I don't know who I am or where i'm at anymore

[Porridge]

I was going to leave this thread to drift away but alas, there is a further development. I suspect the Almighty is stroking his beard and having a little giggle right now........

 

So I mentioned the oddities in new girl which I 'sensed' in the most part. Understandably, some wondered whether I was just paranoid and over-analyzing but I just found her intensity rather uncomfortable.

 

As already said, yesterday she messaged me saying she'd had a big fight with her ex and could do with a chat. I felt that this was more attention seeking and an intent to get her foot further in the door, so I kept the whole thing at arm's length.

 

Today things have gone up a notch and i'm set to be either a complete a-hole or a wiser person who has learnt his lesson. Whilst I was in the gym she called again but I couldn't answer it as the music is very loud. Five minutes later I received a text message from her which said,

 

"I've received some terrible news. A close friend of mine was killed last night. I could really do with having someone to talk to :-("

 

I'm never one to self-pity but why does this sort of s**t follow me around?

 

I had two thoughts:

 

1. This is an untruth and I need to get well away. It just seemed odd that there was an attempt at being victim yesterday but as that didn't work, it's stepped up a notch today.

 

2. Her friend was indeed tragically killed. However, if that's the case then wouldn't she be confiding in her close family and friends? I've met her all of four times and am not in a position to take this sort of thing on. If that makes me selfish then i'm sorry, but if the roles were reversed I would certainly not be laying my grief onto her.

 

I just hate being caught in these situations where you're left to question your own goodwill. Because that's been abused in the past, this current scenario is probably the worst thing that could happen.

 

Or maybe it's the best, and this self-proof that i've learnt and grown wiser.....

[trippi1432]

Porridge - Based on what you went through and the fact that you are a single father under your conditions, it's understandable that you have your guard way up. You know what I have found, having your guard up makes you even more susceptible to manipulation. Why? Because you still haven't defined healthy boundaries. Healthy is being able to discern the exact situation that you have outlined above, but you have to have those healthy boundaries to define what is good or bad in your life. Oxymoron...yeah, it is.

 

The first thing any one with compassion wants to do is to help, that is what any "friend" would do. Now I'm going to say something that you may not agree with...."friends" who want to just be "friends" don't have sex. So, her coming to you with a tragic death of a friend after having had sex with you is her asking for emotional intimacy whereas you were only willing to give physical intimacy. That is where your head is at this moment, most likely because your own emotional needs weren't being met before, so getting to emotional intimacy is foreign for you. That is most likely where your first mistake began, you were physically attracted and overlooked a lot.

 

If you want the kind of woman that you outlined before, you have to be willing to be friends without being sexual. Honestly, you will see the red flags much clearer and have better boundaries when you get past this one thing (okay, that was making a bit of a joke because the one thing for a man is the "wanting"). I did lose a best friend to a very tragic accident earlier this year and the last person I wanted to talk to was a man who had just gotten my number. He did give me space which was nice, but he started pushing for a date within a week....I was never intimate with him physically, so sharing in my own tragedy with my friends who did know her was normal for me. Had I been intimate with him, that may have been different because women have this inherent problem with thinking that if a man wants to have sex with them that he also cares about their feelings about other things than the physical intimacy.

 

Now, don't get upset with me for pointing some things out here because you are really no further than I was after my serial cheating husband put me years ago. I had little respect for men, they would just put their peckers where they wanted and eventually leave. I had to learn to value me so someone would value me as I did. So I put on my high-horse and the next man I got was an abusive a-hole.....(he did have some real issues that I couldn't relate to) the fact is, my own ego of not being cheated on .....well, got me the I love you but not in love with you lingo years in and him having an affair he won't admit to.

 

So, if you want to be friends with someone, be that up front. It's not about what they want or need from you, friends are not that. It's awkward now because of the physical intimacy that you weren't really ready for. She should rely on her friends....the red flag is that she called you. Clearly, she doesn't respect herself......walking away instead of reflecting on the situation would be the best course of action.

 

I'll give you the same advice I gave my favourite waiter several months ago when his "roommate" didn't like him going out with women after work....stop sleeping with your roommate because you give her mixed signals. Don't be that guy.....If you don't want to be involved, lay it out up front because a real woman who is confident doesn't need a man to define her. You really need to define you with the right boundaries so you don't wind up where you were before. That's how you put the right people in your life.

[tojaz]

I had two thoughts:

 

1. This is an untruth and I need to get well away. It just seemed odd that there was an attempt at being victim yesterday but as that didn't work, it's stepped up a notch today.

 

2. Her friend was indeed tragically killed. However, if that's the case then wouldn't she be confiding in her close family and friends? I've met her all of four times and am not in a position to take this sort of thing on. If that makes me selfish then i'm sorry, but if the roles were reversed I would certainly not be laying my grief onto her.

 

 

Those are the two possibilities Porridge, unfortunately there's only one way to know which one is correct.

 

You need to decide what your interaction with this girl is going to be and act accordingly. By all means be cautious, but don't let that caution become undo paranoia. Your psychoanalyzing and dissecting her motives based on four dates? While she is obviously in a different place then you and came on strong early on, I think that paranoia is more about you trying to create a way back to a safe distance rather then any malicious behavior on her part.

 

o sum it up, I said that I liked her, would like to hang out more, but I didn't want any pressure or expectation on things. It needed to be slow and almost friend-like for a while.

 

That's the information shes working off of Porridge, and talking things out is what friends do. If the above was truly what you meant, that I would hope you would talk with her.

 

On a side note: There's a good chance her lost friend was a member of her circle of friends and family, in that case they would all be dealing with their own grief as well, so it would be natural to seak out someone you felt comfortable with that was outside of that radius, since we also know that she is not a very socially open person, I would expect that circle is pretty small.

 

If it does turn out to be a ruse, run for the hills as fast as your legs will take you and don't look back.

 

TOJAZ

[RonaldS]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I've learned this much through my experiences (and my XW had some strong BPD tendencies, although I won't go so far as to diagnose her as such).

 

When a relationship such as your (or mine) ends, we feel lost because we have been role playing for so long and so much of our life has consisted of working to satisfy this other person. We don't lose our identity, but our purpose becomes one of almost servitude and getting approval (so that our partner doesn't flip out). When that's gone, we can be left blowing around like a dead leaf in the wind.

 

For me, the biggest step forward was when I accepted that it was over and started living for me. And the biggest part of that was not redefining a 'new' me, but instead looking at the guy that my XW met all those years before. I dug deep and found that guy again....the guy who was young and a little cocky and ambitious and excited about all of the possibilities life offered. The guy who had energy, vigor, who did whatever if for no other reason than to say I did it.

 

I dug down deep and pulled that guy back out, and then refined him. Made him a little older, a little wiser, a little more enriched and a little more diminished.

 

It's a great feeling. You start to get that hope back, that swagger back. You start walking more with your head up. Maybe not smiling, but also not sad. You are proprietary of your life again. At one point, you were beaten down into submission. But if you look back at who you were when you met her, at the guy she initially fell for, you will find that it's like rediscovering a band you used to dig but hadn't listened to in 15 years. Like, 'Damn, I forgot how much these guys rocked!'.

 

You'll be back. For sure.