Hey guys! This has been on my mind for a while and I’m looking for some positive and supportive input from other people who have been in this situation before.

I’m a 27M and matched with this girl (29F) on Hinge at the beginning of February. She was a Christian, just like me, and when we matched, she was the first one to initiate the conversation. We talked pretty much every day and learned a lot about each other and after two weeks of talking, we were both open to the idea of meeting up in person.

We met up for dinner last weekend and had a great time. After two hours of enjoying each other’s company and some great food, we left the restaurant together, hugged each other and walked back to our cars.

Overall, I felt like it was a good first date and I had made a great first impression in person that lined up with how I sounded in the conversations we had over chat. So the next day, I decided to ask her if she wanted to hang out the following weekend and possibly come to my Church that I attend.

An hour later, I got a response from her. She said that she enjoyed my company last night but she didn’t see it becoming more than friends. She said that she was still open to us hanging out in the capacity of just friends but wanted to respect my time/feelings if I saw things differently. I sent a long text telling her that I understood and apologized if I might have said or done anything to make her feel that way. And because I wanted to be mindful of her time and the distance between us since we live an hour away from each other, I suggested that it was best if we both moved on.

She replied back again and reassured me that I did nothing wrong. In fact, she said I was wonderful company and that she enjoyed talking with me the past few weeks. We both stated that we came into this hoping to be friends first and seeing where things would go. The thing was that she just wanted to be honest and tell me that she realized she had been developing feelings for someone else. We both ended up wishing each other all the best in the end.

Now that I’ve filled you in on the whole story. I’ve had two questions going on in my head for the past few days.

1. Is it normal for me to feel depressed about something like this happening? I’ve been on a few dates before that were more platonic than romantic if anything. But I’ve never been in a relationship before, so I’ve never faced the dilemma of a breakup. I guess I found this girl to be really cute and I normally don’t see a lot of single Christian girls at my church that I find attractive, so I had hopes of this going somewhere. But the next day after, the rejection left me feeling broken and finding it painful to think about to the point where I slept for the rest of the day and barely ate anything.
2. Am I wrong for suggesting us to move on? I know that we could’ve probably been good friends since that was the vibe of the first date. But I felt that seeing her being in a relationship with someone else and me possibly being still single would trigger feelings of jealousy and I didn’t want her to see that part of me. We were both aspiring artists who probably could’ve supported each other’s work and she sounded really interested in checking out my church one day, but now I feel like she might not even consider it anymore because of me. Should I feel guilty or ashamed for denying a potential good friendship when I eventually would’ve found someone else as a romantic partner someday?