Ok, thank you. Hearing this helps so much. Thank you, really.

I don't want to go away scot free, I really do not. And I am thinking about turning myself in. I don't mind having to pay charges, I am fine with getting an entry in my criminal records for this and I am also willing to tell my family and friends about this as soon as I am ready to, which I am moving towards. I'm so afraid of causing any more harm, of making her relive it again. You don't have to tell me that I deserve punishment, that's not the part I'm questioning, it's really really not. But do you truly believe that it would be in her best interest? Because if so, I want to do it. I want to do whatever I can. I'm just not sure about anything anymore is all

Thank you for encouraging me to do the right thing. Really, that means so much to me.

From what I understand though, sleeping next to her friends at sleepovers is something she sometimes does. That did not have to mean anything. I don't believe she made a mistake by trusting me to not cross any boundaries and it goes without saying that I did make a mistake in breaking that trust, regardless of what else happened. She never said anything clear about being interested in me and she has been romantically interested in other people in the meantime. Maybe things could have been different, who knows, but that's not what happened anyhow.

I would just get some mild charges for this (it's pretty fucked tbh, there should be a more sever punishment imo) and again, I'm genuinely worried that it would draw attention to her and put her in another situation she is not comfortable in. I don't want to burden her with it but at the same time I don't want to make any more decisions that effect her in any way without clear feedback from her ever again, be it compensation through the legal system or anything else. I'm scared shitless that it's gonna be the wrong decision.

Thank you for being more understanding than I could ever ask for. I am so sorry that you had to go through what I put her through and I hope you're doing better. I am trying not to torture myself about it but it really fucked with the way I think of myself and I'm having a difficult time to find the right way to accept what happened, I want to accept it and move forward but I don't want to deal with it as "something that happened, gotta move on" either. Don't worry about your english, you're doing great and it's actually my second language too (or forth language, depending on how you count). And also thank you for understanding why I mentioned that I was drunk and that I am not trying to shove the blame off to the alcohol.

Yeah you're right...

Dude no, I would never even think about saying that she is overreacting and you should not ever say that to anyone who has gone through something like she did. What I did was wrong and acknowledging that is incredibly important.

Thank you kindly. Yes I do hope sincerely that she can heal from what I have done to her and I will try my best to help others. You have a good day too.

No, this means a lot actually. I don't mind if you feel disdain and no sympathy, I don't know you and what I have done is not deserving of sympathy in my opinion either. What you said about making sure to prevent other women from going through this reinforced me in my idea to devote my career to exactly that, as I have discussed in another comment. And you're right, there's nothing left for me except rehabilitation and staying away from her.

I am always working on myself and on becoming a better person, so don't worry I was always planning on taking the necessary steps myself. Staying away from alcohol, seeking professional help and maybe at least finding a way to help prevent this from happening to others since I can't fix the damage I have done with Becky. And you're right, I shouldn't have asked this much of my best friend, that was unreasonable of me. Thanks for reminding me of that.

Yeah you're probably right. I do want to mention that I probably am physically weaker then her but at the of the day that doesn't really matter. It was a scary, fucked up situation for her and I can't imagine how much damage I must have caused.

I did not intend for her to do "emotional labor" I am merely spending time with her to distract myself and telling her how I feel and what happened so she knows what's going on. I have done the same for other people numerous times and I have done it for her too. I have supported her when she told me about feeling suicidal and had battles to fight. I have always repeatedly reassured her to not shy away from reaching out to me because if she needs my support, I want to be there for her as much as I can, as friends do. Since I felt capable of doing that and comfortable with doing so, I do not think of this as something that is completely off-limits because from my experience it is reasonably manageable. I am however aware of how sensitive of a topic this is (this referring both to the incident, as well as suicidality) and that there are definitely people who do not know how to deal with it and just have to do so because they feel obligated. But she told me numerous times that she needs me to promise to reach out to her if I am going through something or struggling with mental health and so I trust her to know how much she is comfortable with if she made me promise that. If she does not feel comfortable than it is perfectly ok for her to just decline that, there are other ways how she can be there for me and even if she doesn't have the time or energy to do so, it is not and never was her responsibility to take care of me, I am an adult and I am willing to work on any problems that come my way or that are inherent to me by myself. I am trying so hard to not make her feel obligated to take care of me and beyond my first initial call, she has been reaching out to me to check up on me on her own which I am infinitely thankful for but I do not expect her or anyone to do so. This does obviously not replace professional help, I know that.

Thanks. Yeah I entirely agree with what you said, I also don't think she just saw me as a friend, both back then and now and that allowing me to touch her chest was a defense mechanism because she was scared of me. I just said that her being unable to ever see me as a romantic prospect turned out to be not true because over the last few months, she told me multiple times that she wouldn't rule that possibility out from ever happening and even back then we could've ended up together if things had gone differently and if we hadn't met at a time where we were both going through other things. Of course, that doesn't mean that she ever did see me as a romantic prospect and I don't think she did. I now that I have been displaying destructive behavior even back then (emotionally harmful to both myself and others) and I am continually working on that. I thought I was already much better then back then and much more in control of myself and that I had moved on from a lot of my problematic tendencies but it looks like maybe I just bottled things up. I have a lot to think about and to work on and this mistake something that I will always carry with me and that I will never be able to forgive myself but I'm willing to be better from here on out.

Are you talking about my best friend or about Becky? If you mean Becky, she has told me that she wants to be left alone so I am doing that. It is entirely her decision and if she does not want to talk to me again then I won't talk to her again. That's the pill I'm trying to swallow. If you mean my best friend, I called her up and told her about all of this because I had to get it off my chest and I was afraid to be left alone with my thoughts. I am not making her talk about this though, I am telling her something and she responds how she sees fit. If she does not feel comfortable to talk about it then she should not feel any obligation to do so. I have told her that one or two times right at the beginning when I called her up to tell her but I will make sure to remind her of that again. She obviously is not a free therapist, she is my friend and if she does not/can not offer me support than she is in her rights to not do so.

Ouh boy. It's a pretty long story but: There was this other girl, also a close friend of mine, who had been in love with me for over a year by that point. She never outright told me until this year but I always knew because she was not especially subtle about it and constantly gave off hints that she has feelings for me. Eventually, I also developed feelings for her but because I was scared of commitment and because I knew how vulnerable she was and I was scared that I could hurt her I never confronted her about it and just...ran from it. She then shortly got together with her ex, which made me regret the whole thing. That's when Becky and I met. I ended up latching myself onto Becky for emotional support and I thought I was starting to like her, although looking back at it now, it's very likely I was just talking myself into it to distract myself and I tried to transfer my already existing, pretty strong feelings for that other girl onto Becky. She felt completely overwhelmed by it and rejected me, telling me that no matter what, she could never see me as a romantic prospect (though she told me that was not true this year, so it probably was just a coping response) and that she really likes me as a friend and does not know how to act around me now as she does not want to hurt me. The other girl and her boyfriend then broke up almost immediately again, I do not know why but I know that she had been conflicted about having feelings for me (a guy she thought would never give her a chance) and wanting to go back to her ex from the start so the possibility of me being the reason for their break up does exist I guess. Anyhow, she tried spending time with me again but I kept telling myself that I had moved on to Becky and because I came to regret giving up so quickly on that girl I got really fixated on not giving up on Becky so fast. We both did some bad things, we were constantly arguing when with our friends and although I do have to admit that I should have been more mature about it back then, her constant remarks about our fractured friendship, eg talking about movies or memes with our friends and then saying to me "You know, I would really like to show you but oh, we are keeping our distance from each other" made more angry at her, so we kept exchanging remarks like these back and forth. Eventually, I made a bet with my friends that she would develop feelings for another guy in that group (which did end up happening) and when she found out about it, she singled me out about it and broke off our friendship. She and him got together and he broke up with her a couple months later because he felt bored by her not being toxic enough (sounds like a joke but that's literally what happened). Hadn't heard from her since, until the end of last year when it just so happened that we started to slowly get in contact again through our mutual friends, but since then the contact between her and them slowly faded away so I was the last one of our friend group to be in contact with her. There's more to it but this is basically the gist of it.

No obviously the situation at hand is deeply problematic, I could never argue against that, I meant I don't have an alcohol addiction.

Edit: Also, that still doesn't mean it's a drinking problem, as others have pointed out it's a self control problem.

No, I don't want anyone to tell me I'm a good person or to show me sympathy. I have not done anything to take responsibility yet, an attempt at an apology is not taking responsibility, I know that. I open this thread to have a place to converse about it so that I could process it and gain perspective, because, to be perfectly frank, I had difficulty reflecting on the situation, all I was consumed by was the pain and the guilt and the feeling of not being able to make right. I still have all of these feelings, but the feedback I have been getting is encouraging me to better myself. I intend to stop drinking, not because "alcohol is at fault and that fixes the problem" but because I want to eliminate any and all risk factors that could lead to me becoming a liability again and also, though this is just a loose idea floating around in my head as of right now and I don't even know if or how I would go about it, but since I am a psychology student (not intending to become a therapist, don't worry) I was thinking that maybe, after graduating, I could focus my career on working on sexual assault prevention campaigns and studies so as to ensure that no others have to go through what I put her through.

Edit: I thought about prevention specifically because I think that is an area that is still scarily underdeveloped despite the obvious need for it and the research to base it on being there, but more importantly I would be choosing prevention because after what I have done I could not ever possibly feel comfortable working with victims who already had to suffer through it, even when I get to a point where I can be 100% sure that I won't be doing anything like this again.

I don't want to make it sound like it was because of the alcohol, that is not what I am trying to do here. I only bring it up to portray the situation more accurately. I do absolutely intend to take the consequences and to take full responsibility and to better myself so that this doesn't happen again.

I am not depressed because I am a "douche bag", I am depressed because I am depressed and on top of that I turned into a "douche bag" somewhere along the line. I have been depressed since the age of 13, at which I was still an innocent kid. But stopping to be a "douche bag" is something I have to do either way so that's what I'll be working on.

I wanted to apologize to her but she did not want to hear an apology. She said to leave her alone so I did. While she hasn't blocked me anywhere, I am pretty sure she trusts me to just not text her and she has deleted me from various social media platforms, probably so that she doesn't have to see my name anymore which is understandable. As suggested in another comment, I will in due time prepare a formal and in-depth apology where I plan to detail what exactly I am sorry for (so as to make clear that I understand all of the mistakes that led to this) and where I will reassure here that she only has to read it if she some day decides to and that the apology letter does not mean that she will have to hear from me again. Stopping drinking is definitely something I will attempt and I have been thinking about other ways to move forward and better myself.

Thanks for the kindness. I know I have the capacity to be better, the thought that just eats me up more than anything else is the trauma I must have caused in her. I will never be able to forgive myself for that and I will never have the chance of changing what happened. But at the very least I know I can take steps so that this doesn't ever happen again.

I don't intend to hide behind the alcohol, I am completely aware that this is my own fault and I don't want to run from the accountability. The only reason I mentioned the alcohol was to get the events across as accurately as possible. I don't have a drinking problem so I don't really think an AA meeting would do much but staying away from alcohol all together is definitely something that I am contemplating right now. As is therapy.

You're right, there is no excuse for what I have done. I am not looking or asking for or trying to make excuses. I fucked up by doing a fucked up thing. I am 100% at fault, regardless of my own personal issues. I bear responsibility for acting within what I know to be right despite my burdens and that time, I failed to do so. But I am not a rapist. I did not rape her and I was not attempting to rape her. I don't think I'm doing her or anyone else any favors by seeing this issue for anything other than exactly what it is: Sexual assault because of my lack of self control. I have always placed importance in showing her that I respect her boundaries, that we weren't ever going to do any activities or talk about any topics that would make her even slightly uncomfortable and every time I was being genuine from the bottom of my heart. But when it mattered the most I could not keep to that promise and I misused the trust she had built for me and that is inexcusable, and I am not trying to tell anyone otherwise.

I am aware that I am 100% at fault. I have actually thought about turning myself in but knowing her she might actually not want that because it could draw attention to what happened and I am unsure if she would want people around her to know about this. I would immediately confess if she pressed charges. I might actually suggest to her that she press charges. However, being devasted about this is not something I choose, nor is it something I need the to have the right for. I did something horrible and it is natural for me to feel horrible about it, the guilt eats me up and I am not searching for a way to get rid of it nor for an excuse to let myself sink into it, all I want is to figure out what the best way to move forward is, not for my own sake but so that this never happens again and so that maybe, if there is even the tiniest thing I can do for her to help her heal, that I can do that. As it stands now, the only thing I can do is to stay away and I am going to do that.