Just started taking, need help on how to CHILL out?

So I’ve always had issues with jumping WAY too fast into things. I’ve recently for the past year been trying to be okay with living alone and being single (I’m usually in relationships).

The guys that I usually attract are not “quality” people, so when I meet someone good my mind gets a little too far ahead of me.

I recently met a guy on fb, he is in the army and lives quite a ways away with a different time zone but he’s from my area originally. We talk everyday and flirt here and there and will FaceTime now and again. It’s honestly only been about 3 weeks but I’m getting a little bit too crazy when it comes to waiting for him to reply and reading too deep and analyzing everything he’s saying. He’ll say things that reassure me that like he likes me by the things he says like “when we meet” or “when I meet you we need to ___” things like that.

I’m just making myself crazy because I am very alone and trying to adjust to living as a single person in a healthy way but after months of going on awful dates and talking to guys that I have no interest in and having been recently freed from an abisive relationship I’m almost scared I’m going to “mess up” this good thing like it usually happens to me.

I need to chill but don’t know how to mentally not go crazy!

I think it would be a lot more helpful if you dated/pursued dating with men who were local and who you could meet ASAP in person if you didn't first meet them in person. You have no idea if this man is a man, is married, if he's actually in the army, etc. You're not alone just because you're single. How do you go about meeting people in real life -friends or dates?

I recently met a guy on fb, he is in the army and lives quite a ways away with a different time zone . It’s honestly only been about 3 weeks but I’m getting a little bit too crazy when it comes to waiting for him to reply and reading too deep and analyzing everything he’s saying.

I don't think this is going to work for you. It's long distance. It's only been 3 weeks and already you over analyse everything he says and "get a little too crazy" when he doesn't reply in time etc. This is going to be a nightmare for you and you're right, you need to chill.

Have you ever considered therapy as to get to the root of your issues with "jumping into things way too fast", to help you figure out where all this is coming from? I think you'll benefit from it and at the same time "learn how to chill and not go mentally crazy".

Yes, how do you know this person is a man, in the army, and available? When you cant actually meet and talk and get to know someone, it's impossible to know if they are telling you the truth. He could be a she, could be married or living with someone, could be in jail, you dont know. You'd be further ahead to get some therapy to find out why you react as you do and how to calm down. Dating someone in your area is a good idea too.

Why are you communicating with someone who lives so far? Waste of time.

Do you have friends and a social life? Why aren't you busy with activities?

You will not attract healthy until you make your life more full. You must stop being so dependent on men!

Get some therapy

To start with , realise that you do not know this guy and you have no idea if YOU will even like him on a face to face meet.

Why go cuckoo over someone you don’t even know if you will like.

He is in the army and has nothing to do with his free time except to flirt online , with I imagine not with just one person.

That’s assuming he’s smart enough to not put all his eggs in one basket.

I suggest you do the same. Why limit your options ?

And by limiting your options , you end up putting way too much pressure on that one option which will inadvertently only serve to lose that one option.

This guy owes you nothing.

Likewise you owe him nothing.

Chat away all you want but keep it light and stop looking for signs that he likes you.

So far he does , but so far he most likely likes others too.

Don’t cling on to what can only be empty promises at this point (to meet)

He has only intention to meet once he sets a date and time to meet.

At this point you don’t have that.

There’s a lot of Military dating scams so please be careful op!

A few points:

- There are a lot of military dating scams.

- You have not even met him yet - chemistry can only be validated in person. Most people who meet don't work out.

- This would be a long distance relationship. Most don't work out.

Your whole pen-pal relationship has red flags galore, sorry.

We have mutual friends and we FaceTime and talk on the phone so I do know that he is a person for sure and I’m confident he is where he says he is since he’ll snap pictures for me of what he’s doing here and there.

It’s not that I don’t have a social life and friends because I do but going to work and then coming home to an empty house is a little hard for me to adjust to and not all my friends are available all the time.

I did go to therapy for my abusive relationship but I stopped after I got away from him.

I recently finished most of my schooling so I’m not used to all this free time.

This guy just seems really great and respectful and everything I’ve been looking for.

He has said he wants to see if he can come visit next month to see me and attend my graduation if he can.

I think I’m just getting way too concerned with it “not working out” or “he’ll lose interest” somehow that I’m making myself crazy overthinking about it. I don’t come off this way to him at all as to not “scare” him away.

I get the feeling he does want a relationship with someone eventually since we have swapped stories of dates we’ve been on or people we’ve spoken to. He has said there’s been a few girls he’ll talk to for a few months but that it didn’t work out which of course made me freak out internally even more..

How do I stop this cycle of freaking out and overthinking when I find a potential relationship that I want to pursue?

Do you know the mutual friends in real life?

So I’ve always had issues with jumping WAY too fast into things.

The guys that I usually attract are not “quality” people, so when I meet someone good my mind gets a little too far ahead of me.

 

He has said there’s been a few girls he’ll talk to for a few months but that it didn’t work out which of course made me freak out internally even more..

All of this comes across as desperation. Desperation for a man, any man. A boyfriend. You need to figure out why so desperate. I can only reiterate my previous post: ... "Have you ever considered therapy as to get to the root of your issues with "jumping into things way too fast", to help you figure out where all this is coming from? I think you'll benefit from it and at the same time "learn how to chill and not go mentally crazy".

 

How do I stop this cycle of freaking out and overthinking when I find a potential relationship that I want to pursue?

First off, as others said, you have not met this man yet so right now you're in fantasy mode. How could you not be, you've not met him in person yet. And a fantasy can be very powerful, I know this from experience.

But try to keep it in perspective -- you have not met in person yet and have yet to feel that "energy" (or lack thereof).

Secondly, if, after you do meet, you wish to pursue a relationship with him (and him you), how I stop or control the anxiety and overthinking is knowing that no matter what happens I will be OKAY, and stronger for having experienced it!

This allows me (and him) to enjoy the relationship without the pressure of asking or even just wondering "where is it going," "what does it mean" etc etc. All that crazy over-thinking!

My advice would be to work on increasing your self-esteem. Once you do that, then it's easy to adopt the mindset that I have -- no matter what happens, whether it works out or not, I KNOW I will be OKAY.

Hurt? Yes most definitely! But I am strong and resilient and know it will eventually pass and I will be okay.

Ways to increase self-esteem. Do some volunteer work. Volunteering gets you out of "yourself" (self-centered) and more into helping "others" (other centered).

And knowing you're making a difference really builds you up too, increases self-esteem.

Take a class in something that interests you. This will switch your main focus from your relationship, to what you're learning. And you will have an opportunity to meet people too, make new friends.

Are there meet-up groups in your area? Not specifically to "date" someone, but to meet new people who share common interests. Great way to make new friends that way too.

There is more, but that's a good start.

I think it would be a lot more helpful if you dated/pursued dating with men who were local and who you could meet ASAP in person if you didn't first meet them in person. You have no idea if this man is a man, is married, if he's actually in the army, etc. You're not alone just because you're single. How do you go about meeting people in real life -friends or dates?

OP, if you're reading this...I think you should still pursue this guy (with obvious safety precautions, you can google online dating safety tips and find thousands of pages of advice on staying safe)

So I’ve always had issues with jumping WAY too fast into things. I’ve recently for the past year been trying to be okay with living alone and being single (I’m usually in relationships).

The guys that I usually attract are not “quality” people, so when I meet someone good my mind gets a little too far ahead of me.

 

I recently met a guy on fb, he is in the army and lives quite a ways away with a different time zone but he’s from my area originally. We talk everyday and flirt here and there and will FaceTime now and again. It’s honestly only been about 3 weeks but I’m getting a little bit too crazy when it comes to waiting for him to reply and reading too deep and analyzing everything he’s saying. He’ll say things that reassure me that like he likes me by the things he says like “when we meet” or “when I meet you we need to ___” things like that.

I’m just making myself crazy because I am very alone and trying to adjust to living as a single person in a healthy way but after months of going on awful dates and talking to guys that I have no interest in and having been recently freed from an abisive relationship I’m almost scared I’m going to “mess up” this good thing like it usually happens to me.

I need to chill but don’t know how to mentally not go crazy!

When I tell myself "if not him, then someone else" I'm basically telling myself that I'll find someone eventually even if this fails. It helps me remove myself, stick to my standards and expectations and desensitize myself a bit/separate myself from the huge cloud of lust/wonder/joy that happens when you meet someone new.

As for not dating quality guys I think that's a self esteem issue. You will find someone. You have nothing to worry about. If not him, someone else.

Instead of attaching yourself to them, see where they fit in YOUR life. If they make sense in your world. That's how you weed out the bad ones. Whenever I forget to do this I get douchebags that aren't housetrained

"I always tell myself "If not him, then that means it'll be someone else" you should enjoy meeting people and chatting. I was raised to "date to marry" so I definitely had my issues with this same thought process. "

I chose after a certain point to date only to marry. And I also had the attitude most of the time (we all have our weak moments!!) "if not him, then that means it will be someone else" -both can coexist beautifully. I remember telling my mom about an awful date (in the 1990s) and she smiled and said "well at least we know it probably can't be worse next time!" (and yes she believed in dating to marry too).

At this point you may know he is a real person vs a catfish/scammer. However what you don't know is if he is married, living with someone, has a gf or just killing time online.

I appreciate all the feedback! I was raised as well to “date to marry”. I can see the root is that I haven’t been treated so well in the past so any sign of attention from a “normal” and “respectful” guy I go nuts. We still talk everyday morning to night and FaceTime. I’ve gotten to a point where I was fine for a while now I am reading too far into the things he says. If theres no flirtatious comments or cute things said I assume he’s getting bored and this will be the end of it- so I can see how that’s a confidence thing for me!

And I’m over going on dates, I still get asked and “hit up” but I have this tunnel vision on with this guy unfortunately!

Again thank you so much for all this feedback. I wish I could just slow my roll and RELAX

OP, can you please explain how a military man serving in the armed forces has the time to talk everyday from morning to night, plus Face Time?

Something is not jiving, and I would be very very cautious.

In fact, if this were me, my spidey senses would be triggered big time and I'd be moving on and looking for local men to date. Sorry, to me he just does not sound legit.

Also, with on line, please be cautious of men who live long distance who contact you.

9 x out of 10, they're not looking for a real life relationship, if they were they would be contacting local women whom they can actually date and develop a relationship with, in real life not on line.

Who knows who the hell this guy is, but in event, be cautious and scale back your expectations, or better yet, don't have any until after you meet in person, if that even happens.

If you don't you risk gettng your heart ripped into itty bitty pieces, and tossed.

Your call.

You're going to do what you're doing to do, but I do hope you read katrina's post above more than once.

Frankly, my spidey sense is going off about both of you, since you're both opting, on some level, to become "romantic" with a person who exists only on a screen rather than in reality.

If that's a situation you can imagine leading to a wedding and marriage vows—well, have at it. To my mind it sounds like a pretty questionable means of coping with loneliness on both ends—one that, after just a few weeks, is already leading you to "freak out."

I suspect you have "tunnel vision" for this guy because he is not actually real, and somewhere in your core you know this. He is "safe," in that he won't "hurt" you as men have in the past, and yet the whole thing is already hurting you, so...

Of course it’s not constant 24/7 texting, sometimes an hour or so will go by before responses and during FaceTiming probably every other day I’ve seen the place and seen his roommates walk by things like that. The issue isn’t he who he says he is it’s really all me wanting this to work so bad and getting stressed out that he’s going to lose interest or that I’ll get even more emotionally invested than I already am.

I can feel myself getting my heart broken and nothing has even happened yet.

I have gone through this before when I lived out of state for school and started dating my ex while states away and meeting online. So I can’t shake the fact that “oh it happened before so it can happen again”

I have dated local people but I just can’t shake this infatuation. I should be cautious you’re totally right, but I’m a little too far gone emotionally with this.

Saying an hour delay between a text isn’t constant is naive. That IS constant texting.

I’m a little too far gone emotionally

I'm just going to isolate these seven words and say that, with all due respect, this is what I see has the issue here.

You are not in a healthy place to date and connect, and I'd look at the way you're feeling right now as your spirit begging you to get healthy.

No man should have this affect on you, not after a few weeks, let alone a man you don't really know and have never met.

It really doesn't matter who you are dating now. You say you've always been doing this. I used to do that too. It was one of the reasons I started therapy and I have progressed. I strongly recommend it.

In the end it's all about you. One tip I can give you off the top of my head, is whenever you catch yourself obsessing over him, get up and do something for you. Ideally,it would be something you love doing but it can also be something as simple as a chore.

Do you want to marry? Or are you avoiding men and marrying by getting involved in a cyber fantasy?

I was raised as well to “date to marry”.

And I’m over going on dates, I still get asked and “hit up” but I have this tunnel vision on with this guy