Throughout my sophomore year of college, I had a fling with a guy two years older than me. It was fun and exciting–well, when it actually worked. It started off casually and we went on a few ~fancy~ dates to our school dining hall until we started to just hang out in his room, “watching” movies and TV shows. We had good conversations, texted a few times a week and it was just fun to spend time with him–but it was nothing super serious from the start. I enjoyed being around him since it was comfortable, and he never pressured me into doing anything.
By the time second semester rolled around, things changed. We hung out less and less until it was rare to even see him even just around campus. It was understandable though–he was busy writing his thesis and didn't have much free time to hang out. I texted him a few times to say hi and ask how he was, but hardly heard back from him. When I did, the response times varied, sometimes it would be only an hour later and other times more than a month would pass. The drastic decrease in responsiveness was concerning, especially since I’m a compulsive worrier. Eventually, we hung out again, and I told him that I didn’t like not hearing from him for weeks at a time. He apologized.
It was fine for a while. Even though we weren’t communicating anywhere near as much as we had been during first semester, we still hung out a few times and, surprisingly, it was better than it had been. But then it all went downhill again and he went back to his old days of being AWOL whenever it suited him. Whenever he would take a break from ghosting me, he’d say it was because he was busy with senior activities and writing his thesis–I accepted that. I knew it was a fling and wasn’t anything too serious, so him hitting me up whenever he felt like it was going to be the norm. Even still, the way he disappeared for long periods of time bothered me. I knew we still had a friendship, but I felt awkward about voicing how that made me feel though. Besides, I knew that officially ending the fling wouldn’t be productive for either of us; he would most likely stop texting entirely and I’d lose the good parts of the fling along with the bad. Eventually I stopped hearing from him, making it clear I didn't even have a choice about whether or not this fling would continue. Ultimately, I don’t regret giving him all of those chances, even though it did hurt when he ghosted me each time.
After the school year ended, I finally told him how his behavior had hurt me and sometimes made me doubt myself. He apologized again. He hadn’t meant to hurt me, and I know that he genuinely didn’t realize I was feeling those things. Telling him was more for my benefit than it was for his. I knew that I needed some form of closure after the series of hookups and conversations of which our fling consisted of ended.
I honestly don’t regret having the fling with him, and I don’t even regret continually granting forgiveness. There are so many things in this world that I could withhold forgiveness, so many wrongdoings committed that, in the grand scheme of things, I would rather grant forgiveness for these small, personal hurts than allow them to keep me from living my life. We still talk every once in a while and I still consider him a friend. In the end, I’d rather forgive too much than too little.