Read signs wrong, did a stupid thing, how to deal with excruciating embarrassment and wounded pride?

I hope this is okay to post here. I will try to keep it somewhat brief.

A few months ago, I (30F) got a sense that a man (M, probably early 30s) who I don't actually know, but run into briefly now and then in daily life was interested in me. Basically I am his customer. One time, instead of the usual quick formal exchange, he started up a conversation, basically small talk but asking about me and even complimenting me. It seemed like flirting. He was busy with work so we didn't have time to talk much, but my radar picked up the "interested" signal (I swear I have a good track record with this, until now obviously), and I could also tell he was really shy and it took a lot of courage for him to talk to me. The next time I saw him it was the same, and I thought, okay, he's cute, but if I want something to happen I have to make a move and let him know I'm interested too.

Now, at this point in my life I don't have the patience for endless courtship rituals, and I'm also not looking for a serious relationship, but I thought it would be fun to hook up. That partly explains my course of action, with the rest of the explanation probably being that I'm insane. One night after I saw him that day, I had an...erotic dream about him. The next day I wrote him a letter about the dream, and I gave it to him when I saw him a couple days later. In retrospect I have no idea what on earth I was thinking doing such an idiotic thing, but I did it.

That was exactly a month ago. I had no idea what his reaction would be, but I figured if he was interested, he would respond in some way. As time went by and no response, I started to assume he probably wasn't interested, but for some reason I just couldn't give up and kept wondering if he had read the letter and what his reaction was.

Yesterday I got my answer. When I saw him, I acted flirtatiously, and he totally ignored it and said in a loud voice "THANK YOU, HAVE A NICE DAY" as if to tell me in no uncertain terms that we have a business relationship and nothing more. I was briefly disappointed but now I'm just incredibly embarrassed by my behavior. I can't believe I did such a stupid thing just because I was too impatient to keep flirting once a week or whatever for however long it took or didn't. I can't believe I thought he was interested in me when he wasn't. Or maybe he was interested in a little flirting but got freaked out/turned off by my letter. It doesn't really matter either way.

How can I get over this egregious misstep and regain confidence that I am not a failure of a human being?

TL;DR I thought a random guy was flirting with me, I sent him an erotic letter out of the blue, he is obviously not interested, now I'm humiliated and disturbed that I could have done something so idiotic.

Submitted May 24, 2020 at 06:27PM by selfsabotage111 https://ift.tt/3d09N3j