Please.. advice.

[Jeximo]

Before I begin.. Thank you to anyone who reads this in it's entirety.

 

I normally don't look for advice on relationships--I generally have a good handle on things. However; I've had quite a new experience and need some opinions to broaden my perspective.

 

I've known a girl we'll call, Jessica, for nearly 6 years now. When we first started talking, we were hitting it off great. Awesome outgoing personality, energetic, intellectual (still searching the limits), and very pretty.

 

I introduced her to my buddy, John (whom I've known for 12 years), and I suppose at the time, he was more attractive to her than I was. No problem. I find when a girl has higher interest for someone else, I can literally turn off my attraction switches for that person.

 

John and Jessica dated for about 2 years before John broke up with her about 2-3 months ago. Now, Jessica and I have been talking more than before and all of a sudden, I find myself more and more attracted to her. First things first, I told John. He is entirely fine with it, I tried beyond belief to get any sort of feeling out of him that would show me that he would care, even in the smallest way.. Yet, I'm pretty confident that it doesn't exist. John and I are 100% best friends, I would never speak to Jessica again if he so wished. Even though she wasn't right for him, he'd prefer her to see someone as intellectual as me anyway because a lot of men in general are dogs.

 

Now a little filler information about myself. I'm an introverted intuitive thinker.. meaning, I use my intuition to perceive how the world really is, and contemplate the complexities of life excessively in comparison to most. I perceive any experiences from a detached point of view, so that I can analyze all situations separate from any personal bias. My entire perception of reality is governed by logic and rationale. To me, this is the most efficient way to predict patterns of behavior in all aspects of life.

 

The reason for the background information on myself is to get the point accross that I truly lack emotion and feelings because of my world of logic. I.e. If a person were to tell me a horrible story, I can only use my intuition to figure out how the person feels about the situation, and not actually feel empathy. This is only one whisker of an example, but you get the point.

 

The other day, after going to see a movie with Jessica, dropped her off at her place and experienced an emotion. To me, this was astonishing. I felt as if I cared for her wayyyy more deeply than just logic could put into words. I studied this emotion and I'm still baffled by the fact that this unknown force within me is causing me to think about her all the time.

 

The feelings are mutual, we had a conversation earlier today; however, that decided we should stay friends because it would be HORRIBLE if something didn't work out between us.. You don't find friends like this often.

 

Now after a few hours of contemplating and realizing the implications of our decisions... I can't help but want more. I want to learn more about her and most of all, I want to learn from her the value of emotion. She is very intellectual, which is more important than any other personality or physical aspect to me. Every time I see her, I get that emotion in my chest/stomach and I feel like my heart is racing... and those attraction switches are being stubborn.. I'm not the one for mushy gushy kind of things, these are the actual descriptions of how I feel.

 

Anyways, enough rant. Please, any words of advice. If there are any questions, I'll try to answer them for a more descriptive response.

 

Thanks.

[arwen]

Hi and welcome

 

It seems to me that you are falling in love with Jessica. This is maybe a new experience for you, as you say that initially you were able to 'switch off' your attraction- this is probably more than that. Feelings like these are beyond what you can explain rationally, and thereforee confusing. You are used to making every decision based on reason and logic, and probably not in the first place from the heart, right?

 

Like you I am a thinker 'INTJ' to be more precise, and I have found that the intuition-aspect of that is probably the most 'trustworthy' perception tool that I possess- it seems in a way closer connected to emotions and matters of the heart than the mind alone. I don't know if you can relate to this- but I doubt that you don't have emotions at all. You are not being led by them and seem very focused on what you can tackle with logic/rational explanation.

 

My suggestion is to embrace these feelings and in time, you can consider asking her on a date. You have been friends so far and maybe dating so early after her relationship with John is too soon. I'd take the chance. It's not often that you meet someone that triggers these feelings

[vwright]

and in the end...you want to be with your best friend

[Jeximo]

Thank you for your reply

 

You're definitely right about feelings like this being confusing.. I always rationalize my next moves, but with feelings it seems as if I'm really tempted to make the next move without considering all of the implications thereafter.

 

John and I were having a conversation last night that lasted 4 hours, and my "lack" of emotion came up into one of our conversations. I feel as if I lack emotion and don't have it, but this is clearly not the case.. If it were so, that's more along the lines of a dysfunction. People who no absolutely not emotion at all could severely hurt a person, and feel nothing at all--Way beyond me.

 

I think a more precise way to explain my emotion is that it undeveloped. I never really "let anyone in" in fear that I'll feel vulnerable (exception: John). And because of the underdevelopment, I'm having a really difficult time finding the fine line between logic and emotion.. It seems to be 100% logic or 100% emotion. I don't want to become to emotional over the situation in case something didn't work out.

 

I think you're right about time being a very deciding factor in all of this. I should probably just go with the flow and stop making such a big deal of it all in my head.. and thankfully it's only in my head. It would be worse if I told her all of this, and she started reacting entirely different because she's filtering her actions/words to accommodate sensitivity of feelings.

[arwen]

In the end, like most humans, you are scared of things not working out and scared of the feelings that you may have if she were to reject you. But this is part of life, letting someone 'in', will always be at the cost of a certain vulnerability (and thereforee have a bit of a risk, namely of getting hurt, betrayed, etc). But the alternative seems worse to me, because in the extreme case, it would mean complete solitude for the rest of your life.

 

I think most thoughts involve emotion at a certain level, and things are not so black-and-white in the mind. Do you feel you can have an emotion regarding something that is completely rational, maybe even because it's so completely logical? For instance, think of the proof of a complicated equation (assuming you like math or logics at that level), that in the end can be reduced to a very simple one by applying theorems or proofs. Suppose you figure that out on your own. The beauty of that kind of simplicity that you may perceive, or the sense of pride that you take in solving it, those are not purely rational sensations, right?

 

What I am saying is just that it could help you to disentangle your perceptions a bit, and I think you will soon see that your perception is a spectrum rather than a binary thing that is either 'feeling' or 'rationale'.

 

Btw, I think it's great that you have such a good friend. It may appear as though others have more friends because they are not as scared to let people in, but I think in the end, most people can count their actual friends on a single hand and would count themselves very happy if they had a friendship like yours. I hope for you that it is this kind of friendship that you will also find in a relationship- i.e. being with someone that doesn't make you feel scared to be yourself and to let go.

 

Oh, and just a last thing. About what she'd do if you were to tell her all that goes on in your head: although I certainly wouldn't recommend sharing this with her at this point, I'd try not to think too much for her. You don't know how she feels or would feel, and in case the feelings are mutual, and you were to develop a relationship... I think that it would be good to rephrase this bit and let her know about your thoughts/feelings about being vulnerable.

[Jeximo]

Hmm. I, as of this point, feel as if complete solitude wouldn't be considered as an option. Conversing with men or women at any level, friendship or beyond, isn't very difficult for me. My ex girlfriend modeled for a while, she was a very physically attractive woman that easily attracts the attention of many other people. If it weren't for her, I wouldn't have realized how important intellectuality really is to me. I'm not saying she is stupid, she's definitely book smart, but when it came to intellectual conversations.. I could predict what she was going to say next by knowing the patterns of her behavior, which in turn made conversations extremely boring unfortunately.

 

I truly enjoy a strong intellectual person who can comprehend, contribute, and possibly be able to give an entirely different perspective life in general. And vice-versa, I enjoy helping people with their intellectual issues. A lot of the time, something that is bothering someone and affecting the way they perceive life is often a simple solution to me, and it causes the, "Eureka!" effect to them. Like you said about the sensations I get from making connections and coming up with a simplified way to view something, it's much more then just rationale, it feels amazing and I strive for those feelings.

 

John and I considred a theory about trying to find a woman that we could talk to in the same manner that him and I share. She would be a perfect companion, if not for relation, then just an amazing friend. I believe once I've found the, "perfect girl for me", she'll make me want to share my emotions and feelings with me being uncomfortable at all.

 

Haha. I wouldn't even begin to contemplate explaining any of this to Jessica-- Not that I don't think she could understand, but it just wouldn't make social sense. That may have came off more serious then I meant to portray. I can see the boundaries of how far would be to far. I suppose I can only inch my way over the boundary and see how she reacts to it, take it that far and bring it back a little--testing the water.

 

Thanks for all the replies, I really enjoy talking to you about this, and probably many other topics I especially enjoyed the part about complete logic generating a feeling of self achievement.

[gold.spruce]

Hmm... so what is it exactly that you are looking for in a potential partner? Something tells me this girl Jessica, the model, probably has a few opinions of her own that she is holding back.......not that you couldn't understand......but because she wouldn't want to hurt your feelings.

 

You say she is book smart...but definitely not stupid... ummmm...choose your words carefully.... that statement shows your true colors.... I bet you are just itching to correct my grammar and punctuation right now...lol!

[Jeximo]

Hmm... so what is it exactly that you are looking for in a potential partner? Something tells me this girl Jessica, the model, probably has a few opinions of her own that she is holding back.......not that you couldn't understand......but because she wouldn't want to hurt your feelings.

 

You say she is book smart...but definitely not stupid... ummmm...choose your words carefully.... that statement shows your true colors.... I bet you are just itching to correct my grammar and punctuation right now...lol!

 

Responding to this non-sense of a post is a waste of time, but I happen to be bored at the moment, so I'll logically disprove your ignorance.

 

"Hmm... so what is it exactly that you are looking for in a potential partner?"

 

Try reading the entire post and not taking quotations out of context, you'd realize that I am looking for someone with high intellectuality.

 

"Something tells me this girl Jessica, the model..."

 

Jessica is not a model and nor would it matter to me if she were. If you used that matter between your ears at all you'd take notice that I said my ex-girlfriend is a model.

 

"You say she is book smart...but definitely not stupid..."

 

Again, this was in reference to my ex-girlfriend and I actually said, "I'm not saying she is stupid, she's definitely book smart, but when it came to intellectual conversations.. I could predict what she was going to say next by knowing the patterns of her behavior, which in turn made conversations extremely boring, unfortunately."

 

"ummmm...choose your words carefully.... that statement shows your true colors"

 

True colors? You mean the truth of being honest and making it aware that I would prefer someone who has high intellectuality over book smarts?

 

Please don't bother posting unless you are going to analyze the entire situation objectively.

[bostonbruins24]

I'm not sure it is a wise thing to do ,to try and be analytical when it comes to guaging your attraction towards someone.I also don't like the idea of deliberating on entering a romantic relationship because of a fear that it will end and then a friendship will be destroyed.If the feelings are mutual [and you suggest they are]I think you should enter this relationship as you really don't know when or if that kind of attraction will come your way again.