Its the not knowing that I hate

[chocolates]

I put it to you

 

Man breaks up with you (personal issues)

 

You beg and plead.... no avail

 

you apologise by email, he agrees to LC contact by email

 

You email and tell him how much you miss him saying stuff he hasnt heard before

 

He doesnt reply.

 

Is no reply better than a reply that says NO I havent changed my mind?

[freefromu]

i understand, this sucks, big time.

 

i think it is time for you to back off for the time being. same old saying, give him time to cool down. we think different after we cooled down.

 

i understand you want to resolve this immediately, because you feel hurt and rejected. i had been through this before. but backing off works better.

[BeStrongBeHappy]

chocolates, i thought you were taking a 40 day offline challenge...

 

did something happen?

[chocolates]

 

 

i cant do it

[chocolates]

Im restricting time

[BeStrongBeHappy]

oh i see! at least you are trying!

 

anyway, if you've begged and pleaded and that did nothing, then you send him more and he doesn't respond, then no response is a negative answer too, whether he sends you a no or not... he doesn't want contact, or he'd respond.

[chocolates]

he responded eventually and said he wanted to keep in contact by email. and we had been

 

and then i emailed my feelings to him yesterday and no response

[chocolates]

PLUS

 

he thinks i am on my 40 day no internet challenge now, so i dont know if thats why he's not responding](*,)](*,)](*,)](*,)

[Batya33]

I suggested on your other thread that his offer to email was really a gentle way of telling you he wanted to severely limit contact - like, maybe a few emails a year to "keep in touch". I could be wrong but I think that is why he's not responding because he didn't expect to receive such a personal email from you and so soon.

 

I always preferred silence to a polite or polite "let down easy" response.

[browneyedgirl36]

I put it to you

 

Man breaks up with you (personal issues)

 

You beg and plead.... no avail

 

You email and tell him how much you miss him saying stuff he hasnt heard before

 

He doesnt reply.

 

Is no reply better than a reply that says NO I havent changed my mind?

 

I actually think no reply generally means the same thing as "no." Some people can't say "no" because they don't like any sort of confrontation, don't like hurting someone's feelings, etc., so they choose the silent treatment route. Silence, to me, generally means the person isn't interested anymore and doesn't want to hear from me. Honestly, I don't think hearing or reading "Don't contact me anymore" would be preferable. I used to think it would be, but I've since had some experiences that have made me re-think that.

 

I once was dumped by a guy who said he wanted to remain friends. So, I wrote him a couple of times -- just friend stuff, NO begging, pleading, declarations of feelings, nothing like that -- and he would respond with a short sentence or two. I did that twice. Then, I wrote a lengthier e-mail in which I expressed that I was there for him if he needed me (He had a close relative who was dying at the time, and he had cited this as one of the reasons he'd broken up with me -- he claimed he couldn't handle everything at that time). Not only did he NOT respond to my lengthy, heartfelt e-mail, HE DELETED IT WITHOUT READING IT. I knew, because we had the same e-mail provider, and I could check the status of messages I had sent him, and it came up "deleted." I told myself it HAD to be a mistake! (Dumb me!) So...I re-sent it, telling him that my computer was having problems (partly true) and that I wasn't sure if it had been sent. This time, he read it, but he didn't respond. About two months later, I wrote a really nice message offering my condolences on the loss of his relative, who had passed away about a month prior. He wrote back ONE sentence -- very cold. I still didn't learn. I waited another month and wrote one last time, just to wish him a Happy Thanksgiving. This time, he wrote a lengthy e-mail telling me that he had met someone else, and that he had been wanting to tell me but didn't want to hurt my feelings. He still said he wanted to be friends, and even suggested we go to coffee (after which he added "My schedule is totally crazy.")

 

Well, I finally realized what the comment about his schedule really meant -- that he didn't really want to see me -- he was just saying "we should go to coffee sometime" to make himself feel better and/or to let me down easy. I wrote back, saying that I didn't think it was a good idea for us to be friends or go to coffee right now, and that maybe somewhere down the road we could -- just not then. He wrote back and said he looked forward to hearing from me again. I never wrote to him again, never spoke to him again, deleted him from my contacts. That was years ago, and I've never heard from him or contacted him since. He was trying to tell me, with his lack of replies, his cold, one-line replies, and his deletion of my one e-mail, that he didn't want me in his life anymore. It took me awhile to "get it," but I finally did. Incidentally, he had a girlfriend VERY shortly after he dumped me -- funny, since his reason for dumping me was that he was overwhelmed and didn't want to be in a relationship with "anyone" (his words) at that point. Hahahahaha -- took me awhile to realize "anyone" was code for "you." Live and learn.

 

Anyway, the point of this long ramble: Silence, in this case, is probably the same thing as telling you "no." Right now, he just doesn't feel like talking, and it's best to just let him be.

[browneyedgirl36]

I suggested on your other thread that his offer to email was really a gentle way of telling you he wanted to severely limit contact - like, maybe a few emails a year to "keep in touch". I could be wrong but I think that is why he's not responding because he didn't expect to receive such a personal email from you and so soon.

 

I always preferred silence to a polite or polite "let down easy" response.

 

Me too. When I was younger, I wanted a response, felt like I was "owed" one, in a sense. Now, though, I honestly think I'd rather get nothing than get a "buzz off!" or worse, some sugarcoated nonsense excuse.

[chocolates]

ok, yes you are right.

 

he has never been much of an emailer, has always only ever written one line, ever since i met him. So he is a hard one to judge

 

i havent heard back and i have struggled not to email again.

 

i want to meet someone else but its too raw

[browneyedgirl36]

ok, yes you are right.

 

he has never been much of an emailer, has always only ever written one line, ever since i met him. So he is a hard one to judge

 

i havent heard back and i have struggled not to email again.

 

i want to meet someone else but its too raw

 

Well, that's understandable. Don't try to meet someone else right now. Give it a little time. I know I didn't want to meet anyone else after I got dumped by the guy I wrote in my previous post. It took me awhile. In fact, I met my most recent ex a few months AFTER that dumping, and I didn't really show much interest in him, and he dropped off the face of the earth. We met up again, two years later, and I was totally into him because I was actually ready to date (had been for awhile, but hadn't met anyone.) Give yourself a bit of time to recover from feeling bad. If you go out there and try to meet someone without giving yourself some time to get some perspective, you might just end up meeting someone who is all wrong for you.

[browneyedgirl36]

ok, yes you are right.

 

he has never been much of an emailer, has always only ever written one line, ever since i met him. So he is a hard one to judge

 

i havent heard back and i have struggled not to email again.

 

i want to meet someone else but its too raw

 

One more thing...

 

Think of how it feels when you write something heartfelt, or funny, or even just friendly, and all you get back is one very short sentence. Now, think about how you feel when you do the same thing and get back nothing at all. That feeling alone should help you to refrain from writing to him again. It took me awhile with my long-ago ex (the one I posted about in this thread earlier) to realize that I was getting NOTHING from him at ALL, but when I finally did, and I wrote that last e-mail to him telling him that I didn't think being friends was a good idea at that point (knowing I had no intention of ever talking to him again), I felt FREE. I ate a chocolate and caramel cake thing and a huge mocha from Starbucks, cried for about 10 minutes, and I was over it. Of course, I had cried for months before that, but it was amazing how quickly I let go once I admitted to myself that "this guy doesn't give a crap about me and doesn't want me in his life." It sounds negative, but...the fact that he didn't give a crap and didn't want me in his life was no reflection on me. It didn't mean I wasn't a quality person or that I wasn't lovable. It was really quite liberating!

 

You're taking this really hard, and I know it is, but....it'll be ok. The fact that you don't see him and don't really hear from him should really help.

[chocolates]

I guess a lot of my thoughts is "how on earth can he not like me? " I mean he likes me on some level... bed level... lol

 

but yeah i cannot get it through my thick skull that he doesnt want me in his life, or at least far enough away in the back row with a pole in front of my view.....

[chocolates]

heres another thing:

 

im on RSVP which is a fairly reputable dating site here.

I get this message from some guy last night titled "hi ya sexy" and saying phone me etc, "sweetie"

 

clearly after only sex. I emailed him saying that its obvious what he wants and i wasnt interested.

 

Ok case 2:

 

Today, i am chatting on IM with this guy, who ive met once, and i guess we are online "friends" and have been chatting a little over a year.

He basically asked me if i would have sex with him. I told him im not interested in that kind of thing.

 

It seems like men only want me for sex.

 

I kept my virginity until my 30s, so i am hardly "that kind of girl" but it seems men view me in this way.

[chocolates]

I feel that Im just not meant to be with anyone. Ive always gone for the wrong men, always been unavailable in some way, never had someone who wanted all of me, not just wither emotionally or sexually, never both AT ONCE.

 

I just feel that some people are meant to be alone, natural selection, and maybe im one of them

[chocolates]

blahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Batya33]

I received MANY messages on dating sites from men who only wanted sex. So what? Am I supposed to assume that just because a stranger emails me for sex that I am only a sex object? Am I supposed to feel that way if I went to a club and some drunk guy came on to me? Please work on your self-esteem and stop defining yourself by how strangers view you.

 

People move towards pleasure and away from pain as a general matter. So, with this guy you were sleeping with, obviously you got pleasure out of it and you decided, for a time, that that pleasure was worth the downside. Then you changed your mind. If you want a serious relationship, it takes a thick skin and lots and lots of screening if you're going to do on line interactions - if you let strangers who come on to you get to you so much it's a non-starter.

 

But, you have to be ready to be happy being on your own because you won't settle for someone who wants to put his penis inside you and then go home - for me, it was never difficult to meet men who treated me with respect and like a lady, but when I was dating I lived in a major city, I had a very thick skin and very high standards for respect.

 

I also wasn't overly focused on looks or outer stuff (not saying you are, just saying). If you live in a place where there are few single people, consider relocating or at least accept that it might take awhile. but it requires your carrying yourself like a lady and with self-respect so that if you do inadvertently meet someone who turns out to only want sex, you will walk away quickly and very often if a man sees that he shouldn't even go there because of your presense, energy, how you carry yourself - he will simply move on to greener pastures.

 

So, please for your own good stop the pity party, the "meant to be alone" and work on what you are doing to improve your chances of meeting the type of person you say you want (and I write "you say you want" because your actions with your sex partner didn't reflect a desire for a long term committed relationship - but it sounds like now that is what you want, right?

[shaded77]

I actually think no reply generally means the same thing as "no." Some people can't say "no" because they don't like any sort of confrontation, don't like hurting someone's feelings, etc., so they choose the silent treatment route. Silence, to me, generally means the person isn't interested anymore and doesn't want to hear from me. Honestly, I don't think hearing or reading "Don't contact me anymore" would be preferable. I used to think it would be, but I've since had some experiences that have made me re-think that.

 

Is that really true in all cases? I recently was seeing a girl that lived in a different city. Even though we had been only dated for about three months she was currently unemployed and living on a suitcase in a studio appartment and I propposed that she moved to my city (she grew up here, so she has friends and relatives here). She agreed but was kind of freaking out as the date got close. One week before she was to move she disapeared. Her phone was off for over a week, and after that she never replyed to my calls, voicemails and emails.

 

I think you are lucky that the guy was honest with you and has asked that you have limited contact, and actually had the decency to let you know it was over. In my case her disapearing has just left me lingering… thinking that maybe she just needs time to figure things out, but its been three months. If she had told me “listen, its not working out” or anything three months ago I would have been over it by now. I’ve even tried dating other people, but the lack of closure has not let me invest myself into anyone else.

 

I think NC when you are the dumpee is always a good solution, but to disapear like that without a reason or clue is just heartless. I’d rather be let down easy.