NighttimeNightmare

Ok, that’s good awareness about yourself then. You could just see if he’s ok with using the voice chat for himself, while you text. If not, may be an opportunity for compromise

Yes, it’s weird to just continue to spend your time texting and texting and texting with no end in sight. At that point it’s basically just like having a pen pal. People are going to naturally want more, and hearing one another’s voice is more personal. I second what @rainbowsandroses asked: could this also be some sort of fear of intimacy? No judgement, I naturally feel more connected when I keep people at an arms length and when things become a little too intimate I feel like I need space. I wonder if one of your attractions to this situation is that he is at an arms length and up until now you’ve been able to comfortably hide behind a text message.

What’s going on with your issues surrounding being on the phone, and even listening to a voicemail do you want to talk about and explore this? (all in all I think your update is a nice example of how things can unfold naturally between two people, in time. A nice reminder not to assign “not interested” to things when they don’t unfold as we think they should or as quickly as we would like)

You’re on the crazy train and it’s time to get off People who are healthy will allow you the time you need to respond to their texts. They don’t say something and then tantrum and take it away because you didn’t meet their needs in time. essentially, he was only willing to claim he “loved you” if it meant you gave him immediate reassurance. When you didn’t do that, he took his “love” away and disposed of you as another poster said - this is all less about him and more about you: why are you on this crazy train?

Sooo she’s with another man, yet wrote to you in 2018 saying she still thinks of you. When you two were together, (circa 2013?), her parents tried to break you two apart and manipulated the relationship. 3 years prior to her writing to you, in 2015, she cut ties with her parents. thennnn you wrote back to her? When? In 2018? Or is all of this text a delayed response to something she sent you 6 years ago? You’re still processing your feelings from 6+ years ago? I don’t see a question here, just venting?

Read “leave a cheater, gain a life” if you actually want to be free of this nonsense. You have the power to wake up and end this, if you won’t, well.. you signed up for the train wreck.

This is an interesting topic. A few core things stand out to me and they are (1) the internet-based relationship, (2) your own personal feelings regarding attraction so (1) To be able to hold and maintain and internet-based relationship almost always seems to point to intimacy issues. It’s almost like these relationships are suspended in a type of avoidance and fantasy. The reality is, you don’t truly know this person. There’s so much you aren’t seeing, smelling, experiencing, etc with someone who lives miles and miles away, your brain is going to fill in the voids with positives. As real as it all feels to you, and as real as aspects of it may in fact be, it’s missing so so much. And often times people with intimacy issues, or those who are trying to figure out what intimacy is for them, will take solace in a “relationship” that’s kept at a distance (2) I’ve never heard of the term “queerplatonic” but looked it up and I actually have a friend who is in a relationship like this. She lives with a man she’s very close with but they don’t have romantic feelings, and don’t sleep together. But everything else about their setup is reminiscent of what you might see in a healthy partnership. with that said… you don’t have that with your long-distance friend. You don’t live together, you’re not building a life together, you’re not sharing space… this is text on the other side of a screen with someone who has been there for you at times, and it’s felt significant to you. Which is ok, but don’t make it out to be more than it is. If you haven’t had this type of emotional connection from any of your tangible-friends, it would make sense that this whole thing is such a big deal for you, it makes sense why this person is so important and you long for them Now for your use of the word “alterous attraction” — are you asexual or on that spectrum somewhere? I feel like many relationships of all sorts are missing the emotional depth that alterous attraction describes. For instance, many people have relationships based solely on sexual attraction, or aesthetic attraction, but it really has no substance beyond that. It sounds like you seek out the substance, the emotional closeness, which is a good thing to have as well. …but because you’re so ok with this intangible friendship … with someone who you seem to suggest doesn’t feel the same for you, it begs to question if other things are going on and you may hide behind these pop terminologies instead of addressing any deeper issues

Be careful not to blame everything that’s going on on your mental health. There are many concerning things in your post and you are going to train yourself to overlook them by believing “no one is mistreating me, these problems are caused by me and my mental health issues.” You can have mental health issues, and someone can be mistreating you. Just remember that given your vulnerabilities financially, mentally, and emotionally, the age gap is concerning.

Meh. What is there for her to step back from? she’s met someone she enjoys talking to and she doesn’t sound fantastical about thinking they’re going to get together or anything. Sounds like she’s just taking it as it all comes, and allowing what will be to be - including using this board as an aid to help refocus and learn healthier coping mechanisms. so on that note, good on you for identifying his behavior is likely just due to other external factors. Keep doing things for yourself and having an opened heart for whatever may come your way

My first inclination when reading your post was that you asked her to get drinks sometime, she said “ok! when??” and then you never said when but continued to send texts, presumably never mentioning this date she seemed so enthusiastic about. She likely thought you were just BSing her in the moment about a potential date, but want to sit there sending stupid texts back and forth. It’s probably she who was made to believe you weren’t interested. So she’s carrying on with her life.

Is it higher standards, or just different standards? Many couples don’t speak every day and it’s not because of low standards, it’s just a dynamic that works for them (not suggesting these 2 are a couple, just giving an example) I dunno, I’m not him and he’s not here to provide an answer for that. He prob didn’t apologize or explain because there was nothing for him to apologize or explain. He told her he’d be in touch about a date, and then he was in touch about a date. What is there to apologize for? if you need your potential partner to be in touch daily, or whatever, that’s ok too. I just wouldn’t call that a “higher standard.” In some cases it very well may be, though. Like in cases of partners being demonstrably reckless with their partners emotions and needs, but in this case? Naw.

It was said 3x. Twice before wiseman brought it up. I feel it just sort of shows we all can get caught up in our POVs, with good intentions, but miss the reality of what’s being relayed by the OPs. We end up giving advice based on a reality the OP isn’t actually experiencing. And if it’s that easy to miss things that were actually posted here and relayed to us, imagine the thousands of nuances going on in an OPs real life, that aren’t posted, that we will never have access to whilst attempting to give advice. But I’m sure you know this Ok fair enough. Back to the task at hand, I suppose

we can’t really say “this here is what a man does when he’s interested!,” when many would swap the word “interested” with “unstable” depending on their own unique experiences and complexity of the situation at hand. There are women out there whom this behavior would outright scare However, if it worked for you, cool, but it just goes to show that what works for some does not work for others.

Yes people did latch onto things. I just sat here and read pages and pages of it, accusing this guy of not being interested just because his behaviors don’t match what you would require before you “next” the person, is ridiculous. You can’t apply your “standards” to someone else’s life and men are not a monolith also, he did reach out, the next day, and told her he had a great time and would be in touch about a date, which is exactly what happened. And even if he never said that, we have no idea what was going through his head during the absence. I’ve seen message boards where woman talk about axing a dude because he became overly obsessive after being intimate. Maybe this guy didn’t want to come off like that? If, as they continue to know one another, she finds text lapses like that bother her, and they become a pattern with him, it’s on her to have that conversation when appropriate - expressing her needs and communicating this to him there’s a lot of things that are being subconsciously worked out when you first meet someone and pulling the trigger on something too early because they didn’t follow what Google said is potentially shooting yourself in the foot if you feel this methodology has worked for you, great. In fact, I’d expect it to appear to work: if we think something is bad, and we get rid of the bad, then we believe we’ve won. Regardless of if it was actually good for us. 🤷‍♂️ and ya, this guy could turn out to be a raging a**hole but it still wouldn’t mean that a 5day text lapse was prophetic

Why would I come here and call people losers? The ‘p’ is next to the ‘L’ on my keyboard and I accidentally typed “losters” instead of “posters” which then autocorrected to “losers.” You responded and bolded it before I had a chance to finalize my edit.

Exactly. This is what cracks me up about some of the posters here - they latch onto a sentence that someone relayed in a cliff-note version of their life and then assign all of this doomsday stuff to it. Like, we didn’t see the entire conversation, I can think of many benevolent reasons someone may have said “weekend” but the final plans turned to a weekday

I don’t disagree with your take on it but I think the responses here are more about putting the power back in her hands at the end of the day, sure it would be nice/respectful/kind/etc etc etc if he communicated where he went (if he did in fact “disappear”) but we live in a world where people are awful at that, or don’t feel it’s necessary due to the nature of the situation etc best she can do is to reevaluate how she’s interacting with the men in her life, the power is in her hands. She can be more direct, set better boundaries and a better pace for herself, etc. And take care shes not romanticizing a 3 week text streak with a strange man she slept with but I say all this while also holding the opinion that we all could do better in how we interact with one another and the ghosting culture is toxic. Both things are true.

How are you jumping to heartbreak here? He’s a stranger you’ve only just met and have seen 3x I’d keep it in perspective. Don’t get overly zealous about people straight away. It’s fine to acknowledge you’re really liking someone [so far] but it really takes years to truly get to know someone and understand their patterns right now, he’s just a stranger.

USA perspective: I’ve never heard that applied to to-the-home food delivery services. The 20% is when eating in at restaurants. When food is delivered I’ve always heard that drivers appreciate $1/mile one way. Counting from the restaurant to your home. So if your home is 7 miles from the restaurant, tip $7. if it’s 20 miles away, tip $20 In any event the tipping culture is out of hand, and I’m tired of paying wages for someone else’s employees because their employers don’t want to do it

Great update. I’m happy for you both

Do you realize how much sense this doesn’t make? YOU stopped convo with him, YOU did that. So how can you go on to say it isn’t a “good sign” you didn’t hear from him?? Can’t he say the same about not hearing from you? then to top it off you think “oh no, he’s ghosted me!” You’re the one who stopped seeking out convo with him what in the world. This line of reasoning drives me mad, yet it’s so common

The issue is that how people have relationships is “wrong.” Meaning, instead of actually relating to people in healthy autonomous ways, it seems to me that people use romantic relationships as a receptacle for their bs unhealed trauma. They imbue a lot of fantasy onto their partner as well, which causes grief, anxiety, and general unhappiness when the partner doesn’t live up to the fantasy. Then there’s the people who further burden their partners with being responsible for their well-being and happiness, which isn’t fair to put onto someone else. The list goes on. All of these are unmet needs that people seem to take no personal responsibility for and presume it’s the responsibility of other. They haven’t learned how to be alone. People who have found out how to be secure in their own solitude, happy with their own company, are less likely to approach relationships that way.. as if they’re a necessity. These people are more likely to only allow assets into their lives as they’ve figured out how to meet their own needs. so yes people with these traits are more likely to be happy single, if all relationships are offering them is an added burden. the majority of my friends are single, by choice, and they all share these similar traits: successful, driven, happy to be in their own company, mental-health minded, etc They’re not sitting around thinking about how they need someone to be whole, or to make them happy, or to feel a sense of fulfillment, they already have that through community and purpose. They’re not going to put up with a dysfunctional relationship, why trade a happy fulfilling life for some needy toxic bs?

👍 this is exactly how I do it as well. I don’t have intentions when I meet people, not romantic ones anyway. I just try to find authentic connection. The connection either turns romantic over time (naturally), stays platonic, or fades out I’ve had 3 long-term relationships that came about this way. In every instance the woman genuinely appreciated the authenticity there and liked the fact I was just present, human to human, I wasn’t being nice in hopes of “getting laid”

there’s many women who wouldn’t be impressed by your on-paper achievements, esp if you’re from a younger generation. Say, 35 and under. it’s different now. Women will happily date short men, be their own boss, never want to stay at home and pick up your socks or be your maid. they want chemistry, not outdated bragging rights. So if you struggle interpersonally and are relying on this list you provided us to score… that’s prob why. You’re throwing your list out there, like you did to us, saying “this should be enough.” Well, it’s not, and it’s not impressive to many people. Learn to connect with women using your personality, not achievements.

Perhaps not, but there’s one that’s arguably more moral than the other. Save for some situations where a person is in danger. not saying you were suggesting this at all but in a general sense I must say that I’m so tired of people thinking it’s ok or romantic to “get theirs” when it means pursuing someone else’s partner, actively destroying trust, lives, and families in the name of “I deserve this!” sometimes you have to put away your own “wants” and do what is right.