How do I stop feeling like I messed up?

I don’t see how those two things deem you messed up. Even if that were the case, it is quite some time ago. Look forward and not to the past.

When you are young, these things can seem huge. You lack perspective. As you get older, you will start to wonder why you made so much out of this.

I don’t know how you can be expected to understand that someone is saying they like you if they ask if your Dad is nice. That is just way too obscure. It’s just a question. It’s not flirting. It’s not an invitation to date. So I think you are misinterpreting it.

I don’t see how you rejected him. Maybe you were rude. But who among us haven’t been rude on occasion? You should forgive yourself. You didn’t reject him.

Also, he had a girlfriend. So it would have been inappropriate to encourage him. And now he is in a different city, so it would have been bad if you had tried to get together with him. Now it would be worse, because you’d miss him horribly.

So you did just fine, and have nothing to beat yourself up about.

Wait, what? How exactly is asking if your dad is nice translated to “I like you”? And even if it was, hitting on you while he had a girlfriend isn’t exactly honorable.

I’m guessing you’re really young. Move on.

If he was trying to ask you out when he already had a girlfriend, then A.) you did the right thing by ignoring his advances and B.) he is probably a jerk and you are better off without him.

Asking if your dad was nice could have been a regular conversation. Like everyone says he had a girlfriend you did the right thing. You are probably just feeling this way because he moved, and it seems never to be seen again. You can still be friends with the guy? No harm in that.

Too late. He is gone. Let it go. Move on.

You don’t really know what he meant by that question—if he was coming on to you or not.

Focus on the present.

First of all, he has a girlfriend so makes no sense to encourage him to pursue you. Also, you are taking a huge leap to interpret his question about your father as an attraction to you. In addition, if he was truly interested in you he would have taken action in your direction beyond the question about your father even if you did not react every friendly. It seems to me that you have created a fantasy in your head and are reacting to the fantasy NOT the reality of the situation.

Considering the OP seems to be a very young person, I think the best approach is that of @wundayatta i.e., to explain to her in detail why she is mistaken about her interpretation of the whole situation. For us, older folks, it seems so clear that she is totally misreading the circumstances and being unrealistic. We are also on the outside and everything seems clearer when it isn’t happening to you. I remember when I was a teenager I struggled to understand what grownups were trying to get accross to me to no avail because my feelings and perception of the situation got in the way of any realistic analysis.

I think you did the right thing—he already had a girlfriend, like you said, and it would have been wrong for both of you to mess up what was probably already a good thing. It would have ruined what he had with his girlfriend and what his girlfriend at the time felt. So don’t feel like you messed up, because what you did was probably the best thing in such a situation. Try to move on and focus on someone else, though—you can’t dwell in the past, that was two years ago and there will be plenty of other men who will capture your interest in the future.