Damaged Reputation

And I won’t repair it.

She looked at me. „ …and after he announced that you would come, too, all the girls freaked out! They stood up, shouted ‘No! Not him! He’s going to be drunk again! He’s going to hit on all of us again! No!’”
I looked at her. My fork crashed into the plate. I looked down. I smiled, sadly. “Well… this explains a bit why they were so cold when I went there.” I looked at her again. “It’s kind of funny. Except from you, I didn’t know any of those girls. Not one of them. And I’m not sure how they got the idea that I hit on one of them.” I picked up my fork again. “Because I didn’t.”
“Yeah… I was kind of confused about that, too”, she said, smiling. “I actually defended you. But don’t take it too seriously. Girls like to pretend that guys hit on them to show off.”
“I don’t know anything about that”, I said. ”But then again… Now I know why none of them wanted to talk to me.” A deep sunken glance over the room. Swimming in memories. “Yes… I didn’t really enjoy that evening at all.”
“Sorry, I didn’t want to drag you down.”
“I once had a friend. We spent a lot of time together, talked about women, science, nonsense… everything! But suddenly, there was this day when he wouldn’t get back to me. No answers to my messages. No replies to my invitations. Nothing. I heard rumors about him saying ‘Ah… him? He’s just approaching and annoying girls.’ I don’t know if he really said it or not, but it would explain, why he wouldn’t stay in contact with me.
Now, it is true: I love to talk to girls. Being single and, sometimes, lonely, I won’t hesitate to open my mouth when I see a girl that I’m really attracted to. But I never do that impolitely or when I’m drunk. Never!”
“Can’t imagine that you did”, she said. 
“I’ve never met a girl who was really offended by an honest ‘Hey, I just saw you over there and I happen to like you.’ Instead, girls thanked me for not being one of those guys who wolf-whistle and shout across the streets ‘Hey baby, wanna have a cup of coffee?’ I don’t even understand why some guys do that.”
Now she just looks at me, silently.
I went ahead. “It makes me angry and sad, so sad, to hear that someone out there treats me like a hostile, plays around with me reputation… without knowing me. It hurts even more when a guy is doing the same thing, even though he should know me better than that. Assuming that all of this is the reason why he broke the connection. Friendships end in strange ways.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
A moment of contemplation. Then I smiled. “Nothing. I’m going to do nothing about it. Apparently, my reputation is flawed with some people. Fair enough. Let it be. I don’t care about those girls, I don’t know them. They can think about me whatever they want.”
“And your friend?”
“I reached out to him. He wouldn’t answer. It’s a shame that he might think something about me that isn’t true, yes. But I cannot prevent this bridge from burning as long as he won’t help me extinguishing the fire.”
“But you just said that your reputation is flawed. You are supposed to straighten that out.”
“I can’t have a good name for everybody. There will always be people out there who dislike me. That’s okay. Let those bridges burn. I don’t need that connection. Instead, I turn around and build new bridges. Let me maintain the connections with those people who want to stay in my life.”
“And if your friend reaches out to you some day?”
“I will never reject someone who wants to build a bridge to me.”