u/ForestOfLilac

I just need to get this off my chest because I still cringe whenever I remember it. 😭

I know what I did was wrong as a Muslim girl, and I don't romanticize haram relationships at all. I sincerely repented to Allah and I genuinely don't want to repeat this mistake. But looking back, it was such a bizarre experience that I feel like sharing it might either make someone feel less alone or prevent someone from making the same mistakes I did..

So, storytime.

It started innocently enough...

During my first year of university, a guy from my faculty group started messaging me privately whenever I asked questions in the group. At first, it was genuinely university-related. He was polite, respectful and helpful, so I thought of him as nothing more than a nice acquaintance.

Over the next several months, though, our conversations slowly became more personal. We'd talk about hobbies, everyday life, etc. I knew we were getting a little too comfortable, but I kept telling myself, "What's the harm in having a nice guy friend?"

Then we both ended up taking the same summer course.

That's when we really started talking.

We'd help each other with the course, but eventually our conversations had almost nothing to do with university anymore. We'd text every day, sometimes for HOURS, staying up from evening until dawn playing games and talking about everything.

Looking back, that was probably the point where I should've stopped. I knew it was becoming inappropriate, but I kept convincing myself we were "just friends."

And then feelings happened...

He started being more forward with me. He'd occasionally flirt, call me things like "babe" as a joke, and clearly seemed interested.

I tried to establish some boundaries. I'd occasionally call him "bro" and tried distancing myself, but he kept initiating conversations.

And unfortunately, I started developing feelings too.

It wasn't even because of anything particularly romantic. He'd give me advice, share his poetry with me after learning I liked writing, tell me about his language-learning journey because I was learning a language too... I think I was just experiencing this kind of attention from a guy for the first time, and it affected me more than I realized.

Eventually, after another night of staying up until dawn talking and playing games, he confessed that he liked me.

I admitted that I liked him too.

And he was absolutely over the moon.

Reality hit pretty quickly

Once we started "dating," everything escalated VERY quickly.

Suddenly I was getting called his "future wife," "the girl he wishes for," "babe," "love," etc. He dropped the L-word after only TEN DAYS. 😭

And honestly? I realized I didn't actually like him nearly as much as I thought I did.

I liked his personality and the attention I was receiving, but I wasn't physically attracted to him at all. I kept telling myself that if I loved his personality, his appearance would eventually grow on me.

Spoiler: it did not.

I also realized I wasn't completely over my first-year crush, who had gotten a girlfriend shortly before all of this. I think I was subconsciously trying to fill a void. Seeing couples everywhere at university had also made me feel like I was missing out and needed to prove to myself that I was lovable too.

I think that's when I learned what selfish love actually meant for me: wanting to experience being loved so badly that I stopped thinking about whether I actually wanted that person.

And the guilt never went away.

I knew I was hiding this from my parents, I knew I was crossing boundaries I personally believed in, and I knew deep down that this wasn't what I wanted.

It got even worse 💀

He became extremely clingy. He wanted selfies from me constantly, wanted me to adapt to his daily routine, and would get weirdly distant if I didn't reply for a few hours.

We had initially agreed that we wouldn't have a public relationship or even go out together, but he eventually started suggesting hangouts anyway.

At that point, I was already thinking about breaking up with him.

Then he reposted a TikTok making jokes about women's bodies. I said I thought it was insensitive, especially toward people dealing with eating disorders or body dysmorphia.

Instead of simply disagreeing, he told me that if I reacted like that, it must have "hit a personal nerve."

That genuinely pissed me off.

I wrote him a whole paragraph explaining that I don't need to personally suffer from something to have empathy for people who do... and then I basically disappeared. 😭

He spammed me for days asking me to talk to him.

Eventually I told him we needed to break up. I gave him the whole "we're too different, I can't be the girl you want, relationships aren't suitable for me" speech.

Honestly, I was just trying to find a reason that wouldn't make me feel guilty for hurting him.

And after 15 days of online dating, I broke up with him.

Somehow, we stayed "friends"

The weirdest part is that he continued talking to me afterward as if nothing had happened.

Except he was still making flirty jokes, using pet names, sending flirty stickers, and basically making it obvious that he was hoping we'd get back together.

Then one day he casually mentioned seeing me and my friend outside university and described exactly what we were wearing/what we looked like to confirm it was us.

That creeped me out enough that I finally blocked him.

Thankfully, he never approached me afterward and mostly avoids looking at me in university.

But now I have the incredibly embarrassing experience of walking around my own faculty knowing I technically have an ex there. 😭

What I learned

Honestly, I think the biggest lesson was how easy it is to cross boundaries gradually.

It didn't start with me deciding, "I'm going to get into a relationship." It started with a random guy helping me with university, then becoming a friend, then someone I talked to every day, then someone I stayed up until dawn talking to. Every individual step felt harmless, so I kept ignoring the fact that the overall situation was becoming something I knew I shouldn't be doing.

So if you're ever thinking, "We're just friends, what's the harm?" while the friendship is becoming increasingly emotionally intimate, I'd really recommend taking a step back before you get attached.

I also learned that attention isn't the same thing as love. I was lonely, still getting over someone else, constantly seeing couples around me, and wanting to feel wanted. I think I mistook the excitement of finally receiving that kind of attention for genuine love.

And don't ignore your own discomfort just because someone is nice to you. I had so many moments where I thought, "This is getting too much," or "I don't actually want this," but I kept rationalizing it because I didn't want to hurt his feelings.

Looking back, I should've trusted myself much earlier.

Most importantly, though, I've learned not to let one mistake define me. I regret what I did, I sincerely repented, and I'm grateful that I learned these things from a relatively short-lived situation rather than letting it continue for years.

So if you're a girl who's made a mistake you're ashamed of: don't normalize it, but don't convince yourself you're beyond redemption either. Learn from it, repent sincerely, set better boundaries, and move forward.

And please listen to your instincts before you somehow end up with an ex in your own faculty. 😭

Stay gold, girlies. :)

I visited my close friend once in her house and noticed her (20F) and her younger sister (17F) were particularly really affectionate.

Now she did tell me that pecks on the lips are a normal form of affection in their family,

But what I saw made me wanna cleanse my eyes 😭

Her sister wanted to tease me saying that she was closer to my friend than I was, so she straddled her lap and hugged her while giving her repeated slow pecks, like painfully slow.

I got so embarrassed I tried to ignore it and played with her other siblings but goodness that was so weird—

Gave me the ick honestly and made me feel a bit uneasy about my best friend.

I'm not the type to oversexualize affection between family and I think that's a disgusting thing to do, but I felt quite repulsed by this.

Tell me what you think, maybe I'm overthinking it.

I'm asking this because it might be the last thread that could help me connect the dots and realize what my MBTI is, because I'm currently having a dilemma between ISFP and INFP, even after studying the functions quite thoroughly.

So I'm curious to see what y'all have to say. (Posted this on INFP subreddit too btw)

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(You don't need to read this part to answer my question)

And I might lean more towards INFP. This is gonna be very long— Let me describe my relationship with the past:

I'm a very nostalgic person in general. Oke of my most favourite kind of convos are the 'do you remember when we/you/i xxx' convos, I love recalling old childhood memories or even recent memories.

When I was a kid i often ate my dad's ear off talking about childhood memories with my cousins and how excited they made me, with a lot of details too. Like "one time.. xxxxx.. oh and that reminds me of another time we xxxxx... And also we once xxxxx... And xxxx!"

And I'm still like that with my friends when I'm telling stories, to the point where they'd interrupt me mid talking when I'm not even done recalling all details. I remember stuff very vividly, whether good or bad memories.

And if you ask me what I think about the past, I think it forms an important part of our identity and shapes our personalities to be the way they are today. Sure, people change, things change over time, but who you were at some point is still part of you and if you weren't that person in the past you wouldn't have been you now.

I think that: If it wasn't for what I'd been through i wouldn't have been who i am today.

To me when I see a person walking down the street I sometimes think, "I wonder what hardships shaped this person I'm seeing right now, they probably have a family, or maybe they don't.. they could've had friends they lost, maybe they've worn this outfit before, maybe they've had this bag since high school like I do with mine, i wonder if they'd also had nights where they cried themselves to sleep, there's so much more than what we see on the surface of people."

I'm always wondering, always wishing I could know more about people's past, their life story that led to today. What's their journey? How did they become who they are?

I often struggle to understand people who can move on so easily from the past. Because how could you forget what shaped you? Sure, I want to forget painful memories in particular, but first i have to ask myself a few questions. It goes like this: "That hurt. What did it change about me? What did I learn? Who did it make me?"

Then and only then I can start trying to move on.

I remember memories so vividly that i can relive the exact same feelings i had at that time, suddenly you could find me sitting there sobbing, or laughing, or smiling to myself, sometimes my heart aches and my chest constricts when i feel very nostalgic for particular moments, whether I'm missing a version of myself that existed at some point of time, a friend I was close to that I lost contact with, an old house i used to live in way back, random people I met when I was a child who were kind to me or taught me something, a teacher that was kind to me in kindergarten, middle school, high school, a college professor,

I remember, of course I remember. In fact, my biggest nightmare is one day when I'm old, wrinkly and grey, forgetting all my past memories, forgetting what made me: ME. Forgetting all the experiences and people that shaped me, everything.

That's why I write a diary, I journal, I collect old receipts from cafés and restaurants I go to with my friends, old movie tickets, I still have letters and drawings my old friends gave me in elementary and middle school, i have a special box where i keep these kinds of souvenirs at all times,

I even have drawings my cousins made when they were little, saved in a little file. Why? I imagined showing them to my cousins after they're grown up so they could remember how creative they were as kids.

I felt shivers run down my spine the day I finished high school and visited every single school i transferred to as a kid for documents i needed for university (i transferred a lot). I imagined ghosts of me and my friends laughing and walking around there, remembered sunny mornings from the car window when my dad would stop by a supermarket that didn't exist anymore in front of my now old school, remembered all my memories in a series of flashbacks, it's not uncommon for me to get these intense deja vu's.

There are random nights when i suddenly decide to become an internet detective and search for old childhood friends on social media, i even found some and added them, we check on each other occasionally..

I get random waves of nostalgia that make me smile bittersweetly and suddenly feel like crying almost everyday.

Unlike some people, I don't treat the past as a dead place left behind, I treat it as a museum of memories, museum of selves. Every room, song, object, friendship and memory is like a little exhibit.

(Kinda like these memory bubbles in the movie inside out, lol!)

A lot of times I wonder who I am, why I'm the way I am, and connect the dots between specific incidents that happened to me in childhood and realize that they shaped me to behave a certain way now. For example: I always prefer to keep to myself, I rarely vent to people. Why? I figured out because: there were times where i opened up to people as a child and regretted it, either feeling even more misunderstood or getting humiliated simply for feeling the way i feel.

Or this: I struggle with imposter syndrome. Why?: grew up with my emotions getting invalidated every single time i opened up. Now I wonder if I'm being dramatic, silly or overreacting everytime I feel intensely about anything.

Also,

Ever since i was a kid i remember I'd sit for hours with my parents just asking random questions about the universe and existence and society and just.. pouring my mind out about what i think of things and about people's nature and about life.

(Once sat sobbing at 7 thinking abt whether or not aliens were real bc I realized there was no real answer and they could be real and could be out for us)

Anyways back to topic,

For me the past can either feel like home or a torture chamber, there's no in between. If I could time travel, I'd probably travel to the past just to watch my younger self's journey from an outsider pov. The future? It sounds terrifying, I'm curious about a lot of things, sure, but travelling to the future sounds too scary, I could be dead for all I know.. or someone I care about.

Some people would say they'd rather stay in the present, and sometimes me too, but other times i just feel really nostalgic.

Sometimes i just wish time could pause, i find it to be the cruelest thing. I hate growing up, I hate leaving my childhood behind, people I knew, places I loved, memories of a simpler time.

But then again, sometimes i lay in bed wondering if I'm really living life to the fullest, if I'm having enough experiences for my age, sometimes i wonder if I'd die satisfied if i died today, i wish i could live everyday like it's the last.

I have a strange fascination with liminal spaces too, they make me so nostalgic, some feel comforting in a warm way, some feel comforting in an eerie way.. can't describe it.

Anyways I'm done yapping here, for now. (I think)

Tell me your experience below dear fellow ISFPs! :)

I've currently been having a lot of doubts about my MBTI type. I've believed for five years that I was an ISFP, especially because I've had a typist type me online in a very brief online meeting.

But then I realized, isn't that kinda too short to be able to know my full personality? She typed me in like 15 minutes, and in the most stereotypical way possible..

Like as soon as i told her my hobbies (Art, sewing, DIY projects, journaling, crochet, dancing and origami) she slapped ISFP on me.

And ISFP does resonate with me a lot.

But INFP also does, now that I understand Ne better.

But then again I've started to think, was ISFP just who I wanted to be all along? Because I'm not always grounded in the present moment. But I seek to be.

Or maybe it's the fact that I was 15 when i got typed ISFP, and maybe now that I'm 20 I've actually formed my real personality.

Dunno tbh,

thought maybe someone has went

through the same paradox and could help me.

I'd appreciate some input, especially yapping, so feel welcomed to tell me if you were ever mistyped or how I can tell whether I'm INFP vs ISFP.

Thanks in advance. :)