After being in a relationship for 4 years, I thought I understood men. Clearly I don’t. 5 months post-breakup, I know my past relationship was a mess. I accept that now. It would have never worked. We wanted different things but stayed together because we knew each other so well. I often blamed myself for being too emotionally attached to him, which could be one of the reason that drove him away. Before I met him, I was very realistic. I knew how men were after witnessing heartaches of my girlfriends. My guy friends always warned me about men and so I emotionally prepared myself when I met men… so I thought. I let my guard down after meeting him. This guy who I thought was my soul-mate. He really was my everything. What I regret the most about my relationship is that I changed myself for him. I would turn my world upside down for him. Now when I think back, why did I do that? Why did I lose myself? Why did I let him define me? Although I am still a little lost, I am slowly finding my way back to being my old self again. I was very independent before I met him. When my relationship ended, I felt so lost without him. It bothered me that I was unable to do the smallest things without talking to him first. I basically had to put my training wheels back on and learn how to be independent all over again. I knew I needed to come out of my comfort zone. People often ask me why I look so stressed all the time. To me, that’s a good question because I have so much going on in my head that I don’t know how to share it with people. Its too complicated to explain and too irritating to share. I get annoyed with myself when I think about my past and worry about my future. I know that I can’t control everything and I just need to LET GO!

I have gotten rid of everything that reminds me of him and I even made a list of “why the relationship wouldn’t work” and “why the relationship would work”. The list was clearly longer in the former. I have read posts from users who are going through similar heartaches as I am and just wanted to tell you that you are not alone. We all go through heartaches and its a time of growth. I guess its better to have lived and loved than not to have loved at all.

As I am trying to move on with my life and allowing myself to finally meet new people, I am still confused about men. After being in a monogamous relationship for 4 years, it felt really good to be attracted to someone else. I met a guy through mutual friends while I was visiting them and although the attraction wasn’t instant, after meeting him a couple more times my attraction for him grew. We didn’t text each other or anything but kind of got to know each other in person. We flirted a lot and I caught myself blushing around him (considering I haven’t blushed in a long time) but I felt the attraction was one way so I didn’t make a big deal about it. I am a bit rusty in flirting department and I could be reading the attraction signs incorrectly. I seemed he was just a flirtatious guy towards all women. As time went on, he would be where I would be. Show up in places where I didn’t think he would be. We would talk and joke around but at times, he would be hot and cold. It was very confusing. He was VERY hard to read. I knew I didn’t want to deal with another hot and cold guy after ending a 4 year relationship but he would constantly ask me what I was doing over the weekend but never ask me out. When we saw each other, he would sit very close to me and I wouldn’t pull away either. I felt he was always looking at me or staring at me. When we had eye contact, he would have the biggest smile that made me melt. He would tease me and compliment me. There were just so many signs he may be attracted to me but nothing ever happened so I just brushed it off. One minute he seemed to be into me and next minute he pretended I was not there. I got fed up and just stopped even trying to understand him. Finally after my last few encounters with him, he found out I just got dumped by my long-term relationship. What got me more confused when he proceeded to tell me about his ex-girlfriends and sex life. I am not a prude when it comes to sex but I didn’t understand the reason why he shared that with me. We both finally admitted our attraction to one other but I made it clear that I don’t do one night stands and he respected that. He was honest about the type of women he usually dates (I didn’t fit the type) but he said he was definitely attracted to me. He told me if I was ever back in the area to give him a call. We have each others contact info. I did initiate a text message to him because I am truly interested in getting to know him better but I have yet to hear back from him and I probably won’t. In this past 5 months, I have never been so confused about men and I think I still have a lot to learn about them. Are all men the same? Are they all so confusing? Don’t get me wrong, this guy and I spoke about other things other than sex and he is a really smart guy. Just our last encounter just left me scratching my head. Its not everyday I meet a smart guy, but was this one just after sex or was he really interested in me? I don’t want to believe it was sex because we only spoke about it on the last day of my visit. It was never brought up before. The night ended with an awkward hug and I left.

Sorry that this post is long but as I am trying to move on from one confusing guy, I have encountered another confusing guy. I don’t want to believe all men are the same. I know my flaws and I am working on it but I also know that I don’t want to end up in another relationship where I care about the guy more than he will ever care about me. This new guy has left me so confused. There were signs that made me feel like he is not interested in me but then he would do a complete 360 later. He was a gentleman to other women (holding doors for them, etc.) but towards me, he treated me like a guy (I don’t know if it makes any sense). I don’t want to end up having trust issues with men if all they do is cause confusion. Usually my gut is good at differentiating the types of men I meet but my gut has failed me this time. I just don’t know. I guess it doesn’t really matter either because I doubt he will try to contact me, especially since we live in two opposite ends. However, there is something positive that came out of this recent experience. It gave me strength to move on because I always thought no guy would ever be interested me in any way and that’s why I held onto my 4 year relationship for so long.

Thanks for reading my post. It feels good to finally put my thoughts in words rather than keeping it in my head. Any comments or feedbacks are always appreciated.