Dating someone after burning a bridge. (dream)

Image by Midjourney

I had a dream last night. I'm fuzzy on the details, but in the dream, I bumped into this guy who (in real life) cut ties with me when my ex-roommate started a smear campaign against me. (I assume she was running a smear campaign because of the way I was treated by the other theater people after the falling out.) I stayed quiet for a while. I didn't see the point in indulging gossip. But after she got me fired from an acquaintance's film, I posted about it on Facebook. In response, this guy left a fairly cryptic, public goodbye message for someone on Facebook (I assumed it was me), and I assume that he decided to cancel a 10-minute play of mine that his small theater troupe was going to do, because he never contacted me again about when or where I could see them perform it. 

I don't think he's a bad guy. This was just the judgment call he felt pressured into making.

So in the dream, I was back in my hometown and I saw this guy. I thought it would be awkward, but we hit it off pretty well. We started talking. We started going to the park. After a while, he asked if we should date. I agreed to it, but I felt super weird about dating him. And at first, it was hard for me to tell if I felt weird because we burned a bridge a long, long time ago, and he might abandon me again, or if I would feel weird dating anyone at this point. After trying to feel it out for a while, I decided that mainly, I was uncomfortable dating anybody again. I'd forgiven him, and I felt as though could move beyond all of that. But I had been done bothering with doing the labor of trying to maintain a relationship and now this was throwing me for a loop.

I think the only reason I'm thinking of this guy again is because someone on LinkedIn reposted something he had posted. He referenced a video he had made which was getting a lot of views, so I went to see his channel for myself. It's kinda weird to look up someone you left behind in life, but I did it, and sure enough, it gave me weird feelings.

I guess this dream mainly lets me know that I've settled down into being single and wouldn't look forward to starting a new relationship. It also lets me know that I've forgiven this person. But another possible message from this dream is that you can forgive someone, but you'll probably always have the memory of what they're capable of (or not capable of).