What I've Learned in 21 Days

[ChrisMac]

Hello Chris,

 

I think the letter is very comforting for a girl who was/is confused. From a female perspective, it tells that you still love her, you want to make this work, and you have a clear head to lead the way which I think that is what she is asking for in this situation. A logical manner to fix the problem. I mean, when I put myself in her shoe, if I am so sure about the ex, I won't "beg" and apologize to you. If I want to have the cake and eat it too, I won't break up with you a few days before or after (I don't quiet remember the details) your move. It is hard to rebuild trust, yes, communication is the key. It is okay to show emotions. We (maybe just me) need to know that guys have feelings too. I hope all works out for you.

 

I appreciate that, JS, but I do think Falcon25's right here. A girl who has "lost attraction" needs to have the fear and excitement of a guy pulling away from her and maybe moving on to new girls, to really get her flame going again.

 

If a guy goes NC and then three weeks later she starts wondering if he's really moved on, if she made a mistake, and manages to see him, and he says he's fine with the breakup but then tells her all the things he's still insecure about and sends a long letter, she knows he's still not over her and loses interest again.

 

I haven't heard back from her since and doubt I will. It's sad, but just human nature, I guess. This right here is why men so often call women "crazy", though -- "crazy" to us is saying one thing but doing another, and so often in these situations what girls logically *say* they want is not in fact what's going to make them happy in the end.

[mike588]

I understand all the..don't show emotions..don't talk about your feelings to your ex. but what about when an ex. gos back to an ex?

 

Didn't at one time the person who got dumped or maybe even the dumper in their previous relationship express his/her feelings....emotions when they wanted the ex.back.

 

What I'm getting at is....to clarify.. use my situation where my ex. went back to her ex.

 

She told me he contacted her and said...Love you miss you (she was the dumper) and I can only imagine what else he said to get her back so he showed/talked about his feelings.

[ChrisMac]

I think the point Falcon's making is right in general, mike... you gotta be in control, you can't be needy, you can't come off as anything but "I like you but I don't need you", and it's always better to be aloof and fun than depressed and emotional.

 

But every situation's different, and while some girls will react strongly to what he prescribes, others will be turned off by it and actually respond to being pursued.

 

I hated that I wrote the letter, and still do, but today I get a message from her saying "I got the email, you're right I need a little time to think about the response... thanks for being honest with me at the end, I was really worried that it was over between us in the middle". As I didn't say anything at the end, she must have meant the letter.

 

And yeah, maybe it was better to let her keep worrying, okay. But then my phone died just before lunch. When I charged it up after getting home tonight, she'd blown it up with 14 messages about random topics, one every 40 minutes or so.

 

Now, clearly this doesn't mean she's highly serious about wanting to try again, and fix things this time, but to whoever said she'll now be gone for good... I don't see it.

[mike588]

I think the point Falcon's making is right in general, mike... you gotta be in control, you can't be needy, you can't come off as anything but "I like you but I don't need you", and it's always better to be aloof and fun than depressed and emotional.

 

But every situation's different, and while some girls will react strongly to what he prescribes, others will be turned off by it and actually respond to being pursued.

 

I hated that I wrote the letter, and still do, but today I get a message from her saying "I got the email, you're right I need a little time to think about the response... thanks for being honest with me at the end, I was really worried that it was over between us in the middle". As I didn't say anything at the end, she must have meant the letter.

 

And yeah, maybe it was better to let her keep worrying, okay. But then my phone died just before lunch. When I charged it up after getting home tonight, she'd blown it up with 14 messages about random topics, one every 40 minutes or so.

 

Now, clearly this doesn't mean she's highly serious about wanting to try again, and fix things this time, but to whoever said she'll now be gone for good... I don't see it.

 

Yeah like someone else said not every person..girl is the same and you can't stereotype them all however I do agree that you don't show weakness... don't get all emotional...say stupid things like I've always loved you..I've missed you blah blah blah.

 

Humm, wonder if my ex. and her ex. (who shes with now) said those things.lol!

 

I believe alittle bit of emotion can be good...just don't over do it and it depends on the situation.

 

I can kick myself now for replying to my ex. even though I didn't mention or even hint that I would even consider trying it again.... missed her etc etc....didn't tell her anything about whats going on in my life.

 

Good luck.

[ChrisMac]

I still think Falcon's right and mine is still playing games with me. She asked for help with an interview she has coming up, so I sent her some sample questions and links to online resources and just got a "thanks again... and sweet dreams" with a kiss.

 

Now, if she was really back into it she'd be begged to see me, to set up another time to meet. Not just saying thanks for the interview help. Having re-read it now a dozen times, I think the letter was better than I described it, but I'm still going back into no response mode until I get a better sense of wanting to make things work.

 

Her playing cute neither explains what happened before, nor is something you can make a real relationship out of. Some people (cough) might say that it happened because I gave her too much slack, told her my 'feelings', etc. And those people might be right. But you know what? I loved the ****** out of my ex girlfriend, and even though I had to let her go after a long, drawn-out LDR, I told her how much I cared about her all the time and she ate it up. Loved it.

 

You find the right girl, she's gonna adore you back, whatever you say. You don't need to play the games. You're gonna feel good about her and she's gonna feel good about you, and you're each gonna have your own lives and your own friends but the Venn Diagram overlap between the two is gonna be great. You won't have to talk about things like "winning her back" and "no contact (NC)" and all that sh|t because there won't be a need to pull her back to you.

 

At the same time... and this is key... I'm starting to really understand how you shouldn't date anyone until you're great with your own life without any girl around. You need a good home to come back to, a solid financial base, a job you like going into, people around you both in the workplace and personally who you admire and who think you're fantastic, you need good health and to feel good about your clothes and transportation. And if you have all these things, a girl is just going to be a great bonus, and she will know it. She'll know she's lucky to have you rather than vice versa.

 

I think my greatest downfall here -- and I still am not sure whether such things can ever be repaired once they happened -- is that when I got back I had lost myself. I had no base. All those things I just described were gone. At the time of my arrival in the new city:

 

* I had no permanent place to stay. Moving from the US to Europe, I needed a good two months to find permanent housing, so I thought it'd be cool to stay with her for a week, then move to a friend's place through May 1. What I didn't realize was how bad an idea this was because I had no base.

* My work didn't start for another two weeks and even then the people I knew from my internship last summer weren't returning until April

* Though many of them are moving here in the next few months, currently all of my best friends are back in Toronto or scattered across Europe. I had literally no one I knew in the new city.

* All my things were either in shipping or jammed into two bags that I was living out of.

* I'd just spent two months trapped in a desolate town in the middle of nowhere, with no gym or anywhere to even walk to, with two depressed parents constantly around me. My health and mental state were fragile at best.

* Fortunately finances are fine. Great even. This was the only good side.

 

My point is that I was not ready for a girl. Work's going well, I'm making a few friends, my new place is nice, have a room that's comfortable now, and I'm starting to return to normal, but it'll be another 2-3 months before I'm back to 100%. She can probably sense that I'm turning back into Old Me, which is making her curious, but she's still not sure, and the guy she saw a few weeks ago was pretty bad.

 

What I need to do is forget about her and stop writing about her on goddamn internet message boards and just go out and live it up in the city and get my base back. Once I do that, she'll come swarming back, I know that, but there will be other options too. And right now, while a sick side of me is almost enjoying the games with her, it's the other options that I'm most looking forward to checking out.

Edited March 7, 2012 by ChrisMac

[Falcon25]

Chris,

 

 

If you do as I say, she will be yours in less than a month. SHE IS TESTING YOU. Do not take the bait, be kind and gentle, absolutely NO TALKING ABOUT FEELINGS OR THE RELATIONSHIP. You are a different person now. You are a strong man. Let her work for it. When she brings up the relationship just say "That's cool, we'll see how it goes, I'm really busy with work right now". Do not ask her out. Let her ask you out

 

 

Messages, texts, kissing, sex, means NOTHING. She has to get rid of the other guy, she has to ACT on her words. Just sit back and watch. You can still salvage this.

 

Don't listen to emotional men and women on here.

[ChrisMac]

Here's my test for you, Falcon. Let's see how you handle this one.

 

She's sitting at a table across from me, and I'm telling a funny story, and she's nodding and looking at my eyes, smiling but not really paying attention, doesn't laugh at the funny parts. When I'm done there's a silence, and then she goes, "So... yeah. I... I've really missed you, and... and... I guess I wanted to see you to see how you feel, whether you feel the same way too."

 

What do you say?

 

A) Laugh and say "let's not talk about that! haha, here's another story..."

B) "Hey whoa, that's sweet but let's not have this discussion now"

C) "I feel the same exact way, sweetheart"

D) "Come on, I'm over you"

E) None of the above

 

You gotta be really, really careful here. This is what she was doing all last night. She was looking for a sign. Whether it was a sign that I still loved her so she could feel better and walk away, or because she wanted to give it another shot for real, I don't know.

 

But what do you say here? You go with A and you're shooting down feelings that were really hard for her to express and you risk driving her away for good. B, again, you're pissing her off when she tried to open contact. According to you C, is off limits. D is mean.

 

What do you do?

[Falcon25]

Here's my test for you, Falcon. Let's see how you handle this one.

 

She's sitting at a table across from me, and I'm telling a funny story, and she's nodding and looking at my eyes, smiling but not really paying attention, doesn't laugh at the funny parts. When I'm done there's a silence, and then she goes, "So... yeah. I... I've really missed you, and... and... I guess I wanted to see you to see how you feel, whether you feel the same way too."

 

What do you say?

 

A) Laugh and say "let's not talk about that! haha, here's another story..."

B) "Hey whoa, that's sweet but let's not have this discussion now"

C) "I feel the same exact way, sweetheart"

D) "Come on, I'm over you"

E) None of the above

 

You gotta be really, really careful here. This is what she was doing all last night. She was looking for a sign. Whether it was a sign that I still loved her so she could feel better and walk away, or because she wanted to give it another shot for real, I don't know.

 

But what do you say here? You go with A and you're shooting down feelings that were really hard for her to express and you risk driving her away for good. B, again, you're pissing her off when she tried to open contact. According to you C, is off limits. D is mean.

 

What do you do?

 

My girl did ask me this........Here's what I said

 

"Listen, of course I miss you too, I spent seven months of my life with you. I care about you a lot. But, you don't want a relationship with me, you said it, and you broke up with me. So, I have to move on, it is what it is. But, when you get your thoughts together, stop living in the past, in past relationships, maybe we can see if things work out between us this time. But, in the mean time, I'm ok with being single, I kinda like it!"

 

They hate it when you are moving on, seeing other girls, and like being alone.

 

I know it's tough, you are in a different country. I will be in a different city in six months. But, you have to just think to yourself. "I actually like being alone, rather than worry if the girl I love is in love with her ex". That's what I say to myself when I wake up. Everyday.

[ChrisMac]

This is almost exactly what I ended up saying, just minus the "I like being single" part.

 

Mine's good, though. She's on her game. To this she responded, "Well, I'm glad to see you're doing well, but I wanted to meet to see if you still felt anything the way I did. I guess what I realize now is that our time together before was more just a couple fun weekend adventures for you, seeing as you've moved on so easily."

 

To this I responded that it wasn't fun weekend adventures, I adored her, but this was her choice and I'm doing the best I can with it. Which I think was okay. But you gotta be really careful if you try to play this "I don't care" game. Some girls -- especially the ones with big trust issues -- need to see that you still care if they're to try to open back up to you. If you play the whole "I'm lovin' life, fine being without you" thing, the girl can just decide "this guy was never really serious" and it can backfire in a big way.

[Falcon25]

Believe it or not, if a girl is attracted to you, you can never play "I"m loving life and don't need you" too much. That's what they want man. No girl, who is in love with you, would ever, ever, be unattracted to someone they can't have. This is not a game, this is "you broke up with me, I am moving on, so until you show me you are not tripping over another man, I'm gone." Simple as that. I don't know why you fear pushing her away. She is already gone. You know why? She is in love with another man. The only way she moves on is if she knows that something better is about to be lost............I still don't think she's the one for you, I just want you to be like this for the next one. But, she may, in her own time, move on from him. And guess who the next guy is

 

Is it

 

1. The guy who begged and pleaded and chased her, when she GOT RID OF HIM.

 

2. The guy who said "peace out" and didn't care and told her he cares about her but he doesn't want her like this anyway?

 

Who has a better chance with this woman, or any other women, Chris?

 

Is it 1 or 2? I say 2.

 

Our situation is different. We didn't get dumped for neediness, or unattraction, we got dumped cause of another guy who has time and memories over us. It was bad timing.

 

Improve your odds. Be the second guy. Either she will come to you, or you will find something else. NO FEELINGS, NO RELATIONSHIP TALK. Untill she shapes up.

[ChrisMac]

Our situation is different. We didn't get dumped for neediness, or unattraction, we got dumped cause of another guy who has time and memories over us. It was bad timing.

 

Improve your odds. Be the second guy. Either she will come to you, or you will find something else. NO FEELINGS, NO RELATIONSHIP TALK. Untill she shapes up.

 

Man, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but you're starting to sound like a bot. I get what you're saying. I do. It makes a ton of sense. But no need to repeat the same things so many times. I think we'll both be fine.

[Chi townD]

Well, look on the bright side, Chris. At least you got a free make-out session out of the deal!