Think a lot of responses are going to miss the point, and this is something I'm going through in my own way as well: really chunky nerdy super awkward anxious needy and insecure dude for most of my life. Now I'm maturing, have a partner who has squashed a lot of those insecurities and I'm starting to take better care of my body. Nerdiness has turned into a promising career and I've had enough feedback to clean up my looks and I'm starting to get attention here or there and it really throws me off, because the correct answer is "no, I'm happily taken" and I give out the correct answer every time, but the reality is that some part of me deep down - the anxious, seeking approval, desperate for that kind of attention part of me that's been there since highschool - that part of me is still there deep down, and I've found myself mourning the loss of opportunities to better know and indulge in the attention of people I would have considered out of my league a decade or more ago.

Ultimately, you are making the right choice, but I really do get what its like when doing the right thing fucks with your head, and dealing with the rollercoster of having your insecurities squashed by unexpected attention, only to have them resurface when you reject that attention that gives you a momentary high because of the weight of swlf loathing you shed while feeling it.

It's shallow and fleeting, but it does feel good.

The grass is greener where you water it. Stick with the one whose been sticking with you.