HomeâForumsâRelationshipsâHow autism works when it comes to feelings and relations
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June 13, 2022 at 5:26 am #402329
AnnaParticipantHi,
It is going to be very long and very detailed. So. Here is the situation. I met a guy in September, we dated from March to April, because before I was still with someone and I needed time to recover after the breakup. Me and this new guy worked together at the same student pub. I will tell the story according to the timeline so you may understand better my current state of mind.
We were emotionally very close to each other. From December to end of February, we spent a lot of time talking in real life only the two of us, almost every day and until very late at night. In December we had a ball, he invited me to waltz and once the ball was over, we stayed talking from 3:00 am until 8:00 am. And after, we basically spent all our time talking about very intimate details of our lives. In other words, we were dropping out our emotional walls. During our time as workers at the student pub, we were all the time together, some people teased us âhaha, always togetherâ, always bursting out of laugh, following each other everywhere.
Around mid-January we started to also become very close physically, a lot of teasing, us poking each other, doing battle-look while standing very close to the other, at some point we even held hands just to warm each other. I want to emphasize a LOT on these details. It will be very important for the next part of the story.
In end of February, he organized a party, at first, I thought it was for everyone from our student pub. Turns out that only his closest friends were presents and I didnât know anyone. I was basically the only one from this student pub who got invited. Many of his best-friends asked him about me because they saw us interacting together, being very touchy, bursting out of laugh and teasing each other. He said to them that for him I was very complicated because he didnât know what I wanted and therefore he didnât know what he wanted either. Which for his defense was true, it took me somehow two weeks after this event to figure out myself. Prior to this party, I met up a few times with his friends and all those times, they were asking about us, because for them it was obvious, we werenât just friends.
Beginning of March, we started to date. It was fantastic, for real. Physically speaking, it worked amazingly well, we were both very demanding. We were just together, being physically and emotionally close to each other, more than ever. Holding all the time hands, hugging each other, I wasnât even the one who started those interactions. During one of our dates, we were just sat on a bench, laughing and talking when all of sudden, a perfect stranger who was running, stopped and asked us if he could take pictures of the two of us because we were, I quote unquote âvery cutes togetherâ. We didnât want people to know we were dating, because he was one of the responsible of the student pub. But the president of our student association asked me if we were together because, I quote unquote âyou didnât say nor act in a way which showed you were together, itâs just the way you both spend your time looking at each otherâ. Again, I would really like to pin-point all of those details, they are extremely important.
The dark sides of the story now: heâs a university drop out, not because he didnât have the capacities for, but simply because he burned out. He is going to walk to Spain from end of July until at least November, itâs his own way to figure himself out. He was very honest with me about this project. It happened that I was the first person made aware of it, even before his closest friends. Socially speaking we are from two different universes, he has to count every single penny in order to finish his months, he doesnât go out too much because itâs expensive, he doesnât eat every day full meals because of the price of food. I donât count my money, I spend it on whatever I want, I go wherever I want. And besides my studies, I work very closely with a lot of diplomats, NGOs, the national parliament and many ambassadors request me for cooperation. I am also very close to finish my bachelor and soon to be in a very prestigious university for my master. He doesnât come from a healthy family. I donât necessarily either, I would say that I belong to the upper-average class, we are far from having money issues and I am used to be friends and work with politicians, European commissioners/parliamentary.
Many times he told me little phrases such as âehh, well you know, you chose a poor boyâ, âmaybe for once I would finally be able to be useful and teach you somethingâ, âlaugh as much as you want, you are above averageâ, âif you donât do the effort to know me, Iâm not the kind of guy you will want to date or you will find interesting enoughâ, âyeah itâs normal for you to feel exhausted around me, I drain peopleâs energyâ. And after one of our dates, I asked him if he wanted to leave because he didnât feel comfortable, he said âyes please, being here around those people, remind me of what I donât have and canât afford to haveâ.
So, from all of these, I got that he was starting to feel less and less confident about himself and the reasons why we dated. On the other hand, the time we spent together was still filled by laugh and physical touches.
3rd of April. The breakup. I didnât see it coming. Like definitely not. Here are the reasons he invoked to break up: âI was happy with you, you were happy, I wanted to make you happy, you made me genuinely happy. But this is how I realized that I couldnât develop romantic feelings for you and that I just wanted to be friends with you.â I was astonished. I asked him if he felt emotionally closed to me, âyesâ, was he physically attracted to me and was the physical side satisfying enough for him? âyes, a lotâ he said. Then what was missing out? âRomantic attractionâ. And I didnât get it, how can one feel emotionally very close to someone, physically very attracted and compatible, yet not considering that as having romantic feelings for someone? He also added that he felt genuinely happy with me, every moment we spent together made him feel like he didnât feel for a very longtime.
One week later, on the 8th of April we got into a 5h conversation at our student pub because a girl told me about him and another girl, she thought they were dating since a long time and that he cheated on me. Turns out that this girl was one of his classmates since January, but he has known her for a longer time. He promised me that nothing happened between them. However, he admitted that he felt the chemistry between the two of them and that he kept his distance out of respect for me. We also discussed about the breakup and he finally admitted some important things: 1) he was scared that he lost me for nothing because he was simply overthinking and that he actually had feelings for me 2) it was more about him thinking he couldnât reciprocate my energy 3) he wanted to stay friends with me, but I told him that it wouldnât be possible, not when so much feelings were involved and that we were genuinely happy together and that if the price to pay for me to feel better was to lose him forever, then maybe it had to be that way. At the end, we both ended up crying a lot, saying to each other that we didnât want to leave the place because we knew that it would mean saying farewell.
However, during the rest of April and May, we kept bumping into each other because we belong to the same student associations, he is a board member and I am a board member of a NGO which works closely with this association. At first I tried to ignore him. On the 10th of May, we bumped into each other and I told him that yeah, itâs stupid to avoid each other to what he responded âyes, I was kind of hoping that you would come and talk to meâ. From this moment, we started to talk again, be around each other, bursting out of laugh as we used to do. During an event, he even said to one of his friends that he was going to stay with me and one of my friends instead of going with his own friend to join other people. At another event, we stayed talking for somehow 1h just the two of us and when a girl came, he ignored her. Finally, during a ball, I was ignoring him but when he saw that I wasnât going to talk to him, he literally grabbed my arm to start a conversation with me. When we were together, I saw some of his friends looking at us, a lot. I didnât understand why. But I couldnât keep doing this masquerade with him. I decided that I wanted to talk to him about the situation. He avoided me.
On the 26th of May, we had a pub event, I wanted to talk to him but since the moment I asked him if we could talk, he was being distant. YET, when I was queueing with my friend to get in the pub, he was working for a while. One of his friends I know was also queueing 10m further away from me. He brought his friends with us in the queue and I started talking to his friends, without him. He did everything he could to get into the chat (he knew the friend I was queueing with). Later in the evening I think my world crumbled. I saw him going outside of the pub to meet with a girl, not a random girl, but the girl he told me nothing happened. They didnât stay long together, she didnât get in and at the end he.. PAT PATED her to say goodbye. But it was already too much for me, I stormed between the two of them, he got mad, I got mad and then I left. After he isolated himself for two hours while I was just talking with two friends of mine. Once we both came back to the pub, he spent 1h hour staring at me and he was hugging some of his friends, as if he was looking for comfort.
The day after we talked about the situation, he told me that he didnât want to hurt me, that he owed me nothing anymore and that he didnât feel like we had more to discuss about the past. I told him that he didnât understand how seeing him with her made me feel, because I knew who she was and that I wanted to discuss about the CURRENT situation which was not ok. He didnât reply.
The week after, we had a party and we met up because we obviously belong to the same kind of group of friends. I was talking to one of his best friends who is also a good friend of mine. She told me that him and that girl were dating. Once again, my world crumbled. Because she told me they were ââdatingââ since the 17/18th of April. I was enraged, I went to see him, asked him what was going on, what game he was playing. He told me that he had feelings for her but he didnât know the meaning of what they had and if it even had a meaning for him. He also dismissed me when I said that yeah congrats for rebounding with someone TWO weeks after the breakup, I didnât know you were that kind of person. He said that I was just projecting, and it wasnât how it happened and that he didnât have feelings for me anymore. After this conversation, I spent my time with my friends. I saw him three times afterwards: 1) I was dancing with just one of his friends, he came in the middle to grab his friendâs attention (he had other friends around as well) 2) I also saw him outside, he was alone and looked very lost and sad, when he saw me, he started staring at me 3) when I went to the bathroom, he was waiting for his friends outside, alone, he saw me and he stared at me, he even did a move in my direction. The day after, I sent him a message where I wrote EVERYTHING I wanted to discuss in real life with him and then I blocked him.
This is it for the timeline, I will write another post where I explain my doubts and why I had the feelings everything was off.
June 13, 2022 at 6:25 am #402331AnnaParticipantNow, it kind of kills me to realize that he may not be honest with me and his feelings towards me.
First of all, during my conversation with his best friend, she finally named his neuro-divergency: autism. Which didnât come as a chock at all, one of my closest friends is also autistic and they both display a lot of common signs, the first one being very oblivion when it comes to communication. I donât put the blame here. I know how it feels to be neurodivergent, I have ADHD/OCD, I am HSP and gifted child myself. But he never said out loud the name of it and I canât stop myself from thinking that he was trying to hide it, I mean, he told me that he brain was slower than average and that socially speaking it takes him a longer time to bound with individuals. (and thatâs another important point here)
Secondly, one of my friends who is his neighbor, talked about a situation with a guy who happens to be one of âmyâ guyâs friend, since beginning of May. My friend and I are really similar, in our characters but mostly in the situations with our two guys as mine was the former pub leader and hers is the current one.
Interestingly enough, the two guys arenât that closes, they know each other but donât have a lot in common and donât necessarily hang out together. My friendâs guy is notoriously known to be a fuckboy who doesnât want to settle down at all. The two of them were emotionally closes, he confessed a lot to her, and they spent 2/3 nights together without having sex. They said to each other that nothing would happen, and they were just friends. So, the situation was pretty obvious. And on top of that, âmyâ guy never saw my friend and âherâ guy interacting with each other, so letâs keep in mind that everything he will say is completely based on pure assumptions.
Here is what âmyâ guy said to her: 1) On the 12th of May, the three of us were talking about the situation. My friend said âwhy people are so complicated?â, which I responded âitâs just fear which makes people acting in such a complicated wayâ, he said to me and only to me âyou canât say itâs just fear. Fears are based on the past and experiences. And it makes people take decision they regretâ. At that point it was obvious we were talking about each other
2) On the 20th of May, âmyâ guy said to my friend what he thought: for him, my friendâs guy has feelings for her but heâs scared because he doesnât know how to deal with that. Maybe he realized that he was becoming too vulnerable around you and hurt you before you hurt him. In addition, he also said that the next days would be hard because he may behaves to repair the situation and that would be by pretending nothing changed just to avoid confrontation, reassure himself that he was right and that she was just overthinking.
3)My friend told him by message on the 22th of May: âI think heâs too coward to face me once I say âwe need to talkââ, which âmyâ guy responded âHeâs putting you in a horrible situation, youâre the one who needs to make hard decisions while he can only stay quitâ.
4) After our clash on the 26th of May, the same day, he came to my friend and asked her if she wanted to talk. So, they spent their Sunday talking about her and her guy. And from that moment, I realized that they were both projecting onto each other. Him, me and her, his guy. I also really think that for him, itâs a way to understand what I think, what I feel and maybe to find a way to acknowledge his feelings and emotions under the cover of another situation. I think it is what happens, because everyone who knows my friendâs guy, knows that he really doesnât want to settle down, if he shows up around with another girl, it doesnât mean that he was trying to play mind games but simply that he is perfectly ok with the situation, moreover, they both said that nothing would happen and that it was only friendship. So, why would he bother getting hurt by developing more for someone with whom he already set u boundaries?
Now the situation with that girl which I genuinely donât understand. First of all, knowing him and how his brain works, he canât develop romantic or friendly feelings for someone he has known for only a couple of days. He promised me that before dating, they barely talked or even didnât talk to each other. April and May were extremely messy for him. April because of the breakup, some issues with the associationâs board and all of this led him to shut down at his place for at least two weeks without going out nor showering (he said that to one of his friends). And during May, well, I know he shuts down at least for 2 weeks because of me. I also know for a fact that he spent a lot of time with his friends, with the board and also with me. Yet, he assured me that he had feelings for her while one week and half before, talking about the 4 points I mentioned above with my friends. I know for sure he was projecting when he talked to my friends because all of his other advices, he gave to her, directly came from me and what I said during the breakup time.
Also, during April, when I knew he was having so much troubles with the board, I sent him a message in order to support him. In a pure friendly way, because he sent me a message to discuss about the situation with the association, we spent 5h talking about it and I gave him advices to deal with it. So it was obvious for me to send him a supportive message when I knew he wasnât feeling ok and there was going to be a hearing with all the board. Yet he told me that for him, if he didnât answer to this message it was because he thought nothing good would emerge from it. To what I said, ok yes sure, I got your point, but then, WHY didnât you keep your distance with me in real life too? How comes it was less dangerous for you to be around me than responding to one simple message? How comes he didnât keep his distance from me out of respect for her since they are supposed to be dating for a while now? Because as I remembered him, he told me that he kept his distance from her out of respect for me. So why didnât he apply this to me as well? He said that he tried but I was the one going to him. Yes and no, I refer to what I stated in my other message for this point.
Another detail which tickled me a lot, I could sens that they werenât physically close to each other. On the 26th of May, when I saw the two of them saying goodbye, they didnât even hug, he just pat-pated her. I mean, it was supposed to be one good month they were dating. He is the kind of person very tactile; he needs physical touches. He told me that he didnât hug everyone but he selected the people; on top of that, I know for him being physically close to someone is deeply linked to being emotionally close.
I have the gut feelings that he dates her and feel more âokâ with her because he knows he is not as emotionally close to her as he used to be with me. His best-friend told me that he didnât even tell her that we dated, he told her that he felt extremely guilty about me and him, that he felt surer about the other girl. But again, it was obvious he would persuade himself he felt this way, no? I mean, at that stage, when he told his best-friend, we were supposed to have said farewell three weeks ago to each other. She also told me that he was the kind of person who needs to feel that he fits into peopleâs expectations and if he doesnât feel that he fits then he will overthink and most likely persuade himself of another truth which will deny his real emotions and feelings. And finally, she thinks that he started dating her because he is trying to forget me, because he knows that he is leaving our town in a couple of weeks and our country at the end of July. My friends also added that he knew he couldnât allow himself to stay close to me because he knew he wasnât in a good place and was on the verge to leave.
So I donât know what to think, I know Iâm kind of overthinking but at the same time, so many hard facts keep converging towards all of those assumptions, I keep receiving proofs that all of them are actually true, or maybe it just all comes from my mind because it makes me feel so bad about myself..
June 13, 2022 at 6:37 am #402332AnnaParticipantAlso I have the feelings that he didn’t want me to know that he was seeing that girl, the day after the 26th when I confronted him, he never said anything about him and her dating while I specifically told him that I knew who she was, explaining to him how it triggered me and that I wanted answers because of the feelings I still have for him.
June 13, 2022 at 7:29 am #402333AnnaParticipantSorry for all those posts, I just remembered another thing which definitely tickled me a lot: I have some deep feelings that he is not emotionally connected with her. Twice he baited on her. For one event beginning of May, according to some friends of mine who were there, she went to the place, looking and running all over to see him. He wasn’t here anymore, basically he left without noticing her. And end of May, he was supposed to be at an event with a friend, I know because I also went to that event at the very last minute and my friend told me that he told her he was supposed to go as well. He never came, his friend was alone, very mad, he didn’t know I was here, he was offline all day and until the day after.
I know him, I know if he really cares, he will make the effort to be present, mostly when he gives his word. And for the first event, in order to demonstrate my point: when it came to me, he used to wait for me to appear somewhere, to look after me when we had parties, gala or dinners together before being officially together. With her, I feel like he didn’t do these kind of efforts. I realized that during the ball where he grabbed my arm, he went to another party where she was, but we spent the evening together and he only waited the last 30min of her party to join her. And I know for sure he wasn’t even with her the day after because my friend who lives in the same corridor as him, saw him in the morning and they spent something like 2/3 hours talking together.
On top of that, I could pretty much track back his schedule over the last 2 months, it’s not rocket science because his week-ends, he was either with me and our friends partying, or with my friend talking in their shared kitchen for hours and during the week-days, I spent my time seeing stories on social medias about him being with his board or just with his friends all day and all night. And when it was none of that, so many of my friends told me “yeah I saw him alone that day blablabla, he was going to the laundry room blablabla”. To be fair, even when I didn’t want to hear from him, I always find someone talking about him to me and what he did during his day.
Basically for him and I quote unquote himself, being with someone and caring for someone is about communication and spending time together. So far if I look over the last two weeks and half, he spent more time with his friends and his board than with her. When we were dating, we always used to spend at least two days together, if not more, not because we didn’t have other plans but just because we wanted to see each other. So I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’m just imagining stuffs for my own sake, but again, so far, is it really only assumptions if it based on what I clearly see and what people tell me?
To be honest, I’m not necessarily looking for a rebound, right now, I wish to have more understandings about his attitude, is it me who is imagining more than I should or is his attitude really suspicious?
June 13, 2022 at 7:39 am #402335
AnonymousGuestDear Anna:
I am reading your original post at this point, will read the rest and reply within the hour.
anita
June 13, 2022 at 9:55 am #402340AnonymousGuestDear Anna:
A summary of your original post: You shared that you met a guy with whom you worked in a student pub in Sept 2021. Dec 2021=> end of Feb 2022, the two of you spent a lot of time talking and getting “emotionally very close to each other.. talking about very intimate details of our lives”. In around Jan 2022, the two of you “started to also become very close physically, a lot of teasing, us poking each other… being very touchy”. In February he invited you to a party that he organized for his closest friends and you attended it. The two of you started to date in March 2022, being “physically and emotionally close to each other, more than ever”, “it was fantastic, for real. Physically speaking”.
He told you that he dropped out of university because he was burned out and the he intended to take the walk to Spain (The Camino de Santiago)Â end of July- Nov 2022, or longer, that “it’s his own way to figure himself out”. You knew of his plans but you didn’t know that he was going to break up with you a month after you started dating, in early April 2022. When he broke up with you he told you: “I was happy with you… But… I couldn’t develop romantic feelings for you and that I just wanted to be friends with you”, that he was missing “romantic attraction” for you.
In May the two of you “started to talk again, be around each other, bursting out of laughing as we used to do”. You wanted to talk about the situation between the two of you, but he avoided such talk. At some point you saw him going outside the pub to meet with the girl he was attracted to (he told you so earlier). What happened next: “I stormed between the two of them, he got mad, I got mad and then I left”. The day after, “he told me that he didnât want to hurt me, that he owed me nothing anymore and that he didnât feel like we had more to discuss about the past”.
A week later, you heard that he was dating the girl you saw him with, you were enraged, went to see him, “asked him what was going on, what game he was playing”. At some point in the conversation, he said, “he didnât have feelings for me anymore”. The day after, you “sent him a message where I wrote EVERYTHING I wanted to discuss in real life with him and then I blocked him”.
In your second post, you wrote: “Now, it kind of kills me to realize that he may not be honest with me and his feelings towards me”. You shared that his best friend told you that he is neurodivergent (differing in mental or neurological function from what is considered typical or normal), that he is autistic. You wrote that you are neurodivergent as well, “I have ADHD/OCD, I am HSP and gifted child myself”. You are now thinking that he was trying to hide his autism from you and you have “the gut feelings that he dates her…Â because he knows he is not as emotionally close to her as he used to be with me… that he started dating her because he is trying to forget me, because he knows that he is leaving our town in a couple of weeks and our country at the end of July”.
You wrote: “So I donât know what to think, I know Iâm kind of overthinking but at the same time, so many hard facts keep converging towards all of those assumptions, I keep receiving proofs that all of them are actually true, or maybe it just all comes from my mind”-
– this is what I think, put simply:Â it hurts a lot when a girl loves a boy and he doesn’t love her back. The thought that he doesn’t love her back is too painful, so even though he told her that he doesn’t love her back, she refuses to believe it. She makes the unsupported assumption that he does love her. Next, she desperately looks for evidence to support or prove her unsupported assumption. She hyper focuses on him, observing every expression on his face, his words, the way he moves, what he does… she talks about him to people who know him, and to people who don’t (here on this thread), and she gathers “evidence” or “proof” that he loves her. I put quotation marks around evidence and proof because she assumes that his expressions, words and acts etc., are all about her, when they are probably not. Examples:
“1) I was dancing with just one of his friends, he came in the middle to grab his friendâs attention” – likely, he wanted his friend’s attention and wasn’t thinking about you, but you believed, or wanted to believe, that it was about you.
“2) I also saw him outside, he was alone and looked very lost and sad, when he saw me, he started staring at me” – it doesn’t mean that his sad expression was about you. and regarding the staring, he could have looked in your direction, not at you. Likely, he wasn’t thinking about you.
“3) when I went to the bathroom, he was waiting for his friends outside, alone, he saw me and he stared at me, he even did a move in my direction” – again, you imagine that any of his expressions and moves are about you when likely, they are not.
4) “the gut feelings that he dates her…Â because he knows he is not as emotionally close to her as he used to be with me… that he started dating her because he is trying to forget me” – likely, he dated her because he was attracted to her, that’s all, not because he wanted to forget you. If he is on the autistic spectrum (it was only a suggestion made, he was not diagnosed, plus the behaviors you described do not indicate that to me), it doesn’t mean that he loves you.
“I have the gut feelings… Also I have feelings” – your feelings are directing your thinking: you need to feel-believe that he loves you, so … you are thinking any which way that will lead you to that feeling-believing.
I am sorry, Anna.
anita
June 13, 2022 at 10:33 am #402342AnnaParticipantHi Anita,
Thank you for your feedbacks. I keep learninh new things about him.
Concerning his autism, he actually got diagnosed a few years ago. And after a big depressive phase he even had eletro-something.
I talked to his bestfriend today. She told me that he told her he wasnât sure about her and about the fact that he wanted to go until summer with her, he told her that 1/2 weeks after starting seeing her. Last week he also told me that he didnât know the meaning of it, he wasnât even sure if it had a meaning for him. And apparently now he is breaking up with her because he didnât feel like it.
I genuinely donât understand him, how could he tell me litteraly one week ago that he had feelings for her, none for me and now he is breaking up with someone for whom he is supposed to have feelings for?
I mean, I know he is going for three months in Spain, he knows that he wasnât ready for anything serious yet (as he told me on the 8th of April). Why then putting himself through another relation with someone he was more attracted than me?
What infuriate me so much is that he has known her before me, he knew she was attracted to him since the beginning. He wasnât sure about me at all. He knew he found her attractive. YET, once I appeared in the frame, he completely snapped her out and dated me. If he knew he was more into her, then why dating me in a first place? If he was genuinely happy when we were together, then why breaking up? Why stopping something which made him feel that way? Why telling to my friends that he actually had regrets? Why telling to me that he felt bad about his decision?
I am also aware of the fact that I was over-analyzing his moves. But I am so mad at himfor breaking up something which made us both  genuinely happy. With me, three weeks after dating, he was telling his bestfriend that he wanted to follow me abroad. With the other gile after two weeks of datint, he was saying that he couldnât think about summer with her.
What is wrong with him? I know he freaked out, I know he didnât feel worth it of being loved (he talked a lot about it). But he knew when he was going to leave for Spain, he knew he wasnât ready. Why then did he start something with her right after breaking up with me? Why did he not go straight for her since he was more sure about her than me?
I am so so so mad at him because he told me that he wished to see me again, later once his life would be more clear. I know for him it wasnât the right timing for whatever.
I am so mad at him for not having kept his distance with me, while we both said to each other that keeping our distange would be the best attitude as it was obviously way to painful for us to stay around.
I am so mad at him for dating this girl right after breaking up, one week after telling me that he wasnât sure at all for taking the right decision and three weeks later, saying to my friend that he was carrying so much regrets and admitting that he didnât know how to manage feelings.
June 13, 2022 at 10:43 am #402344AnnaParticipantAnd Iâm so mad at myself because I can sens from miles away that the same situation than with my other ex will happen. My other ex is trying to come back in my life now. Remember, he was very depressed and such. I really thought he didnât have feelings for me either. Well, now he made it clear that he wants to rebound with me.
Why do I feel that it will be the exact same with him? Iâm not hoping something at all. As I said, now his conversation is in my spams and I am actually seeing another guy, someone who matches more my energy and level of ambition (he is the youth representative of our country for the UN).
I dated in total 5 guys on a serious business. There is only ONE exception who didnât try to come back (and for a good reason: him being my sexual abuser). Otherwise even the first guy qi dated TEN (!!) years ago came back one month before and told me straight to the point that he wanted a rebound as well.
What is wrong with them? And this guy, I am sure he wonât be an exception. The story and the patterns are way too similars for me to ignore  and dismiss it. I know everyone is different, him as well, but there are too much similarities and apparently he talked about me a lot this weekend to his friends.
I am just tired of those feelings and to cry over him for NOTHING.
June 13, 2022 at 11:19 am #402346AnonymousGuestDear Anna:
You are welcome.
“He actually got diagnosed a few years ago. And after a big depressive phase he even had electro-something...I genuinely donât understand him, how could he tell me literally one week ago that he had feelings for her, none for me and now he is breaking up with (her)?… Why then… ?… If he knew he was more into her, then why dating me in a first place? If he was genuinely happy when we were together, then why breaking up? Why… ? Why… ? Why…? What is wrong with him? Why then did he start… ? Why did he not….? ” –
– did you notice that you are expecting consistent, logical and well-planned behavior from a person who (if the story is true) was so depressed that he was prescribed with electroshock therapy aka Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)?
This therapy is prescribed for people who are severely depressed or severely psychotic and who do not respond well to other treatments. One side effect of ECT is memory loss… that by itself can explain inconsistency.
“I know he freaked out, I know he didnât feel worth it of being loved (he talked a lot about it)… Why then did he start something with her right after breaking up with me? Why did he not go straight for her since he was more sure about her than me?” –
– I don’t know, Anna. I am guessing that his behavior wasn’t planned. Often people act impulsively and not according to a well-devised plan that was put together when thinking calmly. I think that he wasn’t serious about you nor was he serious about her. I think that you imagine that the relationship was closer than it really was.
“I am so mad at him for dating this girl right after breaking up, one week after telling me that he wasnât sure at all for taking the right decision and three weeks later, saying to my friend that he was carrying so much regrets and admitting that he didnât know how to manage feelings” – you are giving his words too much weight. People say things impulsively, or so to people-please, so to avoid conflicts, etc., and then.. people forget what they say. It is you whose been remembering his every word; he doesn’t.
Plus, much of what you think he said is not what you heard from him say directly, people told you that he said this or that. Verbal communication from one person to another often get distorted when it goes through one or more people in between.
anita
June 13, 2022 at 11:21 am #402348AnnaParticipantand also, what is romantic attraction then? because so far, romantic attraction deals with a deep emotional connection isn’t it?
According to this website, here are some signs of romantic attractions:
- You’ll feel an emotional connection. In other words, you’re attracted to them as a person and not because of their body. You like their imperfections, opinions, mannerisms, and so on. While physical attraction is still important in a relationship, your emotional connection is more important.
- You like them for their personality. While friendships and even sexual relationships can be based on personality too, a romantic relationship brings personality above anything else.
- You like hearing their opinions. Even if you disagree, hearing this person out makes you happy.
- You just want to be physically close to them all the time, even if the feeling isn’t exactly sexual. Sometimes you just want to cuddle up to someone.
How is that not what we used to have and feel before and during the dating phase? Personality wise, if we didn’t match, we wouldn’t have been spending so many nights talking, physically closes yet nothing sexual in between.
Both of us cared a lot about the other’s opinions, again, we confessed to each other many things and we used to manage a lot of issues together.
June 13, 2022 at 11:25 am #402349AnonymousGuestDear Anna:
I think that you are very agitated at this time and that the best thing for you is to take a break from your current issues. How about a hot bath or a run or a brisk, long walk.. or a swim, something to take your mind off this man and relationships with men?
I want to take more time reading your recent posts as well as your previous thread about the other guy and get back to you later.
anita
June 13, 2022 at 11:37 am #402350AnnaParticipantâ did you notice that you are expecting consistent, logical and well-planned behavior from a person who (if the story is true) was so depressed that he was prescribed with electroshock therapy aka Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)?
This therapy is prescribed for people who are severely depressed or severely psychotic and who do not respond well to other treatments. One side effect of ECT is memory loss⌠that by itself can explain inconsistency.
To be honest, I am definitely not familiar with this kind of treatment. Apparently it happened almost a decade ago. I have no idea what was the starting point of it. I am very confused with this. I wasn’t expecting this to come up. Now I understand a bit more why I felt that he reminded me my ex. There was something similar in them, but I couldn’t put words on it.
I think that he wasnât serious about you nor was he serious about her. I think that you imagine that the relationship was closer than it really was.
Yes, to be fair, some of my friends also told me that it wasn’t possible for him to be serious with someone so close to his departure. With his student room, he has a two months notice, he said to his best friend about him not knowing about going until summer with her, etc roughly around end of April/beginning of May. He will leave for his family summer house beginning/mid-July for 2/3 weeks and then he will leave our country on the 31th of July (I know, he told me that). Which also means, him moving out from his student housing end of June/beginning of July for sure. So basically, even before getting engaged with her, he knew exactly when he was going to leave. It wasn’t about him not being sure because of his feelings, but just him knowing perfectly that he couldn’t do so. Is he just trying to make him look better as individual than he is? I mean, as I said to his best friend, I know deep down he is a good person. However his current life is so messed that it makes him take the poorest decisions which make him look like the worst guy ever.
People say things impulsively, or so to people-please, so to avoid conflicts, etc., and then.. people forget what they say. It is you whose been remembering his every word; he doesnât.
Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think this is it. Because last week, he assured me that he thought every words he told me, repeating some stuffs I even forgot and felt genuinely everything.
Verbal communication from one person to another often get distorted when it goes through one or more people in between.
Hm this is true but I would say that 80% of what I “heard” about him was said through messages tho and I got screenshots about him saying those things.
June 13, 2022 at 11:47 am #402353AnnaParticipantOh.
I was looking for something else when I was re-reading one of our conversations, but then I found something: he actually told me that he was still recovering from years of emotional neglect. For many years he was alone, focusing on himself and his hobbits but then someday he realized what he was missing out and it made him feel bad about himself and that now he was still trying to figure out how he would like to live his life.. He told me that in January. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise for me all of his reactions now, right? I mean, I knew in what I was engaging myself.. I guess I just tried to avoid thinking about this.
But then, I have another question, how comes, me despite being successful, keep getting attracted to those kind of personalities? I promise you, after my other ex, I felt very healthy and confident about myself..
June 13, 2022 at 12:02 pm #402354AnnaParticipantOh my god, I am sorry for all those little posts, for some reasons I can’t update my messages. Anyway, I just remembered something else he said during the break-up: “I am happy with you, you are happy with me, we both make each other happy. So this how I realized I couldn’t develop romantic feelings.” and after he said that he felt.. “intoxicated” by this happiness, that he felt that he couldn’t bring in the relation as much energy as I did.. ?????? But i mean, we both agreed that we were at two different extremes: him having a slower brain than average, me having a faster one. Me with my hyperactivity, I obviously have more energy than average, he told me that he felt he was draining my energy without being able to give back.. As I told him, I didn’t mind, him being happy because of me, made me happy and him making me happy was the main source of my energy..
June 13, 2022 at 12:18 pm #402355AnonymousGuestDear Anna:
A screenshot, if you read its context (all communication that happened before the screenshot), is reliable, unlike words people hear and then repeat, paraphrased and often distorted.
Memory loss is usually a short term side effect of ECT, so I read. So, if he had ECT a decade ago, it’s not likely that he still suffers memory loss, but it’s possible. Regardless, some people’s memories are significantly poorer than others’, for various reasons.
Regarding your most recent post: “he actually told me that he was still recovering from years of emotional neglect… So it shouldnât come as a surprise for me all of his reactions now, right? I mean, I knew in what I was engaging myself.. I guess I just tried to avoid thinking about this” – ongoing childhood emotional neglect definitely harms a child.
“But then, I have another question, how comes, me despite being successful, keep getting attracted to those kind of personalities? I promise you, after my other ex, I felt very healthy and confident about myself” –
-In Oct 22,2021, in your first thread, “A depressed boyfriend”, the boyfriend at the time being the ex you referred to today, you shared regarding your own childhood/ own mother: “She is extremely perfectionist, never happy with what I did because it was never enoughâŚregardless what I do.. she will always try to find something to criticize… I told her a few months ago that her insecurities werenât mine, that I wasnât responsible for the way she physically and mentally feels. If she thought she wasnât good enough, well, it wasnât my job to make her feel better. So in any way, she didnât have the right to make me feel like a trash just because she felt like a trash” –
– you thought at the time, after two years of therapy, that your issues in regard to your mother were resolved, but seems like the issues with her were transferred (as I suggested this to you on Oct 22, 2021) to your romantic relationships in some major ways, no?
anita
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