@dee012 - I absolutely understand your concern, but I can assure you it's unwarranted. Think about it this way: you chose to share this experience openly on a public forum asking for advice, coming from a place of concern. This clearly isn't something you brushed off or have forgotten. You've already learned from it and you're actively putting in the effort to better yourself. Remind yourself of these facts whenever the doubts come up. That is the biggest thing that worked for me.
For my own situation, I unintentionally assaulted a friend. I was an oblivious teenager, didn't understand the signs, and didn't realize anything much had happened, but I realized something was off the next day. It was never really talked about again by her and we seemed friendly for a long time after as far as I was aware.
Years later, during the #metoo movement, I was becoming aware of all the different ways assault can happen, all the reasons people (women especially) can't or won't explicitly say no, that a lack of declining consent is not the same as giving consent, etc. When I realized, I was absolutely, truly mortified. I told my wife about this and how I wanted to reach out to that person and apologize. My wife explained that since it was so long ago and was a relatively minor thing (not to undermine what I did or the impact it may have had), there's a chance that person had long since gotten over it and that me reaching out to them out of the blue might just open up scars that were already closed.
Do I still feel guilt about it and wish I could take it back? Every single time I think about it. But I don't beat myself up about it and it doesn't ruin my mood. It just reminds me of the importance of me growing. I know my intentions at that time, I have hindsight as to what I would have done differently had I known then what I know now, and I know who I am today. That sort of situation will never happen again, because I'm a smarter, kinder, more educated, more aware person than I was before. It was a learning lesson, and the only way to prevent a mistake from being repeated is to learn and grow from it.
When in doubt, just read your own words you have typed here, and remind yourself of who you are. What you did could be perceived as coercion from his perspective, but you DON'T know and CAN'T know, so don't even try. What you DO know is that next time, you can prevent it by both parties communicating until you have a mutual understanding of the expectations and boundaries.
You have nothing to worry about. You are already actively putting in the work and taking accountability for your part in a situation that involved 2 people not communicating effectively. You got this! But don't hesitate to reach out if you ever need some more reassurance or reminders.
