I need to vent.

[Jadedbyluv]

I really just need to vent. I'm trying to sit with my emotions but its not easy.

 

So I was in an abusive relationship and it ended about 3 years ago now. But I only went no contact with my ex last year. He still found his way into my life until I decided to get therapy. Since my ex, I've dated here and there. I'm still very hesitant when it comes to dating. I have trust issues and insecurities. Sometimes I get in my own way. I dated someone for a few months earlier this year and it wasn't what I wanted. I tried to date again and was on an OLD site but after talking with my therapist, I thought it would be a better idea just to delete the account and focus on myself. I wanted to be 100% happy with myself.

 

Before I deleted the account, there was one guy I was talking to and I gave him my number. I figured it wouldn't hurt. Never did I think I would hit it off with this guy. We had so much in common. We even had some of the same friends. There were so many similarities in our lives it was scary. I could talk to him about anything. The first time in a long time I was excited about a guy. Our first date was amazing. We were the last ones in the restaurant and I didn't want to leave. I could have talked to him all night. We went out a few more times, and we both opened up about a lot of things. I was beginning to trust him which isn't easy for me. I told him things I haven't shared with many people because he shared intimate details about his life. I really thought things were going well.

 

One night he cooked dinner. We both had too much wine. We ended up having sex and I got scared. I was afraid sex would change things. I was afraid he would disappear after sex. A million things went through my head. He told me he didn't know what would happen down the road but he wouldn't hurt me. It did make me feel a lot better. At this point, I was really beginning to like him.

 

He started a new job and his communication started to get less but I understood. It was a lot more responsibility then in the past. I tried to tell myself it wasn't because he was losing interest but I still had some self doubt. So a little over a month into it, he calls me really early in the morning. I know he was going out with friends so I assumed he had been drinking a bit. He said he wasn't that drunk. This guy opened up to me. He told me a lot of things. Yes. I didn't believe everything but some of it was genuine. He talked about something I told him. And he said he thought we could really help each other with our past. He said we would be an unstoppable couple. It all kind of overwhelmed me because it was out of the blue and he had been drinking. He made plans with me from when he got back and I agreed.

 

I tried confirming the plans but he blew me off. I was a little over eager and excited to see him. I may have went overboard with sending a few texts. But I was bummed out. I just thought he would have respected me enough to say something. He said he wouldn't hurt me but his silence was killing me. It just confused me that much more. I really wanted his actions to match his words.

 

I try to give him a bit of space. He texts me to tell me the rash of messages packed it up for him. And he was going with his gut. I really don't know what his gut was telling him about me. Again feeling hurt and completely lost. Even if the texts overwhelmed him, if he liked me that much the texts wouldn't have completely bothered him to end things

 

I give him space. He texts me a few days later to hang out. Calls to confirm and says he's really looking forward to it. I see him and I was glad to see him. There was a little tension at first but it went away. When we were leaving, he said we should do it again later this week and I said yeah definitely and we will figure something out.

 

No word from him until today. My anxiety about th situation was really high because I felt him saying he would hang out was just something he said out of pity. He's made no plans yet. I casually mentioned it and no response again. That was about lunch time.

 

Why do people say they won't hurt you but then they do? Why tell someone you'll hang out then just disappear or ignore them? Why even play these games?

 

I'm trying so hard to understand. I don't think my rash of

messages changed everything. There has to be something else.

 

If I don't hear from him by Sunday, I feel like contacting him to let him know he

Really hurt me. It might not change anything but at least it will help me to move forward at this point.

[Dallers]

I am probably not going to say much that you really want to hear but sometimes you need to hear it.

 

Reading your post it appears to me that you have met a guy and had some fun with him, you were afraid he would vanish after a night on the splash and he didn't which to me means he likes you, I am a man this is how we work if after sex we vanish we do not like you, otherwise we like you.

 

From then on it just seems like he wants to meet up with you and spend some time together but is a chilled out kind of guy who values his own life a lot more than spending time with a potential love interest, this is normal male behaviour and by saying we should do this again sometime that does not for a second imply a specific time or date especially as you can already see that he does not seem to be a time keeper.

 

Whoever the douche was that made you anxious like this deserves a knuckle duster to the forehead but the only person that suffers at this point now he is out of the picture is you. You must focus on your own life and happiness without needing someone else to do that for you. Just relax and wait to hear from him it may not sound simple but it really is when you realise that this is about you and not him as he has done nothing wrong apart from just living his own life and trying to fit you in around it.

 

He must not be something you rely on to be happy or actually need he must be an added extra that is potential for being something more in the future.

 

Finally there is nothing wrong with you. You have been hurt badly and you are this way as a result of that but it is just your protective mechanism trying to stop you from getting hurt, so you are panicking when actually to me just from reading this I kind of get the idea he could be good for you. By contacting him and blasting him about not sticking to a very casual plan to meet up you will end that chance because if that happened to me you would not hear from me again.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Dallers

[white]

I honestly don't know why people behave that way. It's been eating away at me for years and since I returned to this forum and started dating it's become stronger - it's actually making me paranoid now because I feel alienated.

 

I have never in my life let someone down. Every responsibility I owed anyone I've seen through. From top to bottom, from deep personal debts to minor courtesies. So that includes if someone speaks to me at all in any way I respond. Because it's rude not to. I have had whole conversations with people calling my phone with a wrong number (where I live used to be a business). Even the goddamn religious nuts knocking on my door get courtesy.

 

So if a woman likes me and I don't share it I engage and explain. To ignore, let alone exploit, her would make me a cruel monster in my own eyes. They say the Golden Rule is to treat people as you expect to be treated yourself. So I do that.

 

But instead what I receive, and what I see here, is such indifference and cruelty, and worse, the expectation by others that I should be the same, that I should join in the manipulations and find it funny and a game. I'm sorry, I do not. I find it disgusting and scary. Like I've been abducted to a world subtly different than my own. Like I'm at sea in a storm without my sea legs, forever.

 

I remember reading 1984 when I was about 11. How I felt when I read that, understood it and inhabited that world, taking it as seriously as an 11 year old can and thinking it would come to pass one day. Or the kid at the end of Time Bandits, when he thinks they've beaten Evil but his parents explode, Agamemnon winks at us, and roll credits. Bleak and uncertain. That is how I feel a lot now. And there's noone to talk to about it.

[Dallers]

White you have just described a perfect person in a perfect world and just by reading the Op's story you can see this is most certainly not a perfect world we live in. It is dog eat dog and no matter how hard you want someone to treat you the way you treat them they won't and you are highly likely to be s**t on just like the rest of us. I think in the Op case the guy is just a busy guy who is unreliable and not a bad person. He might be but then again you take that risk, or you crawl into a small hole and give up it sounds to me like you have done that already well I am now on this forum hit me up if you need someone to talk to. I have been in the same place you are and giving up is far to easy there are good people you just have to go through a ton of bad to find her.

 

But i have not read that book sorry

[Jadedbyluv]

 

From then on it just seems like he wants to meet up with you and spend some time together but is a chilled out kind of guy who values his own life a lot more than spending time with a potential love interest, this is normal male behaviour and by saying we should do this again sometime that does not for a second imply a specific time or date especially as you can already see that he does not seem to be a time keeper.

 

Whoever the douche was that made you anxious like this deserves a knuckle duster to the forehead but the only person that suffers at this point now he is out of the picture is you. You must focus on your own life and happiness without needing someone else to do that for you. Just relax and wait to hear from him it may not sound simple but it really is when you realise that this is about you and not him as he has done nothing wrong apart from just living his own life and trying to fit you in around it.

 

 

.

 

You make really valid points. I know I need to be patient and wait for him to make plans. But at the same time, he said this week. How long do I wait until

I just forget about it?

 

Secondly, taking things slow was fine with me if that's what he wanted. But when he started talking about serious stuff like taking vacations with me on holidays. It felt like there was more than something casual. When I tried to have a mature conversation about it, it's like he runs for the hills.

[Jadedbyluv]

I honestly don't know why people behave that way. It's been eating away at me for years and since I returned to this forum and started dating it's become stronger - it's actually making me paranoid now because I feel alienated.

 

I have never in my life let someone down. Every responsibility I owed anyone I've seen through. From top to bottom, from deep personal debts to minor courtesies. So that includes if someone speaks to me at all in any way I respond. Because it's rude not to. I have had whole conversations with people calling my phone with a wrong number (where I live used to be a business). Even the goddamn religious nuts knocking on my door get courtesy.

 

So if a woman likes me and I don't share it I engage and explain. To ignore, let alone exploit, her would make me a cruel monster in my own eyes. They say the Golden Rule is to treat people as you expect to be treated yourself. So I do that.

 

But instead what I receive, and what I see here, is such indifference and cruelty, and worse, the expectation by others that I should be the same, that I should join in the manipulations and find it funny and a game. I'm sorry, I do not. I find it disgusting and scary. Like I've been abducted to a world subtly different than my own. Like I'm at sea in a storm without my sea legs, forever.

 

I remember reading 1984 when I was about 11. How I felt when I read that, understood it and inhabited that world, taking it as seriously as an 11 year old can and thinking it would come to pass one day. Or the kid at the end of Time Bandits, when he thinks they've beaten Evil but his parents explode, Agamemnon winks at us, and roll credits. Bleak and uncertain. That is how I feel a lot now. And there's noone to talk to about it.

 

We have a very similar outlook. Through out a lot of my life, I've been lied to and manipulated. I would never ever do the same to someone else because when I do let someone in my life, I respect them enough to be honest. Especially if it someone I have been intimate with. My therapist has told me I should be proud of who I am but sometimes I wonder if being too nice allows people to take advantage of my kindness.

[Eivuwan]

If he's too busy to give you the same attention and responsiveness that you give him, then is it really worth it for you to be in this relationship? I mean, this is early on in the relationship and there are already issues with how equally you guys like each other.

[Jadedbyluv]

If he's too busy to give you the same attention and responsiveness that you give him, then is it really worth it for you to be in this relationship? I mean, this is early on in the relationship and there are already issues with how equally you guys like each other.

 

Exactly. Why would I want to be with someone like that? I don't know what to do at this point. I want to say something but don't know how to go about it.

[Eivuwan]

I think the key issue is whether it is still worth it for you to try at this relationship. If it is, then communicate to him that his mixed messages are causing you to not know how much to invest in the relationship. If you don't want to be with him, then tell him that you don't think you guys will work out as romantic partners.

[ExpatInItaly]

Deja vu...didn't you post about this in another thread?

 

If he's still brushing you off and ignoring your texts, you need to forget him. He already told you he was packing it in and moving on, and you hung out with him anyway. Why? I don't mean to be harsh, but if you allow people to treat you this way then they will continue to do so. He's evidently not all that interested anymore; you're not a priority to him, you're an option. If he ever gets back to you, tell him to p*ss up a flagpole and then find someone who will respect you and follow through with plans.