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You’ve been very helpful. Thank you!!
To answer the easy relationship question – I’ve been in two relationships that could potentially be described as having been “easy” at some point. One was my last long-term relationship, which started when I was 21 and ended at 23-24. We were friends first, he started to talk to me as a potential date for a few weeks, and then we met up and began dating after that. It helped that we lived close enough to each other that we could see each other on a planned weekend. He wasn’t without his mental health struggles, but his depression was well-managed (he was on medication and was good at keeping himself busy and out of his own head) and didn’t cause too many problems in our relationship. He also had a lot of drive and initiative to do what he needed to do for himself and his own self-worth – he got himself out of his dead-end gas station job from high school and into a sanitation job with great pay and benefits over the course of our relationship, and he also made music and became more successful at that. My role in that relationship was very supportive and I never had to direct him or take on a mothering type of role. We broke up because he had a turbulent living situation with his roommates, had to move back in with his parents, and would spend most days over my house and want more togetherness than I was willing or able to provide, especially because we never spoke about moving in together. Being 23 years old at the time, I had a much harder time saying no, making a plan, establishing boundaries, and communicating my needs, which contributed the cycle of resentment and missed communication between the two of us that eventually led to us breaking up and we both exhaled really loudly when we made that decision. He also began to lose his ability to keep his own identity outside of the relationship and be his own person as our relationship troubles went on. He would volunteer to give up things that are at the core of who he is, like his bands and even his job, to move wherever I went instead of trying to make them work despite future life changes, and this caused me to like him even less. He’s married now and some of this has seeped into his marriage a bit – he no longer speaks to his best friend of 15 years over a minor disagreement between the friend and his now-wife. I was never a big fan of the wife even before they got together because she herself is too much of a follower and people-pleaser who has trouble standing on her own. But, he’s happy, we’re still on friendly terms, and it’s not my relationship so I don’t opine. We share some mutual friends and I see him maybe once or twice a year with them. The relationship was great up until he quasai-moved-in with me when I wasn’t ready and I wasn’t sure what to do about that.
The second one was the guy I went out with after him. I barely knew him and was single for four years at that point. We met on my 28th birthday, got along great, and he asked me on a date the next day. I loved how much initiative he took and that I didn’t have to cut through the typical hesitancy to commit that guys seem to go through during early dating. However, it was very quickly revealed to me that he was extremely clingy and began to text me at all hours of the day with no break, even when he was at work or at the gym. He asked to call me 3 or 4 times throughout the day in addition to all this texting. He would frequently shower me with gifts or offer to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars that he did not have on things that I did not particularly care for. It felt like he was trying to bribe me into staying with him. He was very reckless in bed and I felt used. He was addicted to marijuana and pornography. When we broke up, he would break no contact frequently to tell me he missed me even though he was spreading lies about my hygiene and other sensitive topics to other women he was trying to sleep with. Trying to block him on social media was like playing whack-a-mole – he would often find me on other social media apps that I had not used in months, and add me there and try to say hi to me. He went out with a former friend of mine and treated her even worse than me, partly because they lived very close and he had much more opportunity to see her. He came easy, but the relationship was very turbulent and short lived.
Here is how I have the current guy stacked up against these two exes:
-He has the same initiative as my long-term ex regarding making moves with his band and getting himself into a decent career. He has some struggles right now on this front because his rent is going up, and he’s stuck working more than one job at a time to be able to afford that. This is keeping him from getting a job in the field that he went to Voc/Tech school for because he would have to take pay cut even though it’s better for him in the long run. He has a plan to move out and find a cheaper place when his lease is up, even if it means getting a roommate, and made his going-forward plan entirely on his own. He’s able to recognize where he is and take action towards getting himself un-stuck without being led by a partner. However, he seems less sure of himself as a potential partner at this phase in his life than my ex did. Because he’s in a transitional period of his career, he might misconstrue himself as an incomplete partner because he has an incomplete mission, whileas my ex went for it anyway even though I had a college degree and he was working at a gas station.
-I find a lot of comfort in his more lax communication style at this point because 1) I get very occupied with work, friends, etc and need a significant amount of personal space from my partner. Whether he’s keeping busy with music or work, or he’s playing video games and taking time off from talking to other people, or even going into his man cave to process something difficult, I find him almost accidentally meeting my needs whereas other women who need more attention may find his behavior avoidant. I’m not a fan of talking just to fill space and would rather talk to him when I have something to share, want to engage him about something he’s already sharing, or just want to make him laugh and don’t expect much back and forth. If we do actually get together, calling each other once a day on most days and texting when we feel like it is sufficient for me. I do not expect or want him to be able to talk all day and this would actually make me less attracted to him. Knowing that he’s not going to become ex #2 is very comforting. However, I’ve noticed that both now and in the past that I would be more tolerant of avoidant behavior than most because I’m very low-maintenance and perceive what other people would consider extended periods of space as normal and healthy, especially in the pre-commitment stages.
He definitely has low self-esteem, and whether answer 1 or answer 2 to the big ending question transpires depends on how he handles it when we see each other again this weekend – MAYBE give him a three strike rule. Because he’s been willing to talk out his insecurities and provide reassurance when conversations about his insecurities potential misunderstandings come, I have a lot more patience and grace for him when he does fall backwards. In previous experience with men with low-self esteem, they would not listen to anything positive I had to say about them at all, spin it back onto me that I’m crazy, and push me away without a back and forth or working through difficult conversations, even over text where the pressure of speaking in person is not there. When I compliment him or state something that I like about him, or tell him he’s wrong when he says no one wants him, he responds positively, doesn’t perseverate on his more negative point of view, and doesn’t try to gaslight me into leaving him because he’s not good enough for me. This is a very positive sign for me and makes me more inclined to want to make this work even if he still struggles.
However, he does fall backwards into old habits sometimes, especially when we don’t talk for a couple of days. Particularly, he has a very bad habit of giving attention, even if it’s only superficial, to unavailable women and setting himself up to potentially get VERY hurt. There are two in particular that come to mind. One is someone I once called a friend who told me point blank to my face that she was leading him on – the fact that we talk came up the last time I hung out with her, and she took the opportunity to show me old texts between them that I did not need to see, I can see her ghosting him, and she told me directly that she had no intentions with him and was only flirting because she was bored. I suspect her of milking him for attention to this day, and her behavior made me lose a lot of respect for her and I’m fully prepared to sever the friendship over her behavior. The other one is someone he met recently, I don’t know her well, and while she seems nice enough, she lives 15 hours from him and really doesn’t travel. She also has a young child and issues with that kid and the father to the point where CPS is coming to her house. Even if we haven’t crossed the bridge of being exclusive yet, watching him get breadcrumbed really messes with my head and is perhaps the most angering part of dealing with his low self esteem.
I’m seeing him on Saturday, and plan to put some of this reading material to the test – I recall him telling me that he loves few things and women submitting and surrendering into him is one of them. He also has a competitive/possessive side and enjoys asserting himself over other guys (or at least the idea of it). Super clingy ex #2 will be at this party/event, and my new guy has absolutely no idea that we went out or how the relationship went down. A big part of what I want out of this guy is more public, in-person assertion with me, and I do not want any contact with my ex at all at that event. Being able to frame this to him as an opportunity to win and get what he likes/wants out of me (without getting into the minutae of my last relationship, unless he asks) by asserting himself in public (even if it’s as simple as standing closer to me more often), and keep an unwanted man from swooping down like a hungry vulture, gives me the opportunity to watch how he responds. Either he indulges in his masculine energy and pushes his self-doubt to the side, showing that he’s worth putting effort into, or he’ll wallow or buck out and show that he’s too deep in his own head for anything more than a far off fantasy.
Hello again,
Explain what this means. How are you sensitive and what “level” are you talking about? I feel emotions, both positive and negative, more strongly than the average person. I respond well to and hold on to positive stimuli and therefore do not need a lot of maintenance to stay happy. I do not need constant reassurance and do well in LDRs because I don’t need a lot of physical togetherness to know that my partner cares about me. However, this also means that negative stimuli, like raised voices, affect me much more strongly than they would the average person. I’m not able to just easily brush off someone raising their voice at me, and being yelled makes me extremely defensive and potentially reactive simply because I’m feeling such a high degree of pain that the other person just doesn’t get. Someone repeatedly yelling at me would cause me to leave them simply because it shows that they do not have enough emotional control to keep me safe. I feel like someone else who experiences this would be much more conscientious of me and treat me with more care because they would want to be treated like that themselves. This is something I’ve seen multiple times already in this guy even after only having met once – there have been several situations where I could not completely figure out his behavior or misunderstood something he did or said, and because we both take extra care to approach each other with kindness, we’ve never had an argument and seem to naturally just be able to diffuse each other without trying that hard. Having grown up in a house where my parents’ relationship is rife with arguing, micromanagement, sarcastic jabs, and other signs that they just don’t respect each other, and having watched countless friends and even love interests cycle through abusive relationships, I place a very high value on having an argument free relationship – not because there’s no conflict, but because we both make a conscious effort to approach each other with clear heads at all times, even if it means giving each other space and waiting to talk until the next day.
My biggest question would be, what does a “healed” or “adult energy” version of myself look like to you? I’ve always been like this. I don’t feel a predisposition to “fix” this guy and know that I’m going to have to accept him for who he is and where he’s at, even if he struggles, that he needs to challenge himself on his own, and that’s my decision on whether I can accept where he is right now or if he’s too much of a project for me. I feel like I’m being asked to change a core part of my personality without knowing what that change looks like.
I also feel like the worst-case scenarios about his ability to feel joy and step out of his shell a little are VERY exaggerated. I feel like I’m being encouraged to just walk out on someone who’s already demonstrated an ability and willingness to provide some of my most critical needs – common interests, similar living preferences, drive and initiative with both his music and his career/working life, my preferred amount of personal space, and conscientiousness and emotional safety – just because he’s inexperienced and clueless about how to start a relationship and has some social and emotional struggles. And yes, I do need more information because I would like to see how he acts now that we’ve gotten the daunting (for him, anyway) first meeting overwith. We’ve actually started to talk MORE now that the first meeting is overwith and we’re seeing each other again in a week and a half. The biggest question is who will be the first to crack and actually make the first move, which is something we’re both resistant to – him because he’s shy and struggles socially, and me because I ultimately want to shift out of being so forward and into a more feminine role.
I also feel like the next step if this doesn’t work or if he is indeed too much of a fixer upper, is actually asking to be set up by my friend group. Unfortunately the social scene I’m in is RIFE with emotionally unavailable men and fishing around on my own has proven too difficult and taxing for me (this could also help explain why I frequently end up attracted to emotionally unavailable men – we tend to want to get with what’s around). Before meeting my last boyfriend, I had not been in a serious relationship in four years. Part of this was by choice, as I had just left a long-term relationship and had very little time between dates and boyfriends from the moment I started to date. However, the cumulative failure over the years has begun to weigh on me, it’s affecting how I carry myself in social situations, and a lot of the self-work I’ve done through reading books and going to therapy has started to suffer because of the cumulative effects of all this failure. My last boyfriend was someone I didn’t know very well beforehand, someone who was very bold and charming and asked me out right away, and he turned out to be extremely clingy and fixated on himself. Healthy enough men seem to be very hard to come by on my own, and I’m very much against leaving my organic social scene and going on an app because I like having peace and quiet with my phone and get very quickly overwhelmed by the number of messages I receive when I put myself out there. I also cannot divert attention to multiple people and can only focus on one person at a time, partly because I hold extreme beliefs about loyalty. It’s my firmly held belief that if I were to entertain more than one person at a time and then choose one over the other, my hands would be dirty because I began to build up trust with someone and then left them. By having someone in my circle set me up the way people met before the internet, I would not have to navigate a difficult dating pool, and continue on with a clear conscience and clear intentions of focusing on one person at at time.
Thanks again!
You have a lot of experience with depressed guys? Tell me more about this. How? Why?
This experience comes from several previous boyfriends (4 I believe?). Some had their issues well managed on their own (medication, therapy, self-management with friends and hobbies), and were able to maintain a healthy, functional relationship throughout its course, even if that third voice was still there. We broke up over unrelated matters (core values became too different as we both got older, different objectives regarding major milestones like living together, marriage, children and how fast this would happen). Others had a very poor handle on their mental state and would self-sabotage a lot (break up with me before I broke up with them) and require a lot more of the “mothering” that was talked about earlier. Not that the more well-managed guys never had doubts at all or that their underlying issues would never come to light, but their issues never took control of the relationship.
You’ve noticed that I’m drawn to quieter men, which often leads me towards men with social/emotional difficulties or are not neurotypical. Some reasons I can think of for this are:
-There are just a lot of these kinds of people in my social scene.
-I’ve always been attracted to “underdog” type guys, guys that don’t get a lot of attention, because I would always feel that these types of men would appreciate me more (this has turned out true about half the time). I love very loyally and hard and want what I can provide. I was bullied aggressively when I was younger and empathize greatly with someone who’s on the outside looking in, even though I’m very conventionally attractive and popular now. I’m extremely non-competitive and seeing too many other women chasing after a guy, no matter how much or how little attention he’s giving them back, makes me like the guy even less. I myself am a Highly Sensitive Person and need someone on my level.I’m generally drawn to quieter, more sensitive men despite being an extrovert because I share a lot of social desires with introverts even though I need more social stimulation – I don’t like to talk to fill space, I don’t like to make small talk, I enjoy a lot of personal space and alone time, and I like being able to coexist in peace with a partner without being pressured to talk. Quieter guys let me come to them more – a lot of times I find that when a guy pursues me very aggressively, I get chased into a corner and shut down because I have someone in front of me showering me with affection when I don’t know them and have had no time to develop feelings for them. And I won’t lie, it feels very rewarding to earn the love and trust of a more guarded, sensitive man – I feel more deeply loved and appreciated by someone who feels as deeply and deliberately as I do. And, as the nature of the beast seems to have it, the quieter, more sensitive, and even awkward men that I’m drawn to are almost always fighting something.
So that’s what I can think of as far how my needs and desires play into this pattern of dating men with social or emotional issues.
As far as this guy goes, I asked him today about why he left the chat, and he simply mentioned that it wasn’t that active so he left (he’s right for the most part. Before my birthday two weeks ago, we hadn’t used it as a vessel to communicate in several weeks). The chat got back together and back to normal after. This isn’t the first time he’s been somewhat clueless about his actions on the internet – he’s unfollowed people he didn’t mean to, and he even forgot he changed his name on Facebook when he’s had that name all year. He pays very little attention to social media, wants to fall off of it entirely one day (“as soon as I meet my soulmate, I’m outta here”), and definitely doesn’t have any idea how much women (especially) read into someone’s social media behavior. He’s definitely very inexperienced with women, is definitely fighting some social or emotional issue, and could very well be on the spectrum as mentioned earlier.
Hi Heidi, thanks for getting back to me and providing that perspective! Here are some of my initial thoughts on what you’ve said:
– Your perspective has been very helpful with managing my expectations going forward. Whether or not a relationship could start or would be successful with this guy really depends on how much and what kind of risk he’s willing to take. He’s going to have to step out of his social and emotional comfort zone if this is going to work, and if he stays where he is he risks me eventually walking on. Taking the time to read your response allowed me to think about exactly how much I’m willing to tolerate from this guy. I’d say if we meet in person 1-2 more times and he hasn’t shown any more willingness to come out of his shell for me, it’s time to move on. This relationship is going to take a lot of mutual compromise if it’s going to work, and while I already have a very good idea of what I would be willing to do to balance our needs out (stand further back with him if we’re seeing a band I’ve seen multiple times, leave a party early or let him leave first if he’s overwhelmed), he needs to meet me where I’m at (be able to come up front with me more at shows, integrate into my various friend groups more instead of retreating into his own).
-The next time I see him will be a lot more telling on if he’s able to do what was just described above. The first time we met was an extremely over-stimulating and unbalanced situation – a fairly large music festival with hundreds of people and sometimes 50 new people from the internet at once coming up to him and introducing themselves. This was also an environment where I had a lot of friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen in six years, and he didn’t have those established relationships already. The next time we meet is a smaller, more informal party type event where there will be fewer people and our respective social statuses won’t be so out of balance.
-One way or another we’ll need to have a serious conversation that we have not had yet. I, for better or for worse, have a lot of experience with depressed guys and have a very good understanding of the kind of behavior that I will and won’t accept from men. A lot of what I’m willing to work with and not is rooted in whether or not the guy trusts me. His “caving” behavior is something that we’ve already talked about and something that I usually don’t have much of a problem with. I’m not the kind of person that needs reassurance every hour, I’m almost always occupied and need a lot of personal space myself, and he’s repeatedly stated outright that his tendency to disappear has nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. On the other hand, if he were to attempt to break up with me out of nowhere because he didn’t feel like he was good enough for me, I would believe him and let him walk because that shows that he doesn’t trust me and isn’t listening to how I really feel. I’m willing to do a lot for him, but he needs to trust me. If he’s not willing to take risks and try his best, even if he struggles a bit, then that means that he doesn’t trust that I accept him for who he is and that he’s attempting to talk over me. He needs to manage whatever negative narrative he has and trust me. While guys are usually on their best behavior early on, I’d like to think he’s on his worst behavior now because this is where his anxiety/depression/whatever is getting the better of him and the opportunity to build trust has not materialized as much yet. Now that we’ve met, will meet again, and he has that chance, will he learn to trust me or not?
-On that note, he has not had much recent success with women and is probably not used to being accepted for who he is. A lot of women that have similar issues that he does require a lot of reassurance and attention, and his issues with being self-contained immediately and sharply clash with that. He may have been conditioned to expect crazy after our first meeting didn’t quite go as I had hoped, and the fact that I didn’t start chasing him down for attention after that may be a foreign concept to him. He needs someone with a more secure attachment style, but a lot of more secure women may not understand whatever issues he’s dealing with and may not give a lot of grace.
– His conditioning could also explain the chat situation with my other friend – he may have had it in his head that he blew it and left because he was anticipating problems that were never going to materialize. Our communication level is back to normal, but I haven’t brought that up with him yet, and plan to soon to see how he responds. Would this show a propensity for self-sabatoging behavior, or is this the worst of it? We won’t know until we talk about it.
-He has a core friend group that he hangs out with regularly. Mostly at his band practice. He’s with them 2 or 3 times a week usually.
