All is Full of Love

[bels]

A lot of what you're saying sounds familiar to me trash. The requests to do x more and then trying to make some sort of real actual effort to do x and then finding that x was apparently some parallel to the real thing that was needed and your effort hasn't necessarily helped.

I think that although the feeling is that you should always understand these things that might be chasing a dream. I don't think people themselves understand why they feel things or why they act in certain ways and so trying to work it out yourself with extremely limited data is just a headache.

[UnwashedMolasses]

Disclaimer: All I know about the situation is what you've posted, so apologies if any of it is off-base or not relevant.

I assume that if you've been dating her for a decent amount of time, and you know she's not a terrible human being? I ask this because the only way somebody could say all of those things and be lying is if they were incredibly manipulative. As is, it's like what dwindles has said: If you know her well enough to know that she's being honest with herself when she says those things, but you aren't able to understand where she's coming from at all, it sounds like there's a fundamental disconnect between the two of you. I don't know if it's in the communication or in the interactions or what but going off what you've said here, you're both viewing your situations in different ways.

Don't pay attention to what friends and coworkers say. Nobody knows and understand the situation as well as you and her, because no one else has been there for every moment of it.

Her feelings are legitimate because they are feelings. It's very difficult to control and influence your emotional response to things. That being said, if her emotional response is so far off from the expected that you're having difficulty understanding where she's coming from, it doesn't mean she's crazy and it doesn't mean you're a bad boyfriend. It means you two are not connecting on the level that is needed to make a successful relationship. And if she has been dissatisfied for months but has only sat down to talk it out twice, something's very wrong, and she's been unfair. Relationships are things that you build day by day, not with monthly performance reviews.

Don't try and change who you are, don't worry about all the things that could have been changed in the past. It wouldn't have helped. At this point all you can do is amputate and let it heal. Once that's been accomplished, find someone who appreciates who and what you are. I guarantee they're out there. Take what you can from the experience, know how important it is to communicate and be honest with the person you're with, and apply that towards someone who can reciprocate it.

Good luck, man. I'm sorry to hear that you've been going through so much turmoil. I hope you're able to make it out the other side and find something real.

[odradek]

all true. i was doing my best to avoid editorializing and just put out the facts (as i understood them) so they'd be there and i could look at them, though apparently with limited success.

yes, I'm not of the opinion that she's a terrible human being, i know she would never do anything with the express purpose of hurting me, there's no malice in what she's doing. i'm not mad at her for doing what she needs to do and i understand that her feelings are, for all intents and purposes, true. i struggle to see how she arrived at those feelings and am worried that there's something (scary, damaging, painful) entirely external to me or our relationship - i say this because everyone's understanding seems to be mine and hers seems to be hers alone. this makes me feel vindicated in my belief, or should i say, my misunderstanding is not specific to me and others operated under the same impression i did. you know when it's not everybody else, it's you? i want to know why it's her and i want to know if there's a thing i can point to. there probably isn't.

i don't believe she knows how to break-up. she asked me if she should return gifts i bought for her. she simply did not understand that breaking up with me, then sleeping over not once but twice and sending 'i miss you' text messages dangle little pieces of hope in front of my eyes. i told her i was mad at her but did not specify what exactly i was mad about and when she tried to clarify, the idea of stringing me along was not one of the options for the reason of my being mad. she has no concept of it.

the really scary, sad, terrifying part of that is that with this new evidence, it seems like at no point did we understand one another. did this relationship survive on luck? that our two disagreeing outlooks just happened to never clash until it was too late?

as i'm typing this, she's pinging me on g-chat. after she said she wasn't going to talk to me for a while. i would be confused or mad if past experience didn't indicate a pattern.

[UnwashedMolasses]

You've gotta cut it off man. I know you shouldn't have to be the one to make it clear, but ambiguity is just going to make the whole process harder. It sounds like she may have a decent amount of emotional development to go through before she can be in a healthy relationship, and it's not your job to get her there.

Everyone wears a mask. It takes a very long time and a lot of horrifying vulnerability to open up every aspect of your being and let some other person with an entirely different set of experiences go trawling through it. If someone refuses to release any of that and puts up a front, it's not something you can just force your way around. Relationships can't be a one way road.

[jrisk]

UnwashedMolasses-- thanks for your comments, lots of insight in what happened in my recent breakup.

She's been studying abroad since sept and was been wicked tough communication-wise. I knew it would be from past experiences but not to this extent. Like it sucked to video chat to her reluctance and either hear her laugh awkwardly or be silent when I said "I miss you" or "I can't wait to see you". I finally prompted her a few weeks ago via email and she admitted she didn't feel the same about us. We were definitely not connecting on the same level anymore, I'm attributing to the lack of communication.

I feel bad about breaking up with her while she was away and over email but I just couldn't handle my life awkwardly revolving around her and being in a strained relationship until she got back. Her suggestion was to take a break until she got back but I didn't feel it was fair for me to be in limbo until then. It's not like either of us would go out and hookup with anyone (actually, I can't say that for sure. I have no idea what's going on with her.) but I can't sit around thinking we'd be back together and it'd potentially not end up happening and one of us ending up getting hurt.

We exchanged 3-4 emails and she hasn't contacted me since. I left it saying that the ball was in her court that if she wanted to meet up when she got back at the end of this month. I had been doing pretty okay. Keeping busy has been pretty easy. I blocked/removed her from all my social medias which helped a ton. Yesterday, I broke down and noticed she hadn't unfollowed me on twitter and instagram and then I checked her twitter feed and I see so many tweets about "you left me here all alone" and "i hope you know I hate you" and it really hurts. Like, I was the one who was hopelessly hung up on trying to stay happy for you while you were aloof and non-communicative when that's what I needed.

I've had to really make myself remember that I was doing okay before seeing everything she's posted. Now I can't stop thinking about her and how hurt I'll be if we don't end up back together.

[anonomous]

What. The. Fuck. Things were going so well between me and her for the past few weeks, all them signs and shit and suddenly today i found out from my friend, that she considers me as a 'brother'. What the fuck.

[can-]

hollering @ girls on okc is fucking nerve wracking

[schiaparelli]

ben are you on okc?!

i love okc. best of luck. i'm sure you have an interesting and intriguing profile. "i am cameron and i made the world's first gender-balanced actually-nice fashion forum"

[UnwashedMolasses]

How does OKC work? I've always been curious but never had a reason to use it. Is there any reason why it seems to be so much more popular than some of the other analogues (match.com, meetblacksingles, etc.)?

[hunnish]

Neon told me to make a profile on okcupid because the gay community at Virginia Tech is like a big spiderweb and I don't want to be a part of that. It still feels weird to be an 18/19 year old in college and on an online dating service though so right now my profile is just two pics and movies/books/music I like.

[charybdis]

College gay communities can be like that. Avoid grindr.

That said, I don't think that OKC is a good solution. I was on there briefly because the FFA girls were comparing match percentages (and also just for kicks) but you won't be finding anyone your age and the people you meet will probably be at vastly different points in their lives. I think it would be harder find them, but I'm friends with quite a few people who avoid the general LBGT Center group who are really cool so I wouldn't discount anyone from your university.

[schiaparelli]

i know that feel about being in college and with an online dating profile, like "what's up aren't there enough college kids for you to hit on?"
because dwindles suggested it, i am now going to tell the story of how i met my current boyf on okc:

at the beginning of fall semester i hung out with two dude friends of mine and we all went "agh we're lonely" and then made okc profiles together. i don't know how it happened but we spent the evening editing each other's profiles and it was pretty funny because my two dude friends had both had okcs before and one of them would go, "don't message that guy, i met him at starbucks and it was super awkward"

and then i muddled around for a few weeks and fielded mostly messages from older dudes. what dwindles said about okc having mostly older people is true. the college demographic is slightly represented but not very (i mean, every once in a while i run into people from my university in undergrad that i know and it's terrifying). a lot of the guys i ended up talking to were like 21-25ish, and i'd occasionally message/be messaged by some girls 18-23. (for reference i'm 19)

and then one glorious beautiful day that was like 2 months into the okc thing i got a message from a guy who said something about typefaces and my favorite novelist in his message and we started exchanging absurdly long, 500-to-1000-word-length messages about urban design and books and asian food and typography and medicine. and after a week-ish of that i said "hey. so as i was writing this i was thinking i'd like to ask you out, but if you want we could take it slow/ambiguously and just go have bubble tea?"

and he said "sure", and we met, and had bubble tea, and walked around talking for six hours and also got pho and dessert waffles along the way, and he gave me a ride back to my place, and said, "see you around sometime" (confusing as there's no way we would run into each other regularly). i remember i felt super awk because i came back to my room and realized my fly was unzipped (AGH THE WORST). and i was thinking "agh i don't want to get up my hopes"

he asked me on a second date and we hung around for 12 hours in a museum full of weird installation art, and it was easily the most fun i've had browsing art with other people, and there's one floor that's completely dark in the hallways and the pieces are in separate rooms with gentle weirdly neon light, and he grabbed my hand when i kept on muddling around in a confused way so we wouldn't lose each other, and then we got sushi, and then we walked around for ages, and got froyo, and went to his place to stare at the city skyline, and then he kissed me out of nowhere and said "hey, i like you". i think at some point he also complimented me on how i dressed which was nice because he's been suspiciously well-dressed this entire time.

i just realized this was a totally useless story from the perspective of gauging online dating benefits/detriments so i guess the tl;dr is we had four more dates and now we're a thing

anyways, unwashed, i'm going to guess that it's because okc has questions that you answer, and you can view other people's responses and okc uses that to assign match percentages (% match, friend, enemy) and recommend people. it seems to be a reasonably good indicator of how matched-up you are with someone w/r/t overall life outlook and preferences.

hunnish and ben, super hope you find some cool people. or at least one. you just need one achingly awesome person to hit on who also is hitting on you, and then life is great!

[schiaparelli]

wait, i forgot to mention some important stuff.

so the dude i'm dating now is 24. it has turned out to be less a problem than expected because he's in med school (so, we're both in a school environment and neither of us has really hit "the real world" yet). i really feel like if you're 18/19/20 and on okc there's always that bit of having to be wary with older people and making sure they won't pressure/manipulate you unnecessarily and that the age/context differences can be crossed. i feel like there is the possibility to find a decent fellow undergrad (maybe even at the same school, but someone who isn't in the usual LGBTQ circles) or grad student or something and that could be nice, but i think okc is definitely not as useful until you're out of college. fingers crossed for you, hopefully there are some decent people in your area, hunnish

the other thing i forgot to mention is in one of the messages we talked about what articles of clothing we would be willing to cut off a (small) toe for (his wording!) and we briefly talked about really liking the acne marble print stuff. we also have similar opinions on greek yogurt so he's basically perfect

[can-]

I asked her about lord of the rings.

[ramseames]

I feel like i'm raining on the parade saying this but damn i'd find the idea of dating someone so much further than me in life really daunting because it would always be hanging over my head that they could finish their degree or get a real job or whatever thing I'm far away from and then want someone who's at a similar point/not so far behind.

I'm impressed on its own that you found someone on okc that knows what acne even is tho, that's pretty cool

[SisterRayVU]

Every time a girl on Tinder likes MMM or Barneys or something, I keep hoping she'll swipe me right or we can talk about clothes D:

[ramseames]

turns out the girl I had a really good first date with a few weeks ago has insufferably controlling parents. Don't think i can handle it, having plans canceled on you 2 hours in advance because they decide out of nowhere she has to be at home isn't ok. Gonna take her out tomorrow night and unless something incredible happens that changes my mind I'll end it on good terms. hope we can friends and maybe i then hit her up in a few years when she's independent enough to be her own person.

[ramseames]

can't edit it anymore but to answer hunnish she's 18, so a year younger.

[starfox64]

if it makes you feel better i'm trying to fuck this girl who is 23 and her mom makes her go home at midnight.

hopefully at least someone gets something out of this because it blows for me.

[starfox64]

trying to fuck makes it sound dirty. dunno what our situation is but shes always bouncing cuz of her curfew.

it's just like a time warp where i feel like i'm now 17 and not 27

[RycePooding]

wtf, what kind of adult adheres to curfews set by their parents? Didn't we stop doing that when we were 16

[bels]

ycon don't act like you aren't loving that 17 yr old feel.

[starfox64]

[SisterRayVU]

[midvh]

[edited]

[bels]

Is there any other way

[ramseames]

argh it went super well and i met her parents when i dropped her off and i think they'll be more relaxed now that they can put a face to my name and I'm way more into her than i was before.

[Stingray Sam]

so i've been fwb with this girl for a bit and we've decided that there's more than just friends mutual interest in each other. I'm ecstatic because i've felt this way about her for a while now.

[hooplah]

the guy i'm dating (or whatever) is abroad on vacation for two weeks and it sucks but he gchats me at like ungodly hours (PST) telling me he misses me
so that's real nice

[kewks]

is anybody else here in a ldr?

one of my friends from high school that i see occasionally feels the need to give me unsolicited relationship advice every time i see him.. he continually asks me why i don't just date a local guy bla bla bla. even though i have never expressed unhappiness about my relationship to him. it's quite annoying. i don't think he understands long distance relationships at all