, it clicked how naturally we formed a connection and then we started trying for a relationship, harder on my end because I saw how perfect she was and is.

These last few weeks have been really heavy and really fun, and I would say outside of the bad, one of the best times of my life. We were going to event after event, telling each other we love each other, and just generally having an amazing time. Then some mental health crises began happening on her side and her best friend and I were able to get her to the right resources and inform her family and she is now doing better.

This brings us to about two weeks ago. I was a college student who lives in a different state and had just graduated, with plans to move back to my hometown while I look for work because my apartment lease was done. At this point we were talking about long distance and what our future could look like.

One night I go to her work to surprise her with some presents and flowers, and end up going out to the bar with her and her coworkers. Everyone is drunk by the time the bar closes and no one wants the night to end so I invite everyone back to my apartment. Everyone is drinking and I progressively get more and more drunk to the point that I black out. Every point after this is H’s recollection of the event. One of her coworkers, I’ll call her M, is refusing to get out of my bed when me and H are trying to go to sleep so we decide to sleep next to her. M and I end up having sex with H in the bed. I woke up the next morning with no memory of anything after a certain point in the night, immediately calling and texting everyone trying to figure out what happened and why H wasn’t there. I didn’t fully understand the scope of what happened until late that night when H told me everything.

Here is where it gets complicated. M also claimed to have no memory of what happened. However H was awake the entire time and witnessed everything. H later told me that if she believed anyone was not blacked out, it was more likely M, not me, because at that point M had not had drinks for multiple hours. M showed no distress the morning after. She shrugged when I asked what happened, said she didn’t know, and left with someone else. She had a two year long term partner and a young child, giving her significant reason to minimize or deny her participation. On top of that, she has not reached out to or said anything to H about the situation. H also mentioned M had touched her without consent and tried to touch others throughout the night before we went to sleep but we were all too drunk to think to do anything about it.

I’ve been talking to my friends and parents non-stop about the situation and a friend of mine who is a therapist told me that in this situation, both H and I were traumatized, but that my being taken advantage of while unconscious constitutes the primary trauma, and that my continuous apologizing without acknowledging what may have been done to me has framed me as a guilty and conscious participant in something I had no awareness of.

Since everything happened I have been experiencing what I can only describe as trauma responses. I can’t sleep without seeing H’s face. Music we listened to together is painful to hear. Silence is worse because I hear her voice and the memories we have together flood back. Seeing any affection between people in real life or on TV makes me physically sick. The more I sit with the possibility that M was conscious and initiated this while I was blackout drunk in my own home and that I lost the relationship I was building because of it, the worse the feeling gets.

H and I have been in contact since. She has been honest that the romantic connection between us was something she was forcing herself to be ready for and that it never fully felt right for her. She has said she is much happier on her own and is not willing to pursue anything romantic. At the same time she has reached out, we have talked for hours, she has given me advice about healing, she still texts me regularly, she still flirts with me, and there are moments that feel like the connection is still very much alive even if she won’t name it that way.

I love her and still care about her deeply. I know what we had was real even if it existed in an undefined space. I lost her, my social life in that city, and my sense of safety in my own skin all in one night. I lost everything over something I have no memory of in a situation where I may have been taken advantage of.

My question is this. Is there any realistic path forward with H? Is there any version of this where time, growth, and the work I’m clearly going to need to do on myself, especially with substances, could lead back to something with her? Or am I holding onto something that her own words have already told me is gone?

I know I’m likely not going to get the answers I want, this is moreso for me to try and process everything that happened.