saren

I don’t know. That’s why I said it was like an addiction. I took some advice of the people above and went into debt today to book some therapy. (they advised therapy, not debt.) Hopefully, someone with different education than mine can crack this.

@Andrina You know, at the beginning of our conversation last week, I told him that very soon we’re not going to be able to sit alone in the car and talk like this all night long and be this close, that it wouldn’t be appropriate and I don’t want to be emotionally bonded to a married man. He told me that he doesn’t expect much to change save being less available. I told him everything is going to change. My intention is to transition to friendly and cordial, but that he is no longer my primary support person. @boltnrun Good catch. The money thing is a situational thing. I got rear ended on the highway early last month, so most of my resources right now are going towards the replacement of my car and the treatment of my injuries so I can continue to work. Was not expecting to cash flow an acute psychological event at the same time as well! 🙂 Definitely aware that it is needed and necessary though. Sometimes everything hits at once.

@Batya33 thank you for your reply. You’re spot on with your comments, and logically I know these things in my brain, but to quote that great old Jim Croce song, ‘that’s just not the way it feels’. And the disregulation I’ve been experiencing this week is no joke, let me tell you. I haven’t been able to take more than 2 meals since Sunday and have probably clocked 8 hours of sleep since Saturday night. I need to get a handle on this before I go back to work on Wednesday. I don’t actually expect him to have any great revelation from my words and leave her for me. He didn’t want me when he didn’t have her. I hated that. I hated that I couldn’t do anything about it. I just wanted to get it out before it got too weird from me bottling it up all week until I see him again. I haven’t actually heard from him since then, which is no surprise. I’ll just leave him be until it’s time for our regular meetup (he’s my ride, so, heh, we’ll see). I’ve been reeling from the blindside and the hard cold reality, so I figured I should work it out a little in a safe place like this rather than get all weird with my friend group. It’s like a withdrawal process. It’s not a good time but I hope there is light in the morning after that long night.

Oh my goodness, @Jaunty, has it been that long? I know that you’re totally right. I think most of this comes from attachment/abandonment wounds and CPTSD stuff. I can’t afford therapy right now, so I wonder what the best option is to start healing from that stuff. Because honestly, if one of my friends came to me with this story, I’d quote Dan Savage and tell her to “DTMFA!”

I have a pattern of limerance and have spent the last 10 years secretly in love with a friend. I am 39, he is 38. After we would visit in a group of friends one of us would give the other a ride home and talk until 3am. This pattern of bonding went on for … 13 years. He knows all my secrets and my considered him the closest person to me in my life. This week I learned he is getting married in 5 weeks (!!!) to a 23 year old. He dropped this on our friend group. We never knew he was even seeing anyone. We have all known him for 13-15 years or so. I was gutted. I discovered that this girl was the same person I heard him mention several years ago when they met at a function (she was a teenager). She’s now grown and they work in the same industry. I was gutted because I don’t feel like I even know who this man is anymore. It’s OK if you want privacy in your relationships but privacy and secrecy are different. Hiding the primary relationship in your life from your closest friends for 1.5 years to the point that we don’t even know she exists, is secrecy on the level of what adulterers and groomers do. I say groomer because I am not entirely convinced this didn’t happen. I also Learned this man had a Grade 12 girlfriend when he was 30. You think you know a guy…. There was also the matter of my feelings for this man. Since any hope that we would be together is now dashed, I took the opportunity to tell him that I always had feelings for him but never explicitly said anything because of crippling fear of rejection and a sense that he wasn’t interested. I asked him why he never considered or approached me - I’ve been here all this time. He said that he has different criteria for partners as for friends. Fair. I would say I have the same criteria for partners as for friends, with additional criteria added for partners. He said he wants someone he can “look down on” - then he corrected himself - he wants someone he can look after in a paternalistic way. In other (ie my) words, he wants that adulation and power imbalance of being an older man with a very sheltered young girl who looks up to him. He continued that when he looks at me, he sees us as equals, or even that I’m someone who has surpassed him. I’m a little older than him (he pointed this out), I’m well established in my career, I make more money than him and I have my own home/mortgage. He didn’t like some things about my personality: I have a “big” personality and talk a lot when we are with friends. He wants quiet and peaceful in the home. In private at home, I am an introvert, and crave peace, quiet, security and safety, and a safe partner I can trust. I didn’t think we were incompatible. I moved to where I live to be nearer to him, and our regular friend group and activities, and I chose this home with him in mind, should he choose me. It’s 5min from his work and has a nice space for a study for him. It made me so happy to do that for him. He was the first person to come see it when I bought it and was fixing it up. I worked hard to learn as much as I can to be a good all rounder: I am a good cook, I can hang drywall and install a floor and a toilet, I know how to make sacrifices. I adored him, and I worked hard to make myself strong in the areas where he is a little weaker, I imagined complimentarity, like a good dovetail joint in old carpentry. He says he’s a dreamer and wants to keep his inner child alive. He wants another dreamer, which is why I assume he likes them young, which gets concerning as he gets older (think Leonardo DiCaprio without all the money). This young girl is sheltered, lives with her parents and is very inexperienced in everything. He has no plans for how he intends to support a wife. His housing situation is unstable. He told me last year he can’t afford a cat. And I wanted to give him the world… He didn’t like that I am always talking about practical things. I feel like the safest place to be a dreamer and dream is within the safe walls and foundation that practical built. I feel like these things and the things I’ve achieved through the work and sacrifices I made are some of the things that would make me a great partner. I am steady and reliable and not a complete uggo, but I am no great beauty either. I’m pretty average in looks. We are fairly well matched in terms of physical attractiveness for people our age, and even the shallower physical attributes that I really like in men that he doesn’t have (height) are not deal breakers for me. That I have a big personality, can get loud when I get excited, am practically-minded, are things that I never expected to be deal breakers to someone else. But I am certainly not a wide-eyed innocent looking up to him to take care of me like a daddy. I am gutted that after all my best efforts to have something to bring to the table to him as a partner were rejected for a shiny young thing. I entertained a limerant fantasy of marrying this man for over 10 years, and am ashamed that I ever asked him such questions as “If I have to move _______, would you come with me?” And was met with evasion. He would evade, but was happy to string me along. There is no way he had no idea of my feelings. This union has resulted in a lot of pain. I’m in pain. The girl’s parents are against it and moved the family out of state in hopes she would forget about guy. She’s in pain because she is close with her family and hates that the conflict this has brought him. He thinks her parents have to get used to the fact that their kids have to leave the nest and start their own lives. HIS parents are fighting with HIM. I told him he doesn’t look like he’s very happy about this, he just said he wants to get past the wedding date and for this all to to be over. He feels like it’s them against the world and he has to get other people on his side. I’m not sure how I feel about trying to build one’s happiness on top of other people’s pain. I wonder if she’s pregnant or something… I just gave a bad feeling about all of this…. At this point, if they broke up and he showed up on my door step I don’t think I would want him because I wasn’t anywhere near his first choice. Help me get over this man, please!

I don't really know what to say.... I have a body type similar to "sketch 6" that was posted way back: I'm 5'5 and a size 8/10. I used to be smaller (between 3-5) and guys didn't pay attention to me even then, when my confidence was soaring. Why? I'm essentially invisible to guys. In fact, I sometimes forget my manners and just blatantly check them out at school because I assume they won't see me (you know... invisibility thing). I don't TELL guys I meet that I think I'm repulsive or invisible to guys, because that just smacks of low self esteem, but I just have come to the conclusion, as the theory seems to be holding true, and it's just been this thing I've been noticing over the past 4 years or so. I'm thinking I can start making a living photographing wildlife.

There's this guy at school I've noticed from one of my classes last January. He sat one row ahead, and one seat over from me. So basically, I saw HIM a lot (on our ways in and out of class and me staring at him from my seat behind him) and he didn't much see me. I noticed he was sitting with a girl whom he appeared (in my eyes) to be interested in. They were chatty, I saw them around campus together A LOT (anytime I saw him, she was there), and saw them hugging once, so I figured he MAY be interested in/ dating her or they may be old friends from another school or whatever. However, I backed off in case I was infringing on another lady's man. (That's not cool.) So anyway, we never get a chance to talk in class that semester because he's always with that girl. And then the day of the term exam comes, and everyone's cramming, and he's in this group of students stuck on some problem, which I remembered from high school and showed them how to do it, and he came up to me by himself after and thanked me for helping them. He seemed somewhat awkward, but very polite and I told him he was welcome and went to write my exam. Now I'm not in a class with him, but over the summer, he had been on my mind. I decided I would talk to him in the fall, if I saw him and had the chance. So in September, I dropped by my school on my way to work to drop off an assignment to the mathematics lab. It was stormy outside and I got caught in it without an umbrella, so I was a bit...erm, messy. My hair was frizzy and all over the place and my face was blotchy and red from being rained on and beaten with wind. And guess who's standing outside the Chem lab waiting for his section to start. I decide "Now's my chance!" and go talk to him, blotchy face and fried hair and all. See kids, this is why they always say to be on your best appearance at all times because you never know who you'll run into. He makes eye contact with me, and I smile and say hi, and walk over. And this is where it all went to hell. He just WOULDN'T keep the conversation going. I asked him how his summer was, and he replied, "Eh. It was summer. It came, it went". Yikes. Geez, boy! I worked in a bloody FISH PLANT to pay my tuition, so if I can come up with congenial summer-related dialogue for the sake of conversation, SO CAN YOU! LOL So I stuck to safer subjects: school! I asked him what classes he was taking and how calculus worked out for him, and we had a rather stifled talk about ... school. And then I aborted this botched job and went to work. And then I realized something embarrassingly painful. He doesn't know my name. That may be why he was appeared so awkward. I mean, I paid good attention to his body language (like the shrewd scientist I am! LOL!), and he was keeping unnervingly strong eye contact (enough to make me feel shy! He has very intense and beautiful eyes! and not inching his body away, but he wasn't gregarious, shall we say... But after that awkward social situation, I'd be darned if I'd go through another one of THOSE. Thing is, this past term, he had a class next to mine, the block before me. This means that we'd often pass in the halls. He'd spot me from a while back and make eye contact, and then I'd smile and say hi, and he'd do the same. Every time. It's weird. Even once when I saw him walking with a girl (different girl from earlier), he still spotted me and we did that greeting thing we do. And yet he would NEEEEVER talk to me. And this is the FUNNIEST YET! There's a lounge/study area outside the offices of the Math and Physical Sciences Department. I was waiting for one of my profs I was supposed to meet with who was about twenty minutes late. I was becoming impatient and sitting on a couch by the door so that this prof couldn't arrive without my noticing. I kept checking the clock. And again. And then again. And guess who I noticed sitting at the worktable under that clock? I made a point not to look directly at him because I didn't want to seem creepy but I did notice in my periphery that every time I turned and looked at the clock, he'd look up from his work and look at ME. AND HE STILL WON'T TALK TO ME. This is getting rediculous. I find this guy pretty attractive, and I know he's smart as a whip, and he seems very polite and an all-round good person from what I can gather. I'd really like a chance to talk to him in a context that wouldn't make him so apparently uneasy. I'm hoping I'll be in a class or a lab with him next term (which would solve that problem if I sit near him!), but odds are I won't be. How would I ever get a chance to talk to him in a non-threatening or weird context? Now that we're no longer classmates, I don't have too many reasons to walk up to this stranger and just start talking to him, especially if it makes him feel uncomfortable... At the same time, I don't know the deal. Either he thinks I'm cute, and is too shy to do anything about it, or he's creeped out by this girl that's apparently ALWAYS THERE and APPEARS AS IF SHE KNOWS WHO HE IS. ... which I really don't. ;-)

OMG that's the best story EVER!

I typically find myself attracted to tall, slender guys. I myself am a shorter, curvy (I hate to admit it, but stocky) girl. But you know what? I fell in love with a guy who was short and stocky, and kind of chubby. I never would have anticipated that. I fell for him because of his personality (or what he presented to ME as his personality) and he seemed so well-educated. BUT... At the end of the day, he didn't want me because I wasn't a skinny blonde girl. So yeah. I think guys are more about the looks than the girls are.

I've felt like that before. It's weird how fragile your happiness is, isn't it? When it happened to me, I sat around and moped until it went away, though I'm sure it would be healthier for you to go out with your friends and do something fun (or silly, like bowling) and try to get away from it all, if even for a while.

I wouldn't feel uncomfortable. I'd relish the opportunity.

I don't quite agree. I'm a girl, and I don't quite consider myself attractive. I think my chest is a little small and my belly's a little big (wouldn't be too bad if everything was proportional instead of trying to cancel all the other curves out), and I NEVER GET ASKED OUT ON DATES. Maybe once a year or so? And usually by guys who are either addicted to drugs or think I'm an easy mark for sex, so I won't have anything to do with them. Despite all this, I think I'm a good person. I'm apparently very chatty, friendly and generally well-liked. And I'n constantly and consistantly put in the friendzone by even the plain looking guys. I think men are shallower than you'd like to admit. I think it's an ago-boost for them. It makes me very sad...

I agree with DiggityDogg - I've been in the situation where I waited 2 whole years to spill my feelings and it didn't work to my advantage, let's just say. You have nothing to lose NOW that you might not lose (and then some) a year down the road.

Wow, that's great! TBH, I was leaning towards "he won't call back" -- I had it happen to be with a drunk, cute guy in a pub. I wasn't devastated, because I realised he was drinking, and drinking people sometimes are silly. Best of luck!

How about the other way around? Is it ok for a girl to ask a GUY and be blunt like that?