Your Standard Advice for Dealing with Your Typical Jerk, Please. Thanks! :)

[Palmer11]

Hello you all! I've spent years reading threads in this forum, which has helped me a lot in the past. While I've actually never been in a relationship, and can only imagine what pain a dumpee might feel following a breakup, I do feel that emotional wounds brought about by situations still hurt nonetheless and should be addressed properly to get over the jerk, so to speak

 

So, the jerk in my case is a year younger than I am (I'm 22 and we're both seniors in college). I liked this guy last year for a number of months (we became somewhat close friends during that time) and let him know last May. I wasn't sure how he felt about me, and I didn't want to fool myself much longer... He had been giving me good, obvious signs of liking me, and all of his friends knew about me and whatnot, but I guess I was wrong because he ended up rejecting me! So I cut my losses, hung out with friends a lot and accepted dates (because we're in the same club, he would see all of this). Even though he rejected me, he kept giving me mixed signals and playing head games, which I would ignore. I took some time off from school, so I didn't return to campus until this February. Up until then, I had really been working on myself and trying to figure out why I've always attracted similar guys who are emotionally unavailable... However, it was still a little difficult to get the jerk from last year off my mind (and while I know that hopping to the closest guy is NOT the way to go, not really having any worthy prospects doesn't help me forget the past either).

 

In any case, since I've been back, we've essentially been dancing around each other! He's tried to act cool whenever I'm around, get really nervous around me, pay more attention to me, start conversations with me and invite me to some social gathering that he heads, hang around me yet say nothing, give me puppy eyes when I don't (or try not to) pay him any mind, get really jealous when guys give me attention, try to flaunt some girl who's giving him attention to see how I'll react... The games are endless, and they're annoying!! Worse still, I'm noticing all of this when I shouldn't be!

 

I know that he's extremely immature and he has a long way to go... It's become obvious to me that he's starting to see that he's lost out on a really great girl (I won't get into detail about that bit, given that this post is much longer than is necessary! ) and regrets his decision, but he's going about it the wrong way! I was really starting to move on, but last week, he unexpectedly did me a huge favor which made me stupidly hope that he was getting better, and also invited me to hang out with him and his close friends (which I didn't give a yes or no to, because I'm still guarded), but last night, he was trying to flaunt some girl whose advances I think he finally accepted (i.e. they probably started fooling around, because I'd noticed her almost literally throwing herself at him for some time) in front of me, RIGHT AFTER he saw some guys giving me lots of attention and playing me compliments! It's frustrating that he's being such an ***hole; I really haven't been leading him on or playing games... And it makes no sense to me how he'll try to give me crumbs, and because I don't respond in the way he wants me to (because he STILL hasn't brought up the rejection or the head games following the rejection from last year!), he'll accept the advances of some girl he doesn't care for!

 

Again, I know that this story pales in comparison to things that most on this website have gone through... I've just had such a rough time in this department my whole life (never had a bf, or even a fling! I know this is God looking out for me in the long run, but sometimes it feels like I'm the odd one out), and an even tougher past 18 months in general...

 

I guess I need kind words of encouragement, if you could spare any at all. Or, stories of any situations similar to this one, and how they panned out. And thanks so much for reading this post! I'll stop whining now

Edited March 20, 2013 by Palmer11

[dasein]

Well appreciate your feelings here and welcome to LS, but don't see much jerk or a-hole behavior going on, just the standard issues, and even games or what can appear as such, when people who didn't work out romantically are still around each other regularly. Would consider moving on to another club or social groups as it seems you still have feelings for this guy which are leading to misunderstandings and awkwardness on both ends. Good luck.

[clia]

I'm not getting why he's a "jerk." Because he rejected you? All you need to know about him is that he isn't pursuing you or asking you out on a date. That's it. Whatever else he's doing -- and the reasons he has for doing it -- are meaningless. It doesn't make him a "jerk" to not want to be with you.

 

You need to move on. It's been almost a year since you told him how you felt and it doesn't seem like you've made any progress. Essentially, you've wasted the past ten months on him, when you could have been out looking for a guy who wants to be with you.

 

You shouldn't be focusing on who is throwing themselves at him or whether he's getting nervous around you or whether he is throwing puppy dog eyes at you. (Are you sure about all that? Sometimes we have a way of seeing things that aren't there when we want to see them.) If he really thought that he had made a huge mistake, or even cared about you at all, he would be coming after you -- he wouldn't be making out with another girl in front of you.

 

In my opinion, you should try not to spend so much time around him. You need to go no contact with this guy, move on, and get over him.

[Palmer11]

Ah, I'm sorry... I did not explain this well at all, sorry about that.. he was a jerk because he told mutual friends about what I confessed to him last year, and really wasn't sensitive about the whole thing... I am a very private person, and given that we were friends, I thought that he would have kept what I said between us... However, he didn't, and a lot of people found out. A number of people also found out that I was taking a voluntary leave of absence due to personal family reasons... Things that I told only him, because I stupidly assumed that he would not tell others. To me, that's disrespectful behavior, because I would never do (and have not done) that to someone I called a friend.

 

Now, given that, I really did move on from him, I mean it! I didn't contact him, and am not playing games! I come to this club because I have many friends here, and I like to come here, whether or not he is here. I started to notice him seriously coming over when I was alone studying or reading to talk, and became frustrated because I would greet him like any other acquaintance, to show that I am not looking for anything from him, but he started giving many mixed signals! And I'm not so out of touch with reality to know what that looks like or how that feels... If someone rejected you in such a way, and, when you're moving on, tries to initiate conversations with you and ask you to hang out often, or even becomes seriously jealous when you receive attention from other people (and you don't seek this attention out!) wouldn't you get a bit bothered?

[dasein]

Well could you continue with that club and cultivate some other activities at the same time? It hurts when people betray our trust, especially those we have feelings for, no doubt about that.