Do guys ever regret leaving somebody they never dated?

[Anonymous]

I've tried to date somebody who is a bit self-destructive on himself, including my own.
We only dated for a month. I was very supportive. He's a recovering drug addict. His reassurance was so much for me to handle. He ended up getting mad at me for putting my trust in his hands. Having trust was hard to him. I told him I was talking to a guy friend about his fiance, the whole wedding being called off, etc. This guy FREAKED because I was on the phone with him for 2 hours. WHILE I was texting him. He's told me some things where I cried. Him knowing I cried. I never received an apology. I asked for one, and I couldn't.
His ego is MASSIVE. Yet his insecurity is just as big. He's tried to come back to me MULTIPLE times. Again, he dropped me multiple times in the first place. He gets ghosted by people, and he'll work his way to "work things out with me." Yet will have other females on the side.
I called him out on how it doesn't work like that. To stop playing females. That he'll wake up and realize who is worth keeping/losing. He randomly sent me shirtless photos of himself.

Trying to grab my attention, I ignored. Instead, I sent it to my family and laughed. That's never the way to get my attention, but a good laugh was necessary. I'll admit, I got a little toxic. I told him how I had a friends with benefits who is just a good friend in my life. How we stayed loyal to each other, yet would talk if one of us is SEEING somebody. Like, ONE person. Then I told him how my friends with benefits and I, how he's my best sex partner. Just to throw his ego down. Sorry...

This guy has caused me DAMAGE. Telling me to just wear leggings/biker shorts. He goes on telling me how my style is too dark for him. How he's into girly-girls. I just stared at him, not knowing how to react. This is WHO I am. Yet he goes on telling me how I deserve better, that I'm a very attractive female and etc.

[InventorofWarp]

That sounded very toxic and I'm sorry.
For what it's worth I spent 4 years as a drug addict up until a few months back when I finally managed to turn my life around and started working out and completely changed myself physically.
I went from weighing over 250lbs to weighing just under 230 and adding 10lbs of muscle onto myself and gaining abs in the span of 6 months. It was extremely difficult for me to do and took every bit of strength I had in myself, I had to fucking suffer. I legitimately thought I was going to die at one point during withdrawals. But after month 4 it gets better.
During the 4 years I spent as a drug addict I had a lot of (often short) relationships with countless women but I was never borderline abusive with them like the man you describe. Mostly because it never really progressed past the casually dating phase and I was too scared and too damaged and had too many trust issues to ever get there. My life was just pretty much consumed by the drugs. I ruined a lot of my relationships though, including with my older sister.
I had someone who was willing to put in effort and care about me and give me the fucking time of day and the guidance to get to where I finally let go of everything. And now I'm trying to live my life still without the drugs and it is so. Fucking. Hard. I feel everything now. I feel fear and insecurity. Even about dumb shit.
I feel fear about the fact I'm still a virgin and some girl won't like the fact that I want to wait for the right woman.
I feel fear that I'm not that romantic sweet little boy anymore who was always dreaming of his wife and no girl will ever see that in me now.
I feel fear that even when I feel like I've done pretty good at trying to recapture that same sense of innocence, naivety, idealism and romanticism I felt as a boy, with my past over the years and the black fucking stain I have I can NEVER EVER be that again. And no girl will ever see it in me again, she'll just find out what I once was and look at me like I'm some kind of monster or lowlife or something.
I was a loser as a boy. I was made fun of all the time and I was constantly told I was ugly and unwanted by the girls.
People fail to realize it's stuff like that, that pushes people into drugs to begin with.

I think whatever choice you end up making is the right choice and people need to decide what they're comfortable with going through for the people they love.

[Asker]

Hey Doll, I’m so thankful that you recovered and I’m happy for you! With the guy I was last with, he did drugs for 10 years. Started at 14. Ended up age, I believe 24. Within’ his reassurance, I was happy and thankful that he was clean. There were parts of him where he felt like he helped nobody through their sobriety of his speeches and all. His reassurance was also having bad days and his insecurities. I understand drugs can take a role in somebody’s life. I’m not sure what he thinks of drugs today. He always talked about his sobriety, multiple times a day. He just always brought himself down to where it lead him to take me down. Nothing I could do was ever perfect, nothing. Getting personal, we have had sex. He judged me sexually because I couldn’t orgasm the way girls do DURING sex. He made me feel abnormal. With my naked body, I remember trying to just get my clothes on. He was watching me the whole way, trying to get my clothes on. I was so slow, and he asked me if I was insecure. Yet in reality, I started to be. Just because of him. :/ He let me go. Lord, I don’t know why. He constantly told me how I deserved better, yet he’s came back a few times. HAVING girls lined up. It honestly bugged me. Just cause I’m no second option to anybody. I’ll be somebody’s first. I had to let this guy go. The third time he came back, randomly asking me out. To 2 hours later, changing his mind. Asking for a platonic friendship. His mind scared/scares me. I told him how he needs to fix himself. That he’ll learn lessons one day of who should be in/out of your life. If these girls continue to ghost him from what he knows, he can’t fall back on me. Again, no second option. This is why I asked this question.. Lol.

[InventorofWarp]

Sorry for all of that. Drugs destroy someone's life, I've seen it happen. They completely break someone down and make them reliant on them and nothing else. They change them into something they're not. I didn't get the attention and care that I needed as a boy. I had no one. And I was bullied and hurt by everyone so the drugs I fell into were the only thing that ever loved me and made me feel unalone.
In reality for 4 years they were just making me feel worse. They were exacerbating all of my worst qualities. It was just numbing me so I didn't have to feel anything. Once I'd come down... I'd feel everything again and it HURT. All the fear, all the insecurity, the hate, the rage, the resentment, the terror, the shame. And immediately once that happens the drugs start talking again. They call you over and try to get you vulnerable again to fall back into their space making you believe that they can help you.
It's a hard thing to escape from.
And I know what it's like to feel bad about the way you look.
And I know what it's like to love someone who treats you horribly, who keeps coming back even after things keep getting destroyed and just makes you feel worse every time.
Someone who keeps hurting you every time they come back even though you keep wanting them back, you love them and want to be with them and they just don't even know how to properly love. They don't even actually know how to love themselves. Dysfunction.
I know it well.
I don't know if it ever goes away.
I'll know I'll always be number two to her. I'll never be enough, I'll never be that guy she actually wants around or really likes or thinks about. I know she hasn't thought about me in the months since we last talked.
And yet I still want her back. She's always number one for me. And it hurts, I don't know what to do to change it.

It's the burdens we bear for feeling again.
The cost of the privilege of being able to feel love: You've gotta take it with the pain.

[katiesmuff]

I'm sure it both men and women who have regretted later in life about someone they rejected for one reason or another!

[In_Trance]

rarely

[Silvius]

Yes.