junebug123

I’ve been in a similar situation. One of my parents has narcissistic personality disorder. The truth is she can’t really help herself it’s just childhood trauma and she’s been to therapy for years at this point. Ive always felt like moving out would just be abandoning her. In my younger years I would get very caught up and felt like she had a lot of power over me. Now as an adult and her starting to be older and more vulnerable I realized that it was me all along was allowing her to get inside my head. Thats her default mode, when you recognize this, you can detach yourself from persons behavior. You’ll probably eventually bump into another narc in your life, so better to conquer this one now, and leave on good terms rather then running away when your not financially ready to.

Thanks helps to hear this. My sister just showing me all the pictures of my cousins with their wives and children. Many of them had a family member die or had parent sell a house and we able to use the money to buy their own house. Also, got started much later in my career then most people because wasn’t eligible for loans (college) until I hit 24 since both my parents earned enough and couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket. And really struggled to land my first job since I wanted to do game development and just poured years into teaching myself that before just getting into web programming. All in all it worked out for the best and I’m one of the few people in my family to work in this industry. Just sometimes it’s hard when I feel like I missed out on so much in my youth. Anyways, I’ll keep working on it. Post: When I say sold a house meaning houses they bought (sometimes 3 or 4 family members working in unison) in the 80’s in Brooklyn and sold for 4x or 5x the value in 2000’s, etc.

I feel like this post summarizes the entire thread extremely well. In fact I really couldn’t have put it better myself if I tried. One thing to note is how harshly you judge someone who isn’t doing as well as you in terms of their health or social situations (dating, lying). Everybody has their own struggles in life. Sometimes we need to be humble ourselves and accept people for who they are. Understand that everyone is trying their very best in spite of all their flaws. When you learn to forgive people and allow them into your life willing and openly, you will find that you will be much more fulfilled in your own life. The the way we feel about others is sometimes a reflection of how we feel about ourself. Take a moment and think about ten things you love about yourself everyday. In time you will learn to appreciate and love the people closest to you.

I recently moved to Staten Island with my family. Today, I was talking to my sister at her daughters softball game. We were sort of talking about how many people from our family traveled back to our home country which is a 3rd world country to meet many of their wives. I often wondered how so many of the men in our family who had average blue color jobs, could get with such beauty women. I’m not trying to be disrespectful when I say this either, but I’m just saying like truck driver, fedex delivery, forklift driver etc. It all makes sense now. And then my sister was trying to belabor me with how sometimes it’s difficult marrying these women; who often want you to support their families back home and complain a lot when your not spending money on them. Im sure the guys complain but at the end of the day many of them are happy with kids and a stable family. I’m sure they would quickly trade their fortunes alone for companionship and loyalty. All of this talk just made me want to work harder and get a better paying job. I thought this would make me happy when I went from my bike courier job to my first developer job. Then I worked even harder to get my next job. Although I feel the same every time. Like it’s never enough money and each time I earn more the expectations and pressure are much higher. How do I break out of this endless cycle of always feeling like it’s never enough and feel content with myself regardless of how others perceive me. I just want to be happy regardless of how much money I make, but I keep going back to feeling unlovable. Ultimately I feel like chasing money will solve my problems but then I just feel even emptier inside when I realize that it doesn’t. At times I feel pathetic just posting on this forum. But I feel like I have no place else to turn to and I haven’t started therapy yet.

You know I wouldn’t be surprised if your past relationships have been like this. You need to set boundaries with people. Its like how some people always complain that their boss takes advantage of them at work. Well, that’s probably every single job for “those” people. Once you learn to set terms and are willing to walk away from the relationship when terms are violated, then you will see a shift in the power dynamic. Unfortunately, I think this one is already ruined spoiled. She let the last guy move in immediately and she’s keeping you at arms bay. Either she’s not over her ex or your just a rebound until something better comes along. If she doesn’t respect you, she will never want to be in a relationship with you.

It’s hard to tell the true intention of his reason for not purchasing the tickets. So what they spiked, by how much 100-200 dollars? It seems like a lame reason for blowing off the date. Then you went ahead and just bought them yourself, how expensive could they have been? It seems like he wasn’t being honest and could have either just changed his mind at the last second or decided to take someone else. If anything his reaction to you saying you purchased the tickets seems off. He should have been relieved not surprised. I don’t think he expected you to do that and now is at loss for how to respond. If it were me, I would reach out one more time before just reselling it, hoping it wasn’t a mistake. Only then will you know the real reason.

Not sure if anyone gets a kick out of hurting someone they spent so much time with. If anything it was probably difficult and awkward on his part. Im sure some employers get off on firing people, but it’s not the norm. Also, the over importance on exclusivity. It’s not like you guys were married and thankfully so because it doesn’t seem like he was happy with the arrangement. If anything this should be a blessing, look at it as him giving you the space to find someone who deserves you rather then it being a betrayal. In truth, we only really betray ourselves, everyone is just doing their best to survive. When you can learn to forgive yourself, then maybe you can move on. I understand the feeling, you didn’t trust your gut and when you confronted him, rather then being honest he just gaslite you. It sucks, I’ve been there.

Not even sure why you brought up his living arrangement. Or why you guys were living apart if you really wanted to be with this person. Seems like he just met someone closer to him that was making him feel good and motivated him to become a better person. Rather then being bitter or judging her, you should just be happy that they found each other and look to move on. I feel like you really overvalued yourself in the relationship and didn’t understand this the first time he decided to leave. If people break up it’s often for a reason and it seems like getting back together didn’t resolve the conflict he had with you. Women often over estimate their looks in a relationship, and while this does matter to men especially in the beginning. But would easily find themselves being with someone less attractive and lower maintenance (i.e. amber heard, jada Smith). If you look at some celebs that dated much older women. Aston Kutcher, Keanu Reaves you will notice that not all men follow the stereotypes...

Fair enough. I have my own standards, not going to waste time chatting someone up who won’t give me their number, regardless if their past experiences. I probably just got a little too hung up on the experience because I drank too much too fast. But I’m sobering up now. Fyi: your right about that guy. I’m totally on the same wavelength as him. Ugh, if only I could meet a women like that, then we would be kindred spirits.

It’s hard to tell really. There are women who are also eager to seek male advances and are put off by men who aren’t sure about what they want. Im not sure if there’s a rule that says, you shouldn’t try to kiss or hug or invite a women into bed by x time. Granted my timeline is probably faster then most, but this is a style that has been curated over the years. Your response almost reads like women are these creatures who don’t have desires and aren’t interested in sexual encounters with me. Generally, that’s not the case at all, it’s more just that your not the men she wants to pursue that interaction with. And she’s willing to keep you around when the other options don’t pan out. Ive been on both sides of dating experience before.

No, your not rambling. Let me be more detailed. If a women would allow me to sleep with them, with little to no expensive to myself. Then maybe she would be worried about her wasting time, without knowing if it would lead anywhere. This is sort of how a man feels, when he’s courting someone. Like I understand what you mean when you say, the women’s time is valuable as well. But it’s the perception on how the time is being spent which makes all the difference. I feel like there’s a big disconnect when I mention this, and maybe it’s not being communicated properly. An employer doesn’t feel like there wasting there money when the employee is producing value greeting then the cost of the labor. I don’t feel like there’s much of an argument there at all. Sorry, if this comes across as autistic, I struggled to find the PC wording here. As for waiting around, I feel like I spent the past 4 years of my life working on myself and now I’m 36 and sort of realizing that spending this much time outside of the dating market has made me really stale. I regularly work out and feel like I put more effort into dates now then before I stopped dating. But, the frequency of women that I’m meeting and my ability to forget about the bad dates is what’s holding me back. If anything I think I’m too reserved, and have a scarcity mindset. I probably need to just keep putting myself out there more and more. It’s just expensive and time consuming. I never worried about these things when I was younger and had a more carefree attitude. I was probably just as neurotic back then as well, but it always felt worth it to me. I feel like it just isn’t worth it anymore. Maybe I’m becoming jaded. Alright, I think I sorted it out after this final post. Thanks for listening to my rants. I just need to go to therapy. I keep thinking I can do it on my own and then find myself feeling destroyed after getting rejected by some random at the bar...

Not sure what you mean when you say here, meaning like the forum itself? I don’t look at it as a quick fix, most of my relationships were the result of sleeping with someone relatively quickly and then turning that into a casual relationship and then sometimes it would be more meaningful. Meaning I wasn’t always picky about who I slept with, and even less picky about who I dated for an extended period of time. Of course there were women who never made it out of the casual aspect of the relationship and I never felt guilty about that. As for the more money aspect. Meaning that money could improve my status and therefore my accessibility to more beautiful and younger women. Nicer car, bigger house, nicer dates, etc. etc. Its never about the money and more about the perception, of course when your living in a big city it feels like even being 75+ percentile of men is meaningless. Maybe, I’m looking in all the wrong places. I understand what you mean about quick fix. I think maybe your right, women sense the desperation and rightly so. Maybe I’m the one chasing them away. I just don’t know the difference between those who are wasting my time and those who are interested anymore. I feel like the only way to tell the difference anymore is by trying to engage in intimacy because it feels like I’m in this perpetual cycle of giving attention and resources and receiving little in return. I’m not saying that there aren’t women who feel like they aren’t experiencing the same and in part men like me probably participate in this. Alright, well this is going nowhere fast. Your right, I should avoid the bars.

I guess I was filtering the experience through the lens of my time wouldn’t have been wasted if I had been chatting up a more attractive women and failed. Almost applying and interviewing for a position at McDonalds and getting turned down when you could have used that time for doing something similar at positions which paid 3x or 4x as much. I know this sounds egotistical. Recently I’ve been getting a little more picky because ever once in a while I’ll treat myself to a massage or go to a strip club and have women half the age, double the beauty treating me like a king. Now I’m not a stupid guy, I understand that I’m “paying for these services”. Im just saying when I was younger I would get that treatment more often, and if I would travel to poorer countries it would be similar. I guess I understand what women mean, when they say there are no more good men out there. I’m kept telling myself that if I just made more money my problems would change. But I have friends that are less successful then me, who have better social skills and put more effort into meeting women. Seeing a lot more success regularly then myself. I don’t believe in chasing women per say, but I think I’m starting to go crazy at this point. I feel like a fat person running a treadmill looking at the scale constantly and ready to break it if it doesn’t start to show me some smaller numbers.

It sounds to me like your a friendship of convenience. When she’s bored and doesn’t have a lot else going on, she will seek you out. However, your just a backup plan whose good for ego boosting and attention when other resources dry up. Imagine being in a relationship with a person like this. Chances are this is just who is she. If you aren’t ready to accept that, then move on.

Okay, I’ll admit this is kind of a rant, I’m just curious have other people been in the same boat and what have you done to get yourself out of it. I decided on a whim to go to a bar tonight. I rarely drink but one thing that I know was that I was willing to accept whatever was going to happen tonight and I took the train to this metal bar which I’ve had fun at in the past. Theres some people next to me but I don’t really notice them and sit down and order a drink. After a few moments I start chatting up the girl next to me. Now, here’s the kicker. I wasn’t really attracted to her, but I was willing to shoot my shot for a chance to get laid. Also, it’s been a while. I know this sounds scummy. Low and behold she entertains me, I even buy her a drink and after some flirting she seems like she’s into me. This is probably the third person I’ve done this with in the past year. Probably every post on this site is me shooting down to get laid. Okay, I know this sounds pathetic. What is a guy to do? I spent probably 2 and a half hours talking to her before she refuses to give me her number and says she only does instagram. The only thing that I’m thinking at this point is I would have rather wasted my time talking to someone that I was interested in, but didn’t want to walk away from something I felt like was a sure thing. I feel like I wasted the night. How do I break this cycle. Have you done this in the past, thankfully I haven’t wasted years of my life.

She asked me this question of where I saw myself in 5 years. I’m currently working as a developer and I had told her before that I wanted to start my own video game company. We had talked about this before. She goes on, what’s going to set your game apart from other games. I simply replied just based on my creative nature, art style and programming ability. Basically, it was a bunch of leading questions that the interviewer isn’t satisfied with anything you say. That was an small example of how the night was going. To be honest I think she’s just a very insecure women. I think she had already made up her mind about me the moment I told her the area I was living in. On a previous date she asked me how much other people in my area pay for rent. I told her somewhere between 1350-1500 a month. And even thou we talked a little after that through text, she basically pulled away from me. Never giving me her schedule or reaching out to establish plans. It’s fine, I’m sort of over it already and know the real reason. I think she was just having second thoughts about her decision and wanted to prove to herself that, that wasn’t the real reason she didn’t want to date me. But, it’s very difficult to get someone upset who is generally interested and a good person. So it was really her who looked like a fool throughout the night. I’m not even sure if she realized what she was doing but it was obvious to me.

Now that I think about it. This was the dynamic since the very first date. I think we both saw these traits in the other but choose to ignore them because there was physical attraction. I think I just needed to be with someone who was less logical and combative. She responded immediately and I realize she wasn’t trying to attack me at all. I think she was generally trying to get to know me better but in a way that was sort of like personal and invasive. I ended it shortly after and I think we both feel the same, like in terms of job status and looks we are on the same page. But in terms of core values and personality it’s like constant ego battles and debates.

We texted a lot yesterday. It felt like close to two and a half hours. In fact everything was going to smoothly that I got her to come out with me again that same night. We went out to this pool house. Sort of smoked a joint and drank a little before we went in, I think she’s sort of a party girl and drugs and alcohol are a theme in our dates. I sort of just go with it because I partially just want to make her feel at ease but I also rarely engage in those activities and it’s nice to do that once in a while. She was being her usual self, slightly distant in the beginning of the date and then usually warming up to me towards the end. This time thou, she was just being combative and hyper focusing on any little negative thing I said. I couldn’t tell if she was really stressed from work and letting it carry on into the date but it was really really hard to deal with. She would just use any thing I said as an excuse to attack me and later play it off like it was a game. I felt like she was just testing me to get a rise out of me and I wasn’t really reacting in a way she thought I would. I guess I can be extremely reserved at times and repressed with my emotions. Anyways, that just seemed to add fuel to the fire because it was just getting exhausting having this game go on where she was just on offensive for the entire night, letting up every now and then to allow things to blow over before finding a future topic to go on offensive about. Things really got crazy when she asked me about some negative traits my ex would say about me. And hook line and sinker I just said the most negative things I could about myself. I’m not sure if I did that subconsciously because I was getting so annoyed at her behavior of if I was really being genuine. But I should have known what was going to happen next based on what happened the first 5 times of the night. I think she had 2 joints and 4 drinks by the end of the night and I had a drink less then her. Definitely I felt like she was trying to waste my time and put me off and waste my money all at the same time. I felt like if she didn’t like me, she could have just not went out with me. I had probably spent about 300 dollars on dates with her by this point and I made her pick up the check at the taco place to which she was annoyed at. I was planning to do that anyways but it was getting to the point where I was confused as to why I was wasting money trying to date someone this insane at that point. Im still confused as to whether or not this person is actually crazy or that they were just not interested in me and trying to sabotage the date and this was a round about way of doing this. But either way, I sent her an extremely long text message this morning about how her behavior was received and I’m just trying to cut my losses at this point. I probably should have just ghosted her at this point and maybe this is why she’s still single. I feel sad that things didn’t work out but maybe the signs were there all along and I kept ignoring them.

We ended up texting a lot after I reached out and I think we came to a resolution. I think we are both just feeling insecure and afraid of getting hurt. i think she was just looking to me to assure her. I still don’t know if she’s manipulating me but I can’t really control that. I think the more I like someone the more guarded and insecure I become. I just need to relax. Ugh that was really emotionally exhausting for me. I’m going to think about what you guys wrote here and use that for future perspective for this situation and others.

This is really annoying. I think she was just getting pissed at me for not texting her sooner and checking in with her. And then she was telling me that since I kept saying I’m just introverted instead of understanding what she was saying she was getting frustrated. Im really upset right now. I hate being in these situations. I’m like crying now. I feel like I either push people away or scared to let them in and just lonely always. Literally can’t tell when people are lying to me or not, it’s hard to know when someone’s is manipulating you. How are other people reading this, am I the *** or is she being distant, why isn’t the onus on me to reach out. WTH?

She just texted me I think we may be looking for different things. I think she was just looking for a way out. Well, I’m glad I reached out. Now I just just move forward. I felt like something was off and she didn’t want to own up to it. Im not sure if it was my communication style or if she met someone else. Either way this was annoying but maybe better sooner then later.

She replied. I think there was confusion about who was suppose to text who. Maybe we are both acting like children I guess... Im not sure if I’m in my head but I’m pretty sure I asked her to let me know her schedule. Then she replied we can take bikes out, then I gave her a thumbs up. Then she never let me know a day. And now I reached out to her, she finally says, “you have texted me ...” Almost like she’s gas lighting me. Anyways, you guys are right I just need to be myself and stop worrying.

I just broke the silence. Anyways I’m over myself. I think you guys are right, I’m too busy over thinking this and it’s not worth it. Im just reliving my fear of rejection over and over and I need to stop doing that because it’s just becoming a pattern.

It wasn’t a big deal about the rain. It’s just we had it scheduled to do walk around and do things on top of just going to the museum and I previously did something similar. But adding that behavior along with other small clues is leading me to believe that maybe she wasn’t that interested. I’m torn between asking her to do something this weekend and simply just walking away now. Its frustrating for me because I don’t want to bother getting invested in someone who can’t do something as simple as follow through on what they said. Now this is leading me to believe that maybe I’ve been creating a romantic narrative and they’ve simply been going along for the ride. Ive been sort of the aggressor when it came to making moves and getting close and although this person has been receptive, they’ve also been playing games at times, (when I ask for a kiss or to get close they shy away and then later give in). Initially I thought this was because they were shy and it was too early, now I think maybe they had mixed feelings and as we spend more time together things get more serious each time. Im really annoyed. Maybe I should just walk away from this situation now, I don’t understand how this women is already 30 and still in her party phase and wanting to keep meeting men and exploring her options. Maybe this is my own fault for thinking that I met someone who was on my wavelength but seeing everything from a distance makes me realize more and more that she’s just keeping me close enough to keep me engaged without committing and maybe she might never get there... Is this dumb to think that if the weekend goes by and she never messages me, that I should assume she isn’t interested. Would someone seriously just wait for you to keep chasing if they were really interested. Because if that’s the case I’m going to just go full silent and save myself the headache now.

I didn’t meet her through a dating app. It was through a mutual acquaintance and I asked her when we first when our if she was seeing anyone to which she replied no. Of course she could be lying which is what I would probably do if I was dating someone. Im afraid if I reach out I will come across desperate and needy. I feel like that happens too much to me. If she’s going to ghost me then fine, I don’t know why I have to play these dumb games with women. More often then not I feel like they respond more to being ignored, I can’t imagine that she’s distracted as I’ve already seen her on three occasions and this is the longest period of time that has gone by without us seeing each other. I just feel like she’s either pulling away or doesn’t care. I don’t know why I’m stressing her, this is so annoying. You think I’m overthinking it, but what if by reaching out I’m just sabotaging myself.