Are we still just friends? Or are we less?

[NycGuy2019]

Of course she's stepped up her 'draw' because you've hinted at taking away her use of you.

 

I'm sorry but the more you explain the more I see you addicted to her "personal sharing" that makes you feel much more bonded to her than you should be considering that nothing of romantic interaction has even come close.

 

Check your ego at the door and please start looking at this with eyes wide open rather than eyes wide shut.

 

At this point, it appears that your enthralment of her is holding you back in heart and mind from finding yourself a good woman that wants you for more than your career connections, your shoulder to cry on the and esoteric/philosophical discussions. Don't you think you should be putting in all this effort towards someone who will want you for all of you and not just this superficial relating of a platonic kind that has you so in a tizzy? Next you'll be writing about the vapors you've experienced when she's shared, yet again, TMI considering you're not actually a couple. Her "sharing" isn't what I would consider normal under the circumstances but she knows that it keep you glued to her.

 

I truly believe that she gets off on her ability to draw and keep men within her web of intrigue. She is well aware of her feminine wiles and how to surround a willing 'victim' in the soft folds of her psyche.

 

 

This "flood" of sharing "too much information" is very recent, and a new development in our 3+ years of acquaintance. I agree that this is not normal given that we are not a couple.

I also agree that the "too much information" has created some intimacy and bonding, but this is not (yet) an addiction for me, given that this is a very recent development. I see it as a red flag, hence my reference to the Sirens from Greek mythology a couple of pages back on this thread - the Sirens would draw you in with their guile and charms, and once drawn in, you'd be doomed.

 

The "too much information" sharing was initiated by her when I suggested to her that we mutually agree to "consciously shape" the interaction, instead of letting it organically go with the flow as it has in the past 3 years. My preference for a "consciously shaped" interaction would be less interaction, less intimacy, next to nil overlap and more mutual regard -- something akin to what "consciously uncoupling" couples would do, just that we are not a couple.

 

Thank you for continuing to examine this situation in such a detailed, critical and nurturing way. God bless you.

[NycGuy2019]

I wonder if there’s a way in which you ascribe false depth or currency to surfaces, to protect yourself a bit. All the intellectual, reflective stuff: literature, philosophy, art, culture, meditation—all that, really, is just taste, sequins. It’s not really any deeper (or shallower) than pro sports, beer, improv comedy, macrame, whatever. Just stuff people are into, to get through the days, pay bills and find shreds of meaning ....

You write well, and make a fabulous point, stuff is stuff and sequins in any color are still just sequins. I get that. I also think that you've concluded in your narrative that her stuff is just sequins, and you're right that this must be the case for most people who claim to have multiple interests.

I have some awareness of the topics that interest me - opera, ballet, philosophy and likes. I can safely say that she has more than "sequins" in those topics, contradicting the stereotype that would usually apply to otherwise outwardly attractive women like her. In any case, I am not in search of the next Frida Kahlo, or the next Germaine Green, or the next Virginia Woolf, I will be quite satisfied to find someone who can talk about these topics at an amateur level - having a PhD or writing in the New Yorker on these topics would be great, but that is not where I set my threshold.

 

You can go down paths of talking about “consciously shaping” and “consciously uncoupling,” ...

 

I meant consciously shaping the interaction that is now at 3+ years, not shaping her persona/ personality. Apologies for the confusion.

 

Dynamics between people—romantic, platonic, flirtatious, vague, whatever—are basically a series of interconnected habits. You change them not through suggestions but by breaking habits, and forming new ones. As in: you can just distance yourself from her, a bit, rather than trying to shape her and shape this you-her thing into something ..

 

Yes, I agree, about breaking habits. The point about "trying to shape her" - I have clarified above, I am not trying to shape her, I am striving to give shape to our interaction through mutual agreement.

 

There is a tipping point—one I’m intimately familiar with—where the “social validation” of a having a pretty thing stops validating what you think it does.

I am not actively seeking social proof/ social validation by searching out PYTs for army candy. She happens to be in the circle of my life in some way, and it will be disingenuous on my part to deny that having her around also acts as social validation/ social proof to some degree.

 

My personal currency of value is genuineness.

Likewise. That is why I am a sucker for honest communication, from anyone.

 

Thanks for continuing to look into this, and for your even more detailed analysis. I am grateful.

[bluecastle]

The "too much information" sharing was initiated by her when suggested to her that we mutually agree to "consciously shape" the interaction, instead of letting it organically go with the flow as it has in the past 3 years. My preference for a "consciously shaped" interaction would be less interaction, less intimacy, next to nil intertwinement and more mutual regard -- something akin to what "consciously uncoupling" couples would do, just that we are not a couple.

 

Go back and read about those Sirens. This, the above, is exactly that.

 

I don't know your romantic history, so I'll share some of mine. More than once—though it's one special co-created hurricane I'm thinking of from my late 20s—I have been in a situation where I voiced, in what at least sounded like pretty clear language, that I was done with a situation. Flash forward an hour, and what do you know? I am naked, reaching for the cigarettes, next to the naked body of the woman I just ended things with, somehow convinced that "naked, post-coital" and "broken up" can coexist harmoniously because I used my big boy words. Said scene plays out for another week, a few more months, maybe longer.

 

Oh, sweet charms!

 

I was young, wordy enough to paint all that as more complex than it was: mutual addiction. Two people, drawn to each other through swordplay, making heat through friction, chasing orgasms, snacking on egos, taking everything genuine about our humanity and putting it through a paper shredder, where it came out as the frilly game we were hooked on playing. We couldn't operate any other way. We were both pretty smart, too, deeply intimate with both the weekly content of the New Yorker and the layout of its office, for reference. Still, together we were highbrow junkies making mushroom clouds out of our genuine selves.

 

Takeaway, years later? I came into myself sexually, and am as grateful for that as I am the growth that came from getting out.

 

You two seem to have a similar mode of operation, with much of it existing in a kind of theoretical space that is co-created. You have the talk, deploy the big boy words, setting new boundaries for greater sincerity, and where does that get you? Sucked further into the same funhouse maze, now with some new mirrors. You're naked and reaching for the cigarette—the theoretical version. You are, I think, more addicted to those mirrors than you want to admit. There are many very smart heroin addicts out there, who can talk about heroin as if it's a novel they're writing, and, in that, hardly sound like an addict. Meanwhile, the needle is in their arm.

 

Let's cut her out of this for a moment, and roughly lay out something that sounds nice to you. You're hanging with a woman, chatting opera. You feel good around her. You're not really focused about what she "is" or "means" or is "trying to be," but just kind of reveling in her as she revels back. It's fun. Sincere. Genuine. There is no brainpower involved in the extraction of "genuine," no questions about who you are in her story or who she is in yours, but rather just a genuine sense that all is pretty genuine. When you've exhausted the opera talk, you take your clothes off and have sex. In the morning one of you makes an omelet.

 

Something like that? If so, ask yourself: Is this that? Or is this an impediment to that by being a near proximation?

 

That is the conversation you have with yourself, not with her. You share with her the answers, knowing all she can do is produce more questions.

[NycGuy2019]

....

I don't know your romantic history, so I'll share some of mine. ..

Thank you for sharing a chapter of your story - it's poignant. You had things in common and yet it didn't work out. Self-discovery happened along the way subsequently.

The Sirens were dangerous creatures, to be avoided by sailors lest they be drawn in, and doomed. I recognise that I am, very likely, in a similar sort of a situation, and so, I need to take steps to create separation.

That is what I proposed to her to do - that we mutually and consciously determine what shape to give to our interactions.

Her actions post that suggestion have me flummoxed and so I have turned here to seek guidance.

 

I thank you, and your fellow commentators for showing some interest in my predicament and for offering advice.

[NycGuy2019]

Update: I see her daily during the week, and so, I used the past week to lay the groundwork for separating out our intertwined lives, while still setting her up for success in everything that she is doing in my orbit (e.g., I found her a solid, reliable coach on a topic that she needed to study for a professional certification and was struggling to find a coach. I declined to coach her, by the way).

 

We were on campus late evening Friday working with a third person on a short term project, when she left hurriedly to meet the new man in her life (She's technically still seeing her current/soon to be ex boyfriend, long distance).

 

I wished her a good weekend, and her 'sort of strange' response was that she was only seeing her friend for a couple of hours and that she would then be back to working on the project on the weekend and would all weekend.

 

Then, out of the blue, she sent me messages midnight yesterday that were a direct follow-up of a chat that we had had earlier in the week about her future career. I did not respond.

 

In the morning, she sent me picture messages to show that she was indeed working on the project as she had claimed. Again, I did not respond - this is unusual for me by the way, given that we have been cordially exchanging a flurry of messages every day for at least a few months now.

 

In the afternoon, she sent me another message about an email I had sent her about 10 days back, on an utterly lame and non-urgent work scheduling topic, asking me to get back to her and clarify what it was about. Yet again, I did not respond. By now, this is most unusual for me.

 

My plan is to stick to this new messaging discipline, and reduce the interaction between us to a cordial minimum, work colleagues like Mon-Fri 9 am to 5pm. I will see her early next week and will respond to all her messages from the weekend during our in-person chat.

 

I keenly seek your advice on this separation that I am now executing, and I am eager to hear your suggestions on what else I should be doing.

[bluecastle]

Happy to help. You're a nice voice on this forum. Hope you stick around.

 

You being flummoxed is understandable. You are, in effect, having a "relationship talk" with someone you're not in a relationship with. That's sort of what you guys do, right? The nebulous swim, currents always changing, the water temperature shifting from cool to warm, icy to sizzling. The lack of any hard logic is what makes it interesting, so to try to apply logic to it? Not going to work. Being flummoxed is part of the fuel in this whole engine, as well as the engine parts. You just feel a touch more flummoxed than usual, these days.

 

That's why I'm saying the answer here is in you, not something you are going to cultivate with her, together, through esoteric "proposals." That is actually how things work in relationships. My girlfriend does not say to me, "My equilibrium is misaligned by our Monday rituals, and I propose we recalibrate them in order to coexist in greater harmony. What say you, to that?" She says, "Your house is too far for me to drive to after dropping my kid off, so I need to do Mondays on my side of town." And then I can say "Sounds good!" or "I hate you!" or whatever. But it's not vague leading to vague leading to vague. It's the difference between communication and an experiment in human communication.

 

Confession: I have probably spent more time in my life in versions of her shoes than yours. Different variables, different anatomy, but I know from slippery things because I've been a slippery thing. I got bored of myself, changed the engine fluid. No one did that for me, or to me, through patience or proposals. Point being: slippery is slippery is slippery. Sliding around can be fun, but trying to suddenly get a toehold on a slippery slide is a fool's errand.

 

This is...what it is. It's not going to change shape through a consciousness conference. It'll change shape over time. What you can change, through some steps, is the nature of your emotional investment in it all. Think of that as your own energy, which is not infinite, just like money. We choose where we spend our money, and if we find ourselves spending too much at candy stores we dial back the spending. The candy stores don't go anywhere, but we get a little healthier.

[bluecastle]

I keenly seek your advice on this separation that I am now executing, and I am eager to hear your suggestions on what else I should be doing.

 

Sounds like a start.

 

But as you outlined all that, your emphasis is still on her reactions: on how she responds to your lack of response. Cat and mouse, negative space edition. At some point the lens needs to shift, to how you feel, how you respond to that space, how you are creating it for you. That's when the game ends, because the paradigm shifts.

 

What you may find—next week, the week after—is that she doesn't really care for you to respond to all that, point by point, in person. I don't think she does, frankly. I think her capacity to "care" doesn't extend too far past her own borders. She's just tossing things into the ether, because she gets blurry to herself without attention.

 

So maybe when you see her just, you know, see her. Throw away the script, and just be, so this can be what it is rather than something being curated.

[ThatwasThen]

when she left hurriedly to meet the new man in her life (She's technically still seeing her current/soon to be ex boyfriend, long distance).

*sighs* so she's a cheater as well?

 

NYCguy... I think you are doing the right thing by forming some boundaries with her. Don't allow her to dazzle you into letting them down. May I suggest you change the subject when she starts to unload any more of her very personal confessions to you as well?

 

Take care and keep us updated on how things are going. It will be interesting how she reacts to your new boundaries. You pulling away is very likely to implore her to try even harder to draw you back in.

[bluecastle]

*sighs* so she's a cheater as well?

 

NYCguy... I think you are doing the right thing by forming some boundaries with her. Don't allow her to dazzle you into letting them down. May I suggest you change the subject when she starts to unload any more of her very personal confessions to you as well?

 

Take care and keep us updated on how things are going. It will be interesting how she reacts to your new boundaries. You pulling away is very likely to implore her to try even harder to draw you back in.

 

Oh, I glazed over the cheating part.

 

Some read Madame Bovary, others imitate her, still others see in her a hero.

 

Emphasis on the bold because: yes, with near 100 percent certainty. And that's when you get to see if you really just want to be drawn back in, or something else.

[NycGuy2019]

*sighs* so she's a cheater as well?

 

NYCguy... I think you are doing the right thing by forming some boundaries with her. Don't allow her to dazzle you into letting them down. May I suggest you change the subject when she starts to unload any more of her very personal confessions to you as well?

 

Take care and keep us updated on how things are going. It will be interesting how she reacts to your new boundaries. You pulling away is very likely to implore her to try even harder to draw you back in.

 

Thank you for your feedback and yes, setting boundaries is probably the best way to handle such situations.

That being said, I wouldn't judge her for "cheating" - she's technically in a long-distance relationship that has dragged on forever, and has become an endless wait. She's setting boundaries there and slowly extracting herself from that relationship. She's recently found a new man who is funny, on the edge, goofy and makes her laugh. She's making space and time to see him regularly.

I don't see an issue in this story. Perhaps meditation has taught me to try to be non-judgemental, and so I wouldn't quite label her as a cheater here.

 

The wrinkle here, is that she has an intertwined kind of history with me, which is kind of neither here nor there, and our novella of sorts is now begging for some kind of an ending to the story.

[bluecastle]

Thank you for your feedback and yes, setting boundaries is probably the best way to handle such situations.

That being said, I wouldn't judge her for "cheating" - she's technically in a long-distance relationship that has dragged on forever, and has become an endless wait. She's setting boundaries there and slowly extracting herself from that relationship. She's recently found a new man who is funny, on the edge, goofy and makes her laugh. She's making space and time to see him regularly.

I don't see an issue in this story. Perhaps meditation has taught me to try to be non-judgemental, and so I wouldn't quite label her as a cheater here.

 

The wrinkle here, is that she has an intertwined kind of history with me, which is kind of neither here nor there, and our novella of sorts is now begging for some kind of an ending to the story.

 

I can't help myself here.

 

The "wrinkle" is pretty telling, is it not? It's not even quite a wrinkle, though, so much as a lifestyle of hers—a knack for "dragging things on forever" and seeing what stays in her wake. Best I can see, you're giving her rewards she does not deserve, and finding ways to reward yourself, and your non-judgmental state of enlightenment, in the process. Tread carefully with all that. She's setting boundaries with one hand and shattering them with the other, which is the opposite of setting boundaries, which is the opposite of behavior that deserves gold stars from professors.

 

You want to end a long distance relationship to pursue something local? That's easy. You hop on WhatsApp and let someone know that the relationship is over. People do this daily, it sucks, but those who do it have genuine spines, not shafts of glitter and moonlight protected by a nice-looking chassis.

 

I'm super non-judgmental, and somewhere in my cells is a compass built for forgiveness. Still, I have cheated, and I don't sugarcoat it. I sucked. I have done a really awful thing, and the only way I can respect myself is to own that fact, not by placing myself into orbits that reward that through metaphysics. Can I spin it differently? Oh, I can, and I've got all sorts of ingredients in the spice cabinet of my life history that I can stir into the pot that will sweeten the scent of sympathy from others. But no. Sucking is just sucking. Seeing that is not "judging" it, but just seeing it.

 

Maybe the end of this novella is the scene where you take off the sunglasses, stare right into the sun, and see it for what it always was: a bight, fiery orb that will blind you if you stare at it for too long.

[ThatwasThen]

^^^ Well said.

 

I wouldn't judge her for "cheating" - she's technically in a long-distance relationship that has dragged on forever, and has become an endless wait.

A simple, "this isn't working for me, I'm sorry. I wish you well and hope you find a good woman worthy of you" and then she's quite free to pursue any new dude who falls into her web.

 

I wonder how you would feel if you were the boyfriend she is cheating on while she slowly extracts herself from your life all the while you think you're the only one she is dazzling?"

 

You must label her as a "cheater" because that, by the very sense of the word is what "cheater" means. Unless her boyfriend has agreed to her seeing other men, then a rose by any other name...

[NycGuy2019]

^^^ Well said.

 

A simple, "this isn't working for me, I'm sorry. I wish you well and hope you find a good woman worthy of you" and then she's quite free to pursue any new dude who falls into her web.

 

I wonder how you would feel if you were the boyfriend she is cheating on while she slowly extracts herself from your life all the while you think you're the only one she is dazzling?"

 

You must label her as a "cheater" because that, by the very sense of the word is what "cheater" means. Unless her boyfriend has agreed to her seeing other men, then a rose by any other name...

 

Well, I suppose, context might help here. She made a genuine attempt, earlier in the year, partly at my prodding, to move cities, and she lived in with her current boyfriend in his new place for 2 months, trying to see if she could make a new beginning in an alien city. Her boyfriend lives at home with his parents and his extended family from both sides lives in that city, a city that is not in the US.

She couldn't see herself long-term in that city, and her boy-friend doesn't want to / or is somehow unable to move back to NYC.

 

Eventually, she moved to end the relationship, and her boyfriend became clingy and sort of semi-accused her of being career/work oriented and not relationship oriented. She had a few long chats with me ( and I am assuming with other people) to figure out if she was wrong to want to resolve a long term commitment.

 

I shared my view with her, that enduring, special relationships like a relationship with one's spouse, are generally more important than other smaller blips in one's life. So she tried to extend things by repeatedly asking her boyfriend to move back to the US and to NYC, but the boyfriend simply can't make it work.

 

A couple of months later she told me that she was ending things with her boyfriend. I asked her to be patient, if it was at all possible, to give it some more time and chances and to be as respectful towards her boyfriend as she could possibly be.

Her boyfriend has become increasingly clingy over the phone, but has not made an attempt to move back to NYC. Most likely reason being, his entire personal orbit is in this city outside of the US, and he doesn't want to leave all that behind. He came to NYC just to study, and if she had liked living in his city, all would have worked out well.

 

So, mentally, emotionally and physically, she has moved on a while back, while still leaving the door open for her boyfriend to salvage the relationship. After a while, she has been making attempts to close that door.

 

And then she runs into this goofy, fun guy who excites her, and is very much in the flesh in NYC and not looking to go anywhere else. And he makes a pass at her, and she finds herself responding ....

 

Now, is that cheating?

 

Of course, she has an unresolved wrinkle with me, but that is doesn't quite count as cheating either.

[ThatwasThen]

Now, is that cheating?

OMG. SMH

 

Why are you trying to rationalize this? She is a weak person who is unable to give this poor man the gift of getting over her. The more you describe her, the more I lose some respect for you for idolizing her the way you do. Sorry to be blunt like that but your explanation and defence of her, well your codependent slip is showing.

She is not the epitome of virtue you have painted her in your own head to be. I hope you see that because when you do, it will be much easier for you to get her out of your life altogether.

[NycGuy2019]

I can't help myself here.

 

The "wrinkle" is pretty telling, is it not? It's not even quite a wrinkle, though, so much as a lifestyle of hers—a knack for "dragging things on forever" and seeing what stays in her wake. Best I can see, you're giving her rewards she does not deserve, and finding ways to reward yourself, and your non-judgmental state of enlightenment, in the process. Tread carefully with all that. She's setting boundaries with one hand and shattering them with the other, which is the opposite of setting boundaries, which is the opposite of behavior that deserves gold stars from professors.

 

You want to end a long distance relationship to pursue something local? That's easy. You hop on WhatsApp and let someone know that the relationship is over. People do this daily, it sucks, but those who do it have genuine spines, not shafts of glitter and moonlight protected by a nice-looking chassis.

 

I'm super non-judgmental, and somewhere in my cells is a compass built for forgiveness. Still, I have cheated, and I don't sugarcoat it. I sucked. I have done a really awful thing, and the only way I can respect myself is to own that fact, not by placing myself into orbits that reward that through metaphysics. Can I spin it differently? Oh, I can, and I've got all sorts of ingredients in the spice cabinet of my life history that I can stir into the pot that will sweeten the scent of sympathy from others. But no. Sucking is just sucking. Seeing that is not "judging" it, but just seeing it.

 

Maybe the end of this novella is the scene where you take off the sunglasses, stare right into the sun, and see it for what it always was: a bight, fiery orb that will blind you if you stare at it for too long.

 

I am sorry to hear this part of your story and even sorrier to see that you continue to judge your past, and that too, rather harshly.

 

As for me, my outlook is somewhat different, or rather, it is less binary, less black or white. There is room for gray in my world, and there is room for 2nd and 3rd chances for all of us are nothing but imperfect beings.

So, I wouldn't go as far as to damn people as cheaters/treacherous etc, simply for straying from their village well, for responding to an animal excitement from time to time. There is a lot of space between what is morally right and morally wrong, and many of us exist in that in-between space.

 

Most of all, there is room in my world, for self-realisation, for growth and for redemption. Someone looking at their past constructively, and making conscious changes to become a less imperfect human being - is special to me. I could find myself falling for such a person undertaking a personal improvement journey.

 

And that is why I am here on this forum- not to find newer ways to label her and burn her at the stake, but to consult with other, more objective people to see if I could handle my situation in a better way.

 

Am I delusional for doing so? No, I don't think so.

Am I indulging her and myself by giving her and myself an out? Potentially, but that is also likely to be a glass half-empty way of looking at things. Being non-judgemental is not at all about seeking emotional rewards /ego boosts.

Being non-judgemental, is just that, nothing less and nothing more, it is a deeply spiritual attempt to find one's rightful place in this universe. I wouldn't confuse such spiritual stuff with trivial, worldly, reward seeking behavior

[NycGuy2019]

OMG. SMH

 

Why are you trying to rationalize this? She is a weak person who is unable to give this poor man the gift of getting over her. The more you describe her, the more I lose some respect for you for idolizing her the way you do. Sorry to be blunt like that but your explanation and defence of her, well your codependent slip is showing.

She is not the epitome of virtue you have painted her in your own head to be. I hope you see that because when you do, it will be much easier for you to get her out of your life altogether.

 

Thanks - that objective statement helps. I will need to think more about the co-dependence angle. Thank you for bringing that up.

 

And yes, it is true that I am quite the 'see the world as gray' person, instead of looking for 'it's either black or white' , simplistic explanations, especially for the situations that involve human connection.

 

I do see a world that is beyond the sphere of plain right and wrong.

[ThatwasThen]

I'm very surprised that you have no empathy for her boyfriend due to her disloyalty, infidelity, the emotional pain he will endure if he finds out she has no real integrity and has betrayed him... far more pain then if she were to just break up with him due to their different needs. All the while having nothing but acceptance for her and her said disloyalty, infidelity et al.

Your altruism is showin cracks, dear NYCguy.

[bluecastle]

That was a telling post. Your sense of personal virtue is very much entwined with a sense of her being virtuous. Oof. Tough to read, I have to admit.

 

I mean, you are describing the most base level human decency stuff as nearly impossible for her, as if her “attempts” to breakup are noble. She ain’t climbing Everest here two months after a shark bit off an arm in a surfing accident. She’s monkey-branching—keeping one dude warm while she warms another, with another dude holding her hand.

 

Alas, you’re that dude. So of course you need to pull out the watercolors. Makes sense. Without them you don’t look so good. All that meditation and self-work and where are you? Helping a rich girl string along a dude. There’s more, I get it. But there is that. Meditate on it.

 

Some great operas contain these scenes. But this is just your life.

[NycGuy2019]

I'm very surprised that you have no empathy for her boyfriend due to her disloyalty, infidelity, the emotional pain he will endure if he finds out she has no real integrity and has betrayed him... far more pain then if she were to just break up with him due to their different needs. All the while having nothing but acceptance for her and her said disloyalty, infidelity et al.

Your altruism is showin cracks, dear NYCguy.

 

More context here - her boyfriend is kind of controlling. I have met him quite a few times and know him enough to have an impression of him.

 

He calls her at odd times to check in where she is and what she is doing. Every time she meets a new person professionally, she has to "clear" it with her boyfriend if the new person happens to be male. In 2017, she met me, and a few other people, on campus, quite a few times over the course of a few weeks to seek help in resolving a professional situation she was facing.

 

Her boyfriend's "friend" on campus took a picture of her sitting with someone at a desk with laptops open and working, sent the picture back to the boyfriend and he sent that picture to her, and called her immediately to check what she was doing on campus.

 

Her boyfriend has been stringing her along for 2+ years. He promised to build a life with her in NYC when he entered a relationship with her. He promised to find a job in the US, but couldn't be bothered to actually apply for a job. She wrote all his job applications, and continued to do so when he left NYC after his visa expired. I helped her in some of this, so I sort of know.

 

He promised to make quarterly visits to NYC to attend job interviews, but didn't. Since he's from quite a wealthy family, he promised her that he would apply for an investor visa into the US, which is a sure-shot way of getting into the US. Only, he has not. Keeps complaining that his family business wont' let him spare the money, or that he's having trouble with suppliers and can't afford to take out working capital from the business in order to get an investor visa.

 

So, others might view her differently, but I don't see her behavior as extreme, nor do I see it as a black and white case of cheating. Sorry to have disappointed you here.

[NycGuy2019]

That was a telling post. Your sense of personal virtue is very much entwined with a sense of her being virtuous. Oof. Tough to read, I have to admit.

 

I mean, you are describing the most base level human decency stuff as nearly impossible for her, as if her “attempts” to breakup are noble. She ain’t climbing Everest here two months after a shark bit off an arm in a surfing accident. She’s monkey-branching—keeping one dude warm while she warms another, with another dude holding her hand.

 

Alas, you’re that dude. So of course you need to pull out the watercolors. Makes sense. Without them you don’t look so good. All that meditation and self-work and where are you? Helping a rich girl string along a dude. There’s more, I get it. But there is that. Meditate on it.

 

Some great operas contain these scenes. But this is just your life.

 

I provided more context in a separate post in response to ThatwasThen.

Hopefully, you can take that into consideration. And hopefully, you can see that I look at the world in gray, not in black or white.

 

Am I imperfect - yes I am. Does looking at things in gray give me an out as well - yes it does.

 

Is that the simplistic explanation for why I choose gray over 'black or white' - no.

[bluecastle]

See, I don’t judge myself. I own myself, see myself. Not fully—I’m not that cocky, but I’m not hiding in shadows. There is nothing from my past I would change, or am ashamed of, but I will call myself out, surgically. Heck, I don’t even believe in multiple “chances.” We get one, or a zillion, depending on which measuring stick you use clock out what happens between the first breath and the last.

 

Again, you don’t have in me the right audience for “gray zone” poetics. My walls are lined with trophies from the Gray Zone Olympics. Break your brain to come up with some interpersonal dynamics possible between people, and I’ve probably flirted with it. Some of it is interesting. Some of it is nonsense. Like her, I come with some surface-level goods that I can swing like weapons, and I have. Like you, I am a prism-turner with a brooding philosopher streak. You’re just going to need a stronger serve here if you want an ace.

 

Ooooh—let’s stretch that metaphor a bit further. What I increasingly am seeing, in this you-her thing? You are playing pro tennis in your mind on a junior varsity court. Next to her you feel like a pro, the wokest of the woke, pushing the limits of human convention, and so on. But your “opponent” does not merit the existential exhaustion fumes.

 

Sorry, but it’s low hanging fruit.

[NycGuy2019]

...

 

Sorry, but it’s low hanging fruit.

 

That is probably, most likely, what it is - low hanging fruit. Still, this is my story to tell. And my boundaries to set and my redemption to seek. And in my gray world, judging and labelling don't play a significant role.

 

Your past, your present and your world are all fascinating, and there may be some overlaps with mine, but am not as convinced of an overlap as you are. Your world was and is far more sophisticated, interesting, endearing, charming, all-consuming than mine is, an I can safely say this based on the enthralling descriptions you've shared in this thread.

 

Thank you for continuing to advise me. It is truly, dearly, appreciated.

[ThatwasThen]

You don't see in "gray" you see in tunnel vision.

 

He calls her at odd times to check in where she is and what she is doing. Every time she meets a new person professionally, she has to "clear" it with her boyfriend if the new person happens to be male. In 2017, she met me, and a few other people, on campus, quite a few times over the course of a few weeks to seek help in resolving a professional situation she was facing.

Then she should just break up with him which would be the mature and healthy thing to do for herself. Instead, in her naivety or her emotional immaturity, she strings him and herself along in this game that YOU don't hold against her because of your self-proclaimed worldly view of the goings on of this girl. To counsel her to keep going with him and seeing if he will come around to HER whim when their relationship is so dysfunctional is rather reprehensible IMO. That being said, she is an adult and if she's not mentally lacking, should at least know enough to dump someone like him and move on with her own life free of both you and him because as you share more, you are not helping her much in her personal growth if she is not with-it in mind, spirit, confidence and common sense to dump someone like him.

 

Tell me, why wouldn't you, in your mentorship of her, counsel her to dump the loser and get on with her life free of him? After all, he's certainly not a good candidate to be her boyfriend considering your post about him.

[bluecastle]

Some food for thought, as you tell your story, and reckon with it:

 

Me, I believe everyone on the planet lives in the gray zone. Humans are weird, life is murky and uncertain, and to cope with this we tell stories and lean on stories. Kerouac, religion, 401Ks, seductive sirens—pick a story you need to get through the day.

 

Point being, the stories are what we tell to give some blacks and whites to the gray. Saying "There is room for gray in my world" is dipping a paint brush into blacks and whites, not much different than "the savior will greet me at the gates." Is the person convinced salvation is coming sipping gin from a brown bag in the alley, or is he building homes in Uganda? Is the person cherishing the multitudes of gray in the monochromatic universe exerting a high volume of mental and emotional bandwidth to valorize and enable the flighty, indecent antics of a charming 20something bumbling about in the hot zone at the expense of his growth, or is he...?

 

See where I'm going here?

 

Preach the gray zone—I'll raise a glass. But you are using very real brush strokes to paint her in blacks and whites, and the gap between the thing on the easel and the thing out there in the world is not insubstantial. Thought experiment: What if she was an overweight 60something sticking up corner stores to pay for the meth that she smokes to forget her uncle who did you know what? You could be sympathetic and empathetic, thanks to your Buddhist studies, but do you start robbing stories with her? And I don't think you'd tell me the part where she pointed a gun at someone was anything but her pointing a gun at someone.

 

With this woman you're doing something different, and I think it's worth looking at as critically as you would a text. What I kind of see is you looking into a shattered mirror to see your best self, while breaking your brain not to "label" that mirror as a piece of glass that is broken. Because if you call the mirror broken, what's that say about the reflection?

 

You can do that for as long as you'd like. Hallmark cards are the high point of poetry to some people, and who am I to judge? I won't! But if those people start telling me that Hallmark and Shakespeare are one in the same—no, I'm going to try to get them to see the difference. Because Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and Hallmark is Hallmark. Not the same. Far, far from the same. You can call that narrow-minded and judgmental. I think it might be the opposite.

 

Lots of words for: there are health risks to eating low hanging fruit, especially when you need to tell yourself you're plucking it from the highest branch to savor the sweetness. The latter part, in the long run, is more dangerous, because it's a misapplication of intelligence to extract a certain set of primal satisfactions. It's a bit like the risk of defining tornadoes as "beautiful natural phenomena," so as not to offend tornadoes. They are, in ways, but they also tear through homes.

[NycGuy2019]

Lots of words for: there are health risks to eating low hanging fruit, especially when you need to tell yourself you're plucking it from the highest branch to savor the sweetness. The latter part, in the long run, is more dangerous, because it's a misapplication of intelligence to extract a certain set of primal satisfactions. It's a bit like the risk of defining tornadoes as "beautiful natural phenomena," so as not to offend tornadoes. They are, in ways, but they also tear through homes.

 

All fair points, and I promise to reflect and incorporate your advice. We have exchanged a few notes and I have nothing further to say.

Thank you and all the best,

Grateful me.