Torn Up Over a Loser

[Coral Evan]

So, this last spring after coming back from a project for my company abroad I met a man at a store and he approached me with compliments and we exchanged numbers. We went on a date, our only date really, and he took me to a divvy bar that was kinda sleazy (of all the places he could take me in an upscale neighborhood) and when I told him I was 40 he looked disgusted but then told me he was 42. He told me he wants someone younger, he works in Hollywood as a cameraman and has access to 19-year old actresses. Then, despite being kind of low quality there was a deep attraction I felt to him and he began complimenting me and essentially trying to let him come home with me. I didn’t let him, and he never called again. I mean I am a successful graduate level professional with friends who are also the same and have, in the past, only dated like-minded individuals (my deceased fiancée was a surgeon). I couldn’t get this man off my mind despite the fact that I KNOW we had nothing in common, that I thought he was uneducated and drank too much and was a total mismatch and not even good-looking to me, so I texted him over and over and finally, I offered to have sex with him just in the hopes that he would ask me out again. And he did and when I went there was a lady at the bar with him and she said she was his married friend. THEN, when I went home with him, she came with him and showed up there at his house and asked if she could watch us. I said no and told her to leave and she did, and he said I should have not kicked out his friend. He said no big deal, he is kinky like that too and he wanted to see if I was up for that as his “friend” (a married woman with a child at home) wanted to. At that point, I was kind of creeped out by him, but my attraction took hold and we ended up sleeping together….it was not good sex. He lived close, I was starting a new good position I was promoted to and somehow the idea of him kept creeping up on me, so I kept on texting him and getting breadcrumbs. I went to his house a few more times and we had sex as friends with benefits (always with me initiating except the few nights he would call late at midnight asking me to come and cuddle with him when I couldn’t because I had to work the next day). Only one time I went there he was sober because his stomach hurt from so much alcohol use and the other time I went, he was wasted beyond recognition. I still texted him despite all though he NEVER asked me out, nothing. Finally, once I texted him about sex and he said he had found someone else (this after telling me he had no interest in relationships or anything and a week after asking me to come over). He is a man in debt up to his ears, who can barely pay the mortgage to his luxury home, and his Harley and other things. The woman he found is 26, and job hops from one bar to the other, and certainly not at all what would be called “good looking” while pretty much everyone I meet says I am very good looking (which he said over and over again). I see him on social media chasing her and spending his money (credit cards) on her which he never did on me. Basically, he acts in love with this woman but also looks like a crazy older man chasing a younger girl who is just having fun at his expense. I don’t know why I care so much about this, why I am thinking about him or about this at all, why I am so torn up but I feel depressed and am crying all day. I have self-esteem, it is not that, but why would a person like him affect someone so much? I have plenty of friends and family and friends keep saying he is garbage and a loser.

[preraph]

Well, really hard to imagine the attraction there, I must say. There's guys like that everywhere in the entertainment business. They don't care that much what the 21 year old looks like as long as they're half their age. He only cares about sex and that is his whole focus. He likes to have someone young on his arm because he thinks it makes people think he's special and just to have sex with.

 

I'm a little worried about you. I really can't imagine what the attraction there was once he looked ill at your age. If you had to think of anyone you ever knew in your young life who he might remind you of, who would it be? Maybe it's a "familiar" attraction that just isn't very healthy.

[uniplex]

Have you ever been in a loving, fulfilling relationship? I'm going to guess that maybe you haven't because if so, I doubt you would accept this type of treatment from anyone. This man didn't want to be with you, he told you right away you were out of his age range. And still, you slept with him and got emotionally attached.

 

I know you're hurting but do yourself a favor and protect your heart and your body from this day forward. Do not offer up sex in hopes that it will change someone's mind about you. You say you have self-esteem but hun, the way you retold this story says otherwise.

 

Please move on from him. Block his number and never allow him back into your life. He isn't worthy of you.

[FMW]

Something about his bad treatment of you triggered something in you. Made you want/need to win his attention.

[stillafool]

It''s his rejection of you that is keeping you obsessed. If he had wanted you you wouldn't have wanted him.

[Coral Evan]

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I don't really want him. I want the idea of him to be true, I want the relationship that could never be with him. It normally takes me about a month to stop looking up an ex's social media and a year or more to recover. The thing is, I had a great dad who has a great marriage with my mom and treats her with great love and kindness but somehow I am attracted to this kind of "bad" man and I don't know why.

 

This last year was a year of loss, of my life I built abroad when I got transferred back to a large US city that is much more isolating than where I lived before, my grandmother whom I was close to died, I lost the apartment I used to have and have to save to buy a new place. I felt like he could have been a ray of light but obviously that is not reality.

 

As for self-esteem, when I tell people my story, they say "but you are stunning" so I guess there is the idea that I am a good looking but somehow that doesn't give me much confidence because most men don't really, at the end of the day, care much about looks.

[preraph]

You projected onto him your ideal man, and he was far from it. Just realize he wasn't who you hoped he'd be and move on and find someone who is. Good luck.

[stillafool]

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I don't really want him. I want the idea of him to be true, I want the relationship that could never be with him.

 

The idea of what? An alcoholic bad boy with no ambition who chases girls young enough to be his daughter; suddenly falling head over heels for you and straightening up to become a model husband?

 

You are correct that it takes more than looks to make a person fall in love; it's the emotional connection that gets them.

 

It could just be that your ego is hurt.

[Jamess1]

When I tell some frustrated men on this forum this advice, people on this forum say my advice will get him 'slapped and dumped' and how stupid my advice is...

 

This is where he did you right :

 

and when I told him I was 40 he looked disgusted but then told me he was 42

 

He told me he wants someone younger, he works in Hollywood as a cameraman and has access to 19-year old actresses

 

so I kept on texting him and getting breadcrumbs.

 

I still texted him despite all though he NEVER asked me out, nothing.

 

and he said he had found someone else (this after telling me he had no interest in relationships or anything and a week after asking me to come over).

 

This are men you will never find on this forum. When I tell people on this forum that I sleep with gorgeous models, married women, I am shamed for been a misogynist, or they presume that I am lying,extremely rich or good-looking...

 

Seducing women is extremely easy, forget the Hollywood crap, all that men have to do is just be men...most problems men on this forum have is a lack of masculinity...

[snowcones]

You made it a point to tell us how educated you are, so since you are educated and 40 years old, I'm sure you will figure out how to get over this and what not to do next time.