Jibralta

Where are your children?

I remember your situation from previous posts. I don't relate to your experience because mine has been totally different. But I can empathize with you. I think you're doing really well. It may not seem that way to you, but you are 25. I am 46. I know better. You're just going to have to tough it out for a while.

Yes! I just find that very bizarre. I think that people have started to believe that blabber equates to action. Or that voicing their opinion is actual Dialog.

I like that. I'm sure your good friends are happy to oblige. The concern here is that this handsome guy has an agenda. He may pretend to care while he's pursuing his actual goal. The "autism talking" that you and your true friends value may be ground into the dust under his heel.

Don't forget that billons of people cope with pain and loss every day, without relying on addiction. This capability is within your power, too.

I was just looking at that thread on here where the woman's husband is embarrassed that she posts about social issues on social media. It's thought provoking. I mean, I've been thinking about this issue for years now. The Great Opinion Explosion is not just a social media phenomenon; it's rooted in the manufactured consent of the mass media machine and the internet at large. I'm hoping Noam Chomsky has all of this covered because it's important. And I haven't ever really sat down with a piece of paper and a pen to examine the issue from its multiple angles. I mean, who has time for that anymore? I'm too busy zoning out in front of the internet, getting fired up by people's stupid opinions lol. Every time I start to think of today's state of affairs, I remember a post-it pad that someone got for me when I was a kid of about 10 years old. I still have it! It's one of my favorite post-it pads to this day, and I'll probably never use all of the paper. The pad is a dusky green color and has a drawing of a frumpy, grumpy cat on it. It says, "Everyone's entitled to my opinion." It looked a lot like this, actually. Just a different background color and different text style: It's a play on the saying, "I'm entitled to my own opinion," which is what you say (sometimes just to yourself) when you quietly back out of an argument. My 10-year old self thought "everyone's entitled to my opinion" was such an awesomely funny absurdity. Little did I know that many years later, this 'absurdity' would no longer be an absurdity but a reality! The concept of having one's own opinion, and the quiet art of disagreement, seem to have been lost to humankind. Does anyone even remember the original saying anymore? A pity, there's no great social value in opinions. They're opinions. A possible starting point for critical thinking, but not a guarantee of critical thinking. And certainly not evidence of critical thinking. This brings to mind another truism, "Opinions are like asshles: Everyone has one." Or better yet, my own personal version of that saying: "Opinions are like asshles. And you are one." 😂

Never. There are plenty of good guys out there. But if you don't believe that, you'll never know a good guy when you see him. You'll just assume he's bad. What an unfortunate position to be in!

If the antibiotics are making it feel better, it might be an abscess. I had one about 8 years ago. It sucked. Very painful. But antibiotics made it better. It hasn't come back since then.

That's fine. But since you both know (and have always known) that she definitely wants a child, you should establish exactly when that time will be. There is a time window of practicality for parenthood. Even if you guys make the decision to adopt, you're not going to have the same energy level at 40 or 50 than you do in your 30s. Her being certain that she wants a child and you feeling "nothing against it" basically means you guys ARE committed to having a child. Unless you come clean and admit you truly don't want a child.

True sobriety is coping with the things that you can't change without turning to alcohol or drugs. You need to come to terms with the fact that she is gone forever, and that she is not a reward for your abstinence from drugs and alcohol. You can't earn back the things that were destroyed by how you behaved in the past. The longer you wait to realize this, the more you deny it and repeat the addictive behavior, the more wreckage will pile up. Whenever you take a break from intoxication, you will have more to regret. That's why now is the best time to break free and move forward. The best you can do now is let go of the past, chalk it all up to a learning experience, stop further destruction by becoming truly sober (not expecting damage to heal because you haven't gotten intoxicated), and build a new life of positivity for yourself without running to drugs, alcohol, and/or other destructive behaviors.

I agree. At least you feel more relaxed about the whole thing.

Only if you choose these types of people as friends. You do have the choice to find new friends, you know.

I think you're focusing on the wrong thing.

Great point. And it's been happening for thousands of years. Society forgets a lot.

I hope that you can find a way to do that. I think it will help. I am lucky that I never felt nostalgia for her... maybe that was because we never really connected on an important level. I felt confusion and pain, but those feelings fade to nothing. Nostalgia is tricky.

I've had one situation where I literally had to break up with a friend. Her name was Kasey. This was back in my early 20s, when I would go out pretty much every night. When we met, I was 21 and she was 24. In my young eyes, she was a full fledged adult with an actual career. I know now (and I think I even knew back then) that Kasey was more of a partner in crime than a good friend. But she went through a lot of the "good friend" motions. You would think we'd known each other for years with the way she had framed pictures of us up in her apartment. She introduced me to her family and friends, and included me in get togethers and outings. She even visited me when I was away at college. Oh, and she was nonjudgmental, a trait which I really value. On the surface, she acted very warmly towards me. I liked Kasey and I enjoyed hanging out with her. But there were a lot of things that I found inconvenient about her. For example, she drank A LOT. There were three or four occasions where she got totally shtfaced and collapsed to the floor of the bar hysterically crying. I'd never seen anything like that. I ended up dragging her to her feet and out of the bar. She also had an exhausting need for attention and her relationship priorities were whacked. She a talent for convincing herself that a very Bad Idea was actually a Good Idea. I did at first try to appeal to her better judgment when I saw this happening, but I gave up once I realized that she wasn't interested in being realistic. Other than the fact that we both enjoyed going out, we didn't share much in common. The 'break' happened when she walked out of a bar, leaving me there talking to some random dude. Where I come from--and where she comes from too--you don't leave your girlfriends behind like that. We're very serious about having each other's backs. It also seemed like she left me there as an attempt to exclude me from the other people we were out with, who I didn't really know. It was hurtful. I didn't return her calls for a few days. Unsurprisingly, she sent me an email almost immediately. She was on the offensive. She said that she felt like something was wrong. She had no idea what it could be. But, she said, everyone, including her, felt like I was "off" that night. I don't know how she thought this conversation would go. But I don't think it went the way she thought it would. I still have, in my old hotmail account, the email I sent to her in response--this was in September 2000, almost 23 years ago: I think it's funny that I used a dating analogy. I really had my sht together with dating lol. Anyway, I'm sure Kasey wrote me back some self-righteous guilt-trip nonsense, but that email has since disappeared. Too bad. It would be fun to read now, 20+ years later. The really funny thing is that I accidentally dialed her number not long after the email exchange. I hung up the second I realized what I'd done--the phone barely rang. But it registered on her caller ID and she called me back later that night! I was sleeping. I think she'd been out. I explained that I dialed her number by mistake. She asked, "Is there anything you want to talk about?" I said, "No," and we hung up. That was a little bit sad. I think that was the last time we ever spoke. And we somehow managed to never cross paths after that. I think it was an uncomfortable, awkward feeling for a while. But in my mind, it was better to feel weird for a while than have a crap friend who I can't trust. Other than her, I don't think any of my relationships have ended in a falling out or an argument. It's mainly been one of us outgrowing the other, or our respective "friendship needs" changing. I don't have a lot of friendship requirements. I don't need to talk a lot or see people a lot. But I do want the people in my life to be nice, be fair, be a friend. I think Kasey is actually the only person I've lost touch with who I would not welcome back into my life.

Let it go. People lie to avoid hurting other people's feelings. You don't own her; she doesn't owe you anything. Clinging to feelings of bitterness and resentfulness is unattractive.

I think the fact that you still feel this way after being triggered speaks volumes. You've really come a long way in your healing. I'm sorry that you experienced a bit of a setback. But it seems to me that you're doing really well, overall.

Understandable. But it's time to stop investing in him. You misjudged him. You made a mistake. Nothing to beat yourself up over. Chalk this up to a learning experience and keep on moving. Next time, you'll do better.

Agreed. Very early on, she said: Instead of actually listening to her and believing that she was telling you the truth, you decided that she simply didn't know her own mind and her own heart. You knew it better, and you were going to show her how she really felt by treating her like a Queen. I guess you thought a girl's own thoughts and feelings can (and perhaps should) be reversed or erased when she is treated like a Queen. But that's probably because you are someone who is bowled over by kind gestures (like her making you breakfast and being extra cuddly, etc). Not a bad trait, but not everyone is like you. And that doesn't make them bad people. I think it's fair to say that when you are treated like a Queen, you are lulled into changing your mind. She is not the same way. She was lulled into sleeping with you some more, but she did not change her mind about wanting to be with you. I also want to add that I really dislike the sentiment you expressed in this quote above--"way too good." I guess girls you view as 'FWB' don't deserve the same treatment as girls you date? Or as girls you marry? Maybe she sensed this latent sentiment on you and found it off-putting. I would have. You wanted something serious and you settled for something less than that. You thought that she would settle, too. But she didn't. She gave you fair warning. Liberally. And she took you at face value when you indicated that you were ok with FWB. In that way, think she actually showed you more respect than you showed her. Fake and dishonest about what? Why be upset that she's on a dating site? She never said she was looking to be single. She said she wasn't looking for anything serious. You kept giving her serious. The girl is allowed to look for what she wants. I get that you are frustrated because things didn't turn out the way that you wanted them to turn out. But you have to acknowledge that all signs pointed to this from the very beginning. I think it's yourself that you should be annoyed with, not the girl. She is not responsible for giving you what you want. You are.

I had a roommate in college who was quite a character. She didn't know it, though. She thought she was normal. But I thought she was a very amusing combination of naïve and bitter. Her name was Lara. The second year we lived together, we rented off campus in a house that had been partitioned into three or four apartments. Our apartment consisted of two long rooms. The room you walked into was the kitchen and living area. The next room was the bedroom. The bathroom opened off of the bedroom. It was plenty of space, just an odd layout. On move-in day, Lara got to the apartment before me and claimed the best bed and the best closet. I thought that was pretty rotten. I found the damned place for both of us. I set the whole thing up. It would have been nice if she'd at least given me a choice of one or the other. But she took both! Hilarious. I didn't make a big deal about it because we had the whole year in front of us. And I'd sort of expected her to pull a move like that anyway. I'd already known her for two years. I knew what she was like. The bed sucked for two reasons: 1) I wanted to be near the window and I wasn't, and 2) the mattress and bedframe were completely shot. The thing sagged. The closet she left me with was very deep and about 5 feet wide. There was a rod in the back where I could hang my clothes. It was simultaneously too much space and not enough space. I called the landlord and asked for a new bed. I also asked him to pay for materials so that I could build some shelves in my closet. He complied. They gave me a bedframe made out of plywood. That thing was solid. Then I built a set of shelves in my closet. They turned out really nice and made my closet awesome. My setup ended up being nicer than Lara's. Even the position of my bed turned out to be more advantageous. Lara was jealous. She actually said it wasn't fair. I just laughed to myself

There's no reason to be upset about treating another person well. Unless you were only doing it because you expected something in return and did not get it.

We were just talking about this at work last week. A couple of my coworkers used it to generate quick designs. It saves a lot of time.