Not actually today, but was reminded up if by my actions biting me in the ass today.
I was 15 at the time and trying to be edgy and cool like any teen girl trying to fit in, so I’d usually copy my friends’ mannerisms and style.
My family hadn’t spoken to my godfather much since he’d gotten a new girlfriend and distanced himself from all of his old friends. Despite this, my parents always made an effort to contact him and to try and get him to contact me. And one time he did and we started chatting which was nice. He then asked for a picture of myself since it had been a couple years since we’d last seen each other.
I just chose the selfie in which I felt prettiest and actually showed my face in and cropped my friend out. But that picture wasn’t as appropriate as I thought, as I was sticking my tongue out between a V with my fingers (as in licking…), a sign I didn’t understand at the time the meaning of but had seen the cool girls at my school doing. I thought nothing of it especially since he said I looked nice and moved on with the conversation, though it dried out pretty quick but I was used to it with him.
A few days passed and I was finally informed of the meaning of the picture and in my embarrassment I decided to deleted it from our chat and ignore it, hoping he didn’t know the meaning either.
Couple years passed and we didn’t talk except for the occasional happy birthday text from myself to him and my parents trying really hard to keep in contact or get him to call me but nothing.
Then tonight my older sister sees him outside a restaurant and approaches him to say hi. They chichat for a while and he then goes straight to talking about me (after making her promise not to repeat the following to me or my parents) and tells her how he had been supposed to meet up with me a good while back but never had after I had sent him a less than appropriate selfie with what I was doing with my hands without much elaboration and that had angered him so much that he’d decided not to.
They parted ways and my sister told me when she came back home. So now I am absolutely mortified and can’t sleep, and really really want to shake my fifteen year old self for not knowing what the sign meant or not trying to do damage control after. Any advice on how I could address the situation years later?
TL;DR I sent a picture of myself doing an inappropriate sign with my hands to my godfather a couple years ago without knowing the meaning and it turned out to be the reason for the estranged relationship.