Do I just need to accept that I was a Slut?

[cheekymonk]

Evening All! I am happily married with one ds now but back in my uni days I was very promiscuous and did sleep with over 100 men roughly. I used to have to get really pissed to have the confidence to approach anyone (mainly due to being fat). I was lonely and although I had made some friends, I wanted a boyfriend too and in my warped mind sleeping with someone and being wanted for all of 30 mins or if I was lucky, the whole night was the next best thing.
I lived with 6 male housemates at the time who were appalled my behaviour. I did have threesomes/forsomes (and a fivesome too I think!) which was what pushed them into really despising me. One night I brought someone back, he went then I went back out and brought someone else back. It is shocking and I was out of control but those housemates were so vile.
I ended up recently sending a message to one of them on facebook. I wanted an apology but have today come home to this
"It has been a long time - 13 years in fact, which i why suddenly recieving this from you scares me that you have gone to the lengths to find me. Obviously some deep seated resentment there that you probably need to get off your chest/deal with through professional help. Either way - yes behaviour to you may not have been entirely appropriate, but my did you deserve it. Hoping to find brother figures? WHy on earth? I cannot imagine why you, a second year, felt the need to take a room with six male 4th year students. Most 2nd years got digs with friends they made in the 1st year...!!!! To refute some of your allegations about us. 2 of us had girlfriends, neither of them cheated on them. The rest of us, me included, enjoyed a significantly lower level of "single life" than you did - as you said it's what people do at uni...mainly with students met at the Student's Union", though, not with sailors they pick up in Joanna's night club. While I am all for enjoying the single life, both for men and women - you took it to such an extreme. 2 guys in one night I recall...one at about 1030 and then you going back out to bring another one back! Another stealing my bike from the hall! I hope my thoughts about the way YOU behaved are clear. I may have been a little immature back then and yes, 13 years is a long time. But do I have any regrets/would I behave differently to such a prolific enjoyment of the single life as yours now - I doubt it. I trust that I will not hear form you again."

I feel so gutted and worthless, just like I did then. I sincerely regret raking up the past. I am trying to understand now WHY I behaved so badly and try and reconcile the past but am having trouble.
Any thoughts? Do I just need to accept that i was a total slut back then??

yes you were. but, as i suspect is the case with most women who are promiscuous, there were some deep rooted psychological issues at play. you clearly had an almost invisible level of self esteem. thankfully you now see that and can deal with this.

I think it was unwise to have contacted your old housemate. whilst I can understand that you felt hurt by his and the other's reactions i dont think his comments in this email are overly hurtful. he has told you he found and still finds your behaviour unnacceptable. he accepts that his own reaction to what you were up to was less than ideal but his opinion of what you did would still be the same even now.

you yourself recognise that what you did was ill advised and far from socially acceptable.

all that matters is now. don't try and reconcile the behaviour of someone you no longer resemble. you have grown and matured an you no longer need the reassurance of men. be that strangers or old housemates.

be happy with who you are now, not sad for the person you weren't then.

Slag is a word that denies women the right to make to make their own choices sexually without cruel taunting (the effects on the flatmates being negative but not as far as how threatening having a door kicked in must have been- awful!)

Ill advised email but I dont think you did any real harm to anyone, annoying perhaps but thats it.

Whereas they were aggressive and bullying.

You do need to find internal closure but barring noise pollution etc you didn;t do anything significantly wrong. They did, Now move on. For your own sake.

He's an arse and never got over having his darling little bicycle nicked. The only person that can make you feel bad about yourself is YOU! So forget him, and be grateful you haven't had the bad luck to run into him before now.

You're dealing with your demons...we've all done things we're ashamed of, but it doesn't stop you being a lovely/worthwhile person. I hope all these positive responses give you the strength to realise this guy is a pimple-picking, crepuscular arse. I don't evenn know what crepuscular means, but it sounds horrid!!!

Don't see how he's an arse. He responded to an e-mail, from someone 13 years ago who he didn't like then, which was sent to him only to call him a bastard. I'd hardly respond with a glowing eulogy of how great the person who sent me this e-mail was when i was already inclined towards not liking them. He acknowledges his own bad behaviour with about as much enthusiasm as the OP did in her message to him. In fairness I think that's a fairly restrained response to someone who you thought was the flat-mate from hell and believed yourself to be shot of only to be contacted to be told what a prick you were and how you cheated on your girlfriend at the time.
Both of them seem to have acted badly towards each other in the past and did not like each other, if he had been approached in a manner which even resembled civil he may very well have been inclined to have gone the "we're all a bit more grown up now let bygones be bygones/we both acted poorly lets leave it at that" route, as most people would.

Am I alone in thinking that actually he doesn't sound much of an arse to me. Given that he was confronted online by a person he probably never thought he would have to speak to again about some crap which happened years ago, I think all he did was respond with some truths and a very strong 'please just leave me alone' statement.

X-post with Mayorquimby

Dittany, I used the word privacy not as in closing the door or not being noisy during sex because of flatmates being around, etc., but in terms of not having healthy boundaries. The OP's lack of concern for personal physical privacy while engaged in intimate sexual behaviour to me indicated a lack of boundaries in CM -- the sharing of her crush on the teacher, the TMI about her first sexual encounter when her mother confronted her, the OTT nature of the e-mail were all of a piece.

I was thinking earlier on that maybe CM had a touch of Borderline Personality Disorder, and I am interested that she mentioned seeing a psychologist who diagnosed a slight personality disorder, when she was 16. I could be wrong about the BPD of course. Feeling a bit at sea or lost while alone, and seeking out contact that is bound to be upsetting is not a healthy state to be in no matter what the exact nature of the diagnosis may be.

"One of the main messages I am getting through all of this is shut up, we don't want to hear about it and neither does anyone else! I don't tell everyone I meet about my life at all."
Not everyone you meet, but a huge number of people here now know a lot about you.
There is no personal rejection of you as a person going on here, CM. Are you worried that you are being rejected? There is some pointing out of what is TMI and what is appropriate, but there's a difference between that and personal rejection. You seem to have a tendency to seek out complete acceptance (sharing too much of your life and body with others) while running a huge risk through your behaviour of complete rejection, even to the point of physical and emotional annihilation or devastation.

"I find small talk difficult however and admit I can be intense." This is another indicator to me (albeit a small one) that you don't fully comprehend the need for boundaries or how to establish them for yourself or respect them in others. "With regard to the teacher scenario, I felt so strongly I just couldn't keep it to myself. I discussed the email with a workmate because I needed to talk about it. Is that so odd or unusual?" This question is another indicator. Hence the TMI scenarios that have arisen.

Revealing too much about your inner life or your private sex life, and conducting a fairly promiscuous sex life that everyone around you knew everything about all go hand in hand. Putting yourself in situations where you are very vulnerable from a great many angles is also part of the picture of lack of boundaries.

These things don't go away on their own, as the e-mail incident has revealed. I think it would be a very good thing for CM to commit to therapy and really get to the bottom of things. CM, in response to your question of whether having everyone in school know about your crush on the teacher and telling your mother about your first sexual encounter is

Why did you want an apology? What did they do wrong? If I shared a house with someone who was always bringing different strangers back whilst pissed I'd have been a bit 'rude' TBH. When you share a house with someone you need to have some respect for their space as well as yours.

However, it really isn't his business anymore. You don't live under the same roof so it isn't up to him. Ignore. Let the past stay there.

OK forget the last sentence fragment

PS I also think this person never got over having his bike stolen. He obviously didn't go to uni in Dublin....

at least 3 bikes gone from UCD lake.And i didn't even cycle that often.

Oh and BTW a flatmate of mine had a brief relationship with a man who used to try and cop off with me and our other flatmate. Got so drunk he puked in the bathroom and used to insist on the door being left open when they had sex so presumably we were treated to the sights and sounds

It is quite unpleasant to be forced to share space with a succession of strangers.

Wow, where to start?

If you do not want people to call you a slag then the best thing is not to be one.

If your house mates were so vile you move out.

If you are thinking about who owes who apologise, then it is you who should be asking your poor house mates for forgiveness.

If you need to bother people 13 years on then maybe you need to seek professional help.

You made your past, you can not clean it away, you have to deal with it and live with it.

And for all those posters going there there its not your fault, yes it is, if she were a bloke you would say eeeeeewwww nasty, also if another MNetter said such a person had slept with their DH/DP you would brand them a slag, you so know you would

I also agree that, the past completey aside, CM, you need to get some professional help with boundaries. Something to consider is that, when yo u say you are 'intense' as though you are proud of it, other people have a right not to be given all the details of your life and your innermost feelings when they are going about their own lives and don't want to hear it. That they are not interested does not make them your enemies. Also, no matter what you do, not everyone is going to like you, approve of you or praise you: you need to find your own moral centre and stop worrying about what strangers, casual acquaintsnces and people you haven't seen for 13 years might think about you, because it doesn't matter.

mathanxiety - I think you have a lot of insight

mathanxiety, another excellent and insightful post

mathanxiety - very wise and perceptive posts.

Um no Trillian, not all of us would brand someone a slag.

Not all of us think in mysogynist terms.

I'm sorry but if one of my roomates was bringing strangers home frequently, and having two/thre/fivesomes in the house that we shared or having them in the lounge, I wouldn't be saying that everyone is like that, that's selfish and promiscuous, be it a woman or a man.

Part of successfully sharing accommodation is to respect the space, property and privacy of the people living in it.

Obviously, man or woman is not the problem, that behaviour is a nightmare under both genres. Sorry.

the need for approbation
dragging up detritus of 13years ago
failing to grasp what in her behaviour made her an unwelcome email after such long time
the described behaviours

this reeks of external locus of control attention seeking.being stuck

time to move on
take stock about current life,not the girl you were

Cheekymonk - as a vulnerable girl with low self esteem, you were easy prey to men who like to take advantage of women. I feel very sad for you, that the sex you had was at times rough and forceful

You say your father was an absent figure? Do you feel like you lacked love and approval from him? Was he ever bullying or abusive? Could this be why you sought love and affection from men through sex?

I would explore your childhood (through therapy if necessary). These issues inevitably arise from childhood abuse or emotional neglect

dittany i am more than capeable of being reflective just not introspective or maudlin about any what ifs of 13years ago

any recovery and progression is firmly rooted in the here and now.not located in past pain or angst

and tbh good therapy should facilitate a practical coping based strategy not keep her stuck or pondering why/what

things/events shape us for good and bad but we cannot undue them,but one can reduce their current significance or current impact