Wondering how I feel about new acquaintance, what to do next, whether I was taken advantage of and whether I could be lying to myself

[TheEternalPessimist]

That's your response? Wow...

[JTSW]

1 minute ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

That's your response? Wow...

It might be good for you.

It can help you.

I'm not saying for any other reason.

[TheEternalPessimist]

It's tiring to always be meant to feel like the crazy one with some imaginary huge expectations while everyone else gets an unconditional free pass at every turn and can do whatever they want but it's a problem if I find it unacceptable. 

[ExpatInItaly]

I will ask again, as I think it got buried in the thread:

How are your local friendships? Who do you spend time with that is not long-distance? 

[TheEternalPessimist]

Right now I don't have local friendships, I live in an area notoriously difficult for making friends which is why I plan to move in about 2-3 years when I will be able to. Me not having local friendships doesn't really change much to the situation, 10 years ago I had plenty of local friendships and still felt like visiting friends on another continent.

[JTSW]

11 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

It's tiring to always be meant to feel like the crazy one with some imaginary huge expectations while everyone else gets an unconditional free pass at every turn and can do whatever they want but it's a problem if I find it unacceptable. 

No-one is saying that.

I just think it may be beneficial to you to talk all this out with an experienced professional.

[ExpatInItaly]

6 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

Me not having local friendships doesn't really change much to the situation

But it might explain why you seem to get overly-attached to new or long-distance acquaintances. 

You don't have a social life outisde of that, it seems. 

[TheEternalPessimist]

I've always been attached to people, this is nothing new. I wouldn't call it over-attachment though, over-attachment is talking to the other person constantly, every day or every week, thinking about them all the time, it's nothing like that. 

[ExpatInItaly]

Look OP, I am not going to argue semantics with you.

The point is that you're being unreasonable in your expectations of this woman. Step back. If you visit, book your own accommodations and don't pout about it. 

 

[TheEternalPessimist]

As I said, I'll only visit and book my own accomodations if I see and feel that it's reasonable to visit. Right now, I don't have that feeling. 

[JTSW]

10 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

As I said, I'll only visit and book my own accomodations if I see and feel that it's reasonable to visit. Right now, I don't have that feeling. 

Because you haven't asked her how she feels about.

You're the one keeping yourself in a hole of doubt because you are too stubborn to just ask.

Instead you're waiting on her to make the moves, which she wont because she doesn't owe you anything.

This thread is going nowhere because you're not listening and continue to repeat the same things over and over.

[ExpatInItaly]

How often do you talk to her, OP?

[BrinnM]

Since you said, in your initial post, that you were going to visit that city anyway, I would just go there and make these travel plans, completely detached from whatever she does. If you see her, fine, if not, also fine. If you go there specifically to “visit a friend” though, aka her, then that’s a completely different story. She sounds like she doesn’t want a house guest, and I completely understand that, especially because she doesn’t really know you. The small flat is an excuse, IMO. She doesn’t want a house guest, and she doesn’t want to feel tied down for a week or for however long you’re planning to stay. 
So I would do nothing that involves her at this point, make your travel plans, and let her know when you’re in her city. Maybe she can meet up a few times. But expecting to basically stay with her full-time and hanging out on her couch to have a few glasses of wine and chat all night that’s a little bit too much in my opinion. I wouldn’t want that either.

……. if your decision, whether or not to visit the city, is completely dependent on her availability and whether or not you can stay with her, then you could do one thing: ask her if she could contact you as soon as she has a bigger apartment so you can make plans to visit then. That’s really all you can do at this point. But I wouldn’t recommend that either. I would just make my solo plans and then I let her know. I don’t think she wants a houseguest even with a bigger house.

Yes I know - she said she likes to have people “over”, but people say many things. Doesn’t mean they always 100% mean what they say and say what they mean. This is where reading between the lines comes in handy.

I am sorry you have been disappointed in the past but it’s a lesson learned - people have lives & they can’t and won’t drop everything just because you’re there for a week or two. Your expectations are too high, and I think that may be the problem here. Can you adjust them a little bit?

Edited August 25, 2023 by BrinnM

[TheEternalPessimist]

16 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

How often do you talk to her, OP?

Once a month or so, we send each other long paragraphs of text and that's how we've been communicating since March. I've asked her politely if we could text a bit more often because I feel like once a month is not enough to keep a friendship steady and also because sometimes I might write something that might require a quicker response than waiting 4-5 weeks which is exactly what happened a few weeks ago. She offered other solutions like talking on the phone but didn't actually follow up on that properly. She apologized several times for 'not being very diligent when it comes to responding on WhatsApp' but didn't actually do anything to improve that which begs the question: Why apologize for something you're doing wrong if you're not actually willing to adjust yourself and change? She also admitted that she doesn't have WhatsApp on her computer which was a bit shocking to me but it explains a bit why she always takes so long to respond. I hinted that she should maybe consider getting WhatsApp on her computer just for practical reasons, regardless of us texting. Last time when I sent here a few paragraphs she said she still hasn't gotten WhatsApp on her computer and sent me a facepalm emoji (I guess as a way of saying I'm too "dumb" to do it, I don't know). Overall I would say our communication feels needlessly complicated at times because of her lack of diligence (her words, not mine). Also it bothers me that she has apologized for her slow responses several times but has since not improved that at all. 

[TheEternalPessimist]

35 minutes ago, JTSW said:

Because you haven't asked her how she feels about.

You're the one keeping yourself in a hole of doubt because you are too stubborn to just ask.

Instead you're waiting on her to make the moves, which she wont because she doesn't owe you anything.

This thread is going nowhere because you're not listening and continue to repeat the same things over and over.

There isn't really anything to ask, I don't think she wants or doesn't want me to visit, she just doesn't want me to stay at her place for now which is fine though I hope that won't result in us barely hanging out if I come. 

[TheEternalPessimist]

18 minutes ago, BrinnM said:

Since you said, in your initial post, that you were going to visit that city anyway, I would just go there and make these travel plans, completely detached from whatever she does. If you see her, fine, if not, also fine. If you go there specifically to “visit a friend” though, aka her, then that’s a completely different story. She sounds like she doesn’t want a house guest, and I completely understand that, especially because she doesn’t really know you. The small flat is an excuse, IMO. She doesn’t want a house guest, and she doesn’t want to feel tied down for a week or for however long you’re planning to stay. 
So I would do nothing that involves her at this point, make your travel plans, and let her know when you’re in her city. Maybe she can meet up a few times. But expecting to basically stay with her full-time and hanging out on her couch to have a few glasses of wine and chat all night that’s a little bit too much in my opinion. I wouldn’t want that either.

……. if your decision, whether or not to visit the city, is completely dependent on her availability and whether or not you can stay with her, then you could do one thing: ask her if she could contact you as soon as she has a bigger apartment so you can make plans to visit then. That’s really all you can do at this point. But I wouldn’t recommend that either. I would just make my solo plans and then I let her know. I don’t think she wants a houseguest even with a bigger house.

Yes I know - she said she likes to have people “over”, but people say many things. Doesn’t mean they always 100% mean what they say and say what they mean. This is where reading between the lines comes in handy.

I am sorry you have been disappointed in the past but it’s a lesson learned - people have lives & they can’t and won’t drop everything just because you’re there for a week or two. Your expectations are too high, and I think that may be the problem here. Can you adjust them a little bit?

I don't expect her to basically stay with me full-time, there are likely going to be days where she will be working and I will be exploring the city on my own during the day which is totally fine. I would never ask her to take a few days off just for me, for instance. With that being said, I don't want a situation where I show up and she ends up being super busy due to poor planing or she only hangs out with me briefly to be "polite" and not because she wants to.

Why do you think she doesn't want a houseguest even with a bigger place? She explicitly told me she likes to have people over and seemed open to the idea of me staying over eventually. In turn, I invited her to come over to my city if she wants to.

I can't be expected to interpret personally what people don't say openly. 

I have never asked anyone to drop everything just because I'm there, that's not what this is about. All I would ask for is common decency and respect, not being meant to feel like I'm unwanted, not being taken for granted and not being taken for a ride.

 

[ExpatInItaly]

1 minute ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

it bothers me that she has apologized for her slow responses several times but has since not improved that at all. 

I'm going to be very honest with you here. 

She is not that interested in this friendship. You are much more invested than she is. She doesn't need What's App on her computer. That has nothing to do with her response time. It's her overall lack of interest in talking to you. 

Rather than telling her how to communicate or to do so more frequently, you need to read between the lines: she takes weeks to reply because this friendship isn't important to her. I am rather shocked that you're actually considering visiting her when she barely talks to you. 

You're worried about all the wrong things in this thread. There is no way you should even be entertaining the notion of going to see her (much less stay in her home) months from now when she's already let this fizzle out to almost nothing. Man, you need to take the hint and stop trying to hang on to something that really isn't there.

 

[ExpatInItaly]

1 minute ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

Why do you think she doesn't want a houseguest even with a bigger place?

She talks to you once a month. There is no chance she wants you in her house. Period. 

[BrinnM]

6 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

I've asked her politely if we could text a bit more often because I feel like once a month is not enough to keep a friendship steady 

I feel like you’re putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on her. If she wants to communicate more, she will. You can’t force it. Even if you “ask politely”. You’re making things really uncomfortable for her, it seems.

[TheEternalPessimist]

Just now, ExpatInItaly said:

She talks to you once a month. There is no chance she wants you in her house. Period. 

Although this is not a proper excuse, it might have something to do with the length of texts we send to each other though I would still expect her to find 20-30 minutes once every 1-2 weeks to respond. Given that she's apparently not willing to do that yet keeps hypocritically apologizing, I am considering cutting ties with her altogether. 

[BrinnM]

3 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

not being taken for granted and not being taken for a ride.

When has that happened to you? In what context? 
 

[TheEternalPessimist]

14 minutes ago, BrinnM said:

I feel like you’re putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on her. If she wants to communicate more, she will. You can’t force it. Even if you “ask politely”. You’re making things really uncomfortable for her, it seems.

I wouldn't call asking someone if we could text a bit more often to be 'unnecessary pressure'. Unnecessary pressure would be harrassing her constantly via text and lashing out at her. I have done none of that, I have been extremely polite and patient, I've always given her a lot of space and honestly I was expecting a bit more. In many ways, if I had known she would be acting like she has since we met, I would have not agreed to stay in touch. 

Edited August 25, 2023 by TheEternalPessimist

[TheEternalPessimist]

2 minutes ago, BrinnM said:

When has that happened to you? In what context? 
 

This goes back to what happened 10 years ago and people being inconsiderate of the sacrifices I did to come visit them, the time, energy and money that I spent and thus thinking they could just say any stupid thing to me they felt like saying afterwards. 

[TheEternalPessimist]

8 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

She talks to you once a month. There is no chance she wants you in her house. Period. 

Ok but then why make such a big deal about having people over? Seriously, she says a lot of things and then acts in direct contradiction to her statements afterwards. Again, I can't be expected to interpret personally what people don't say openly or rather what people say openly but then don't follow up on in action.

[BrinnM]

6 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

am considering cutting ties with her altogether. 

You’re going from one extreme to the other. Why? She’s nothing more than somebody you met during one of your trips, she’s an acquaintance …… can you accept that? People have friends, close friends, and acquaintances. It’s completely normal!! Close friendships develop slowly, often over many many years. Without being disrespectful - you’re reminding me a lot of somebody (a close friend of mine) who thinks very much in black and white, and I’ve always thought he might be on the spectrum. Smart guy, very nice, good at his job (scientist) - but can’t read between lines and doesn’t get hints. You always need to spell everything out for him in more than clear terms, and if you do, he sometimes gets pouty.