I know this might be a little late, but it's one of the few that ends with a happy ending.

We met for the first time in high school. I was from another area so I didn't have any friends at this school. So fitting in was important.

There was this one boy who was incredibly smart and sweet and kind. But he got picked on often. Like the majority of young high school kids he still had his baby chub so he was an easy target.

We had the majority of classes together and talked often over Messenger (those were the days). But I never really told anyone that we talked as much as we did.

Everyone always made snide comments about how he had a crush on me. Finally one day his friend forced him to tell me how he felt. Before he could say anything I quickly ran out of the room claiming I had to be somewhere. I couldn't handle telling him no, when I liked him back in some form or another. We never discussed that day again but it's one of my biggest regrets. I was so worried about fitting in and pleasing all of the other "friends" in high school that I broke the heart of this one guy who was the only one who ever treated me right. A few years went on and everyone kept making remarks about him still liking me, but I eventually stopped commenting back.

During these years we kept chatting and became friends and eventually before end of high school he organized one of the most romantic days out before asking me out. This time I said yes and we've been together ever since.

The first year or so was hard because everyone was so shocked that I had feelings for him and would always say "I thought you hated him" or "remember when you rejected him". A lot of people also thought I didn't like him at all and that really hurt. I constantly felt like a bad person if this was everyone's opinion, my actions must have been horrid. But, we're still going strong so many years later. I always wonder what would of happened if I just said yes earlier. We've talked about all the crap that happened and he just laughs it off now and said if we dated that young we probably wouldn't have lasted as long as we did.

tl;dr I rejected a guy because I wanted to fit in. Ended up with him and still to this day with him.