Meredith,

My boyfriend and I have been together for a few months. They’ve been the happiest few months I’ve had in a while (the worst fight we’ve ever had is Stones vs. Beatles). It’s been so easy to fall for each other.

Before we decided to be a couple, we had a gray-area period where we liked each other a lot and weren’t seeing other people. There was never any communication about being exclusive, but that’s only because we felt there didn’t need to be. During that time, I let one of my guy friends take me out for a fancy dinner for my birthday. I didn’t lie or try to cover it up to my boyfriend (who wasn’t officially my boyfriend at the time) – there was no need to. To me, it was just a platonic birthday dinner. But to my boyfriend, it was definitely a date, and I basically cheated on him (even though I have no sexual/emotional interest in this friend).

We talked through this misunderstanding a little while ago, and I thought the issue was resolved. But recently he confessed that it really bothers him that I have so many guy friends (I go to an 85 percent male engineering school) who are too willing to take me out, and he circled back around to that one “date” I went on before we were official. I know he was just trying to tell me how he feels, but on my side of things it just felt like I was being accused of being unfaithful.

Most of me feels so guilty for hurting someone who has never even so much as liked another girl’s picture on social media, but there’s a tiny part of me that thinks this guilt is unfair. I almost don’t feel like he has the right to be upset with me for something I did before we were official. But I don’t feel like it’s my place to decide someone’s emotions are wrong. So two questions: First, do I really have to feel this guilty for what I did? And second, how am I supposed to make my boyfriend confident that I love him more than anything, even though sometimes I hang out around other men?

– Lost in the Gray Area