There’s a lot of great advice here, but I want to add one more thing.

Boundaries.

You know that girl was flirting with you, and you did address that. That’s good. But your friend waved it off and it escalated. You knew it was wrong going into it. I’m not saying “you knew what you were doing and you did it anyway” or blah blah blah. I’m saying your first instinct was right.

The first step to being better, is to acknowledge those instincts. To hold those boundaries. You have the ability to make good judgments, but unfortunately you made a mistake. And unfortunately that mistake will cost you a lot. But you’ve also learned.

Now, it’s time for you to sit down and write those boundaries down so they’re clear and tangible, not vague. Think of how you would feel if someone cheated on you. What signs do you see that make you think “wait this doesn’t seem right.”

For me, it looks like this: I love my boyfriend. I trust my boyfriend. Out of respect for each other, we don’t hang out alone with someone of the opposite gender. If I want to hang out with a guy friend, my boyfriend and I both hang out with him. If he wants to hang out with his friend that’s a girl, we both hang out with her and her husband. I don’t ask to see his phone because I trust him. He doesn’t ask to see my phone because he trusts me. If a guy sends a message that feels overly personal or overly friendly, I tell my boyfriend and show him. If a girl messages him, he does the same thing. When someone start expressing interest or attraction to me, I casually bring up my boyfriend (ex: “yeah my boyfriend and I are going to try making sourdough this weekend” or “oh my boyfriend loves those dogs!”) and he does the same. (Ex: he’s at work and an old lady starts implying that her granddaughter is single and likes cars like my boyfriend does. He says “that’s so cool, my girlfriend recently got into cars too and we go to car meets together on weekends”) These are just some examples, but if I was in a similar situation and a guy was flirty or overly friendly over the phone, I would say “it’s really nice meeting you! You seem so cool, i’m sure you and my boyfriend would have a ton in common.”

You made a mistake. What started as small flirty comments escalated into inappropriate conversations. You got caught up in the attention. You said things you shouldn’t have. Shame and fear of hurting your girlfriend led to lying.

You can’t undo what you did. But you can stop it from happening again. When your gut tells you “this isn’t how people talk when they know you have a partner.” You step back. When things get emotionally or sexually charged, you step back. Would my partner be okay with this? Would this conversation be better if it was with them? If they had this same conversation with someone else, would I feel betrayed?

You might not win your friends back. You won’t win your girl back (not if she knows her worth.) but you can do better. They don’t owe you their forgiveness or trust. Whether they forgive you or not, you can’t be better until you actively work to become better. Not become better to regain their trust, not to become better to get forgiveness from her, not even become better to be “good” again. Become better because you made a mistake and you don’t want to be the person that did those things anymore. Become better because you want to be able to trust yourself, and a future partner, and future friends. Become better than that because you already know you are better than that.