Quote:
Originally Posted by Nsweet  I see a lot of regret and blaming others in your story Uno. Perhaps you're not ready to take the initiative and date so soon. I just don't think you've had enough time to recover and heal.
If you disagree with me then try to rework your past and think of another way you'd approach others. For instance you know guys are quite often oblivious to subtle signs, so you have to be a little more obvious about wanting to spend time together. And leave your exH and comatose ex a secret. You don't want to play the pity card right off the bat or turn guys off that may get the wrong idea about you. |
I live in a small town, near a small city. The guys I have been 'dating' know about my ex and that whole year he was deployed during which I was struggling to recover from a brain injury (check, mostly successful) and learning that he'd been lying to me and abusive (cehck, completed therapy). Then everyone knew about me and my friend because it's sort of a thing everyone knows about when you find a guy in a coma in your bed where he was supposedly going to sleep off a migraine stress headache.
I agree about the subtle hints. The feedback that I got from the guy I'm really interested in is that he would be in dark despair if he stole his friend's girlfriend, even though I made it clear I am moving on and not trying to have any kind of outcome to that relationship that ended when his sister got guardianship and decided to end it. But then he did say he would go visit him to try to figure out prognosis. We've been going out at least once a week and spent a lot of hours on the phone. He was very supportive through the whole thing and knows exactly what I've been through. The way he dealt with everything was really attractive. The fact that he has qualms about a relationship because of feeling guilty just makes him all the more attractive. Catch-22 I guess. He's never hid how he feels about me, but I have a feeling it's really messing with him, the best thing to do is just not to call or email him and let him figure it out, go for a visit, etc.
My other friend had relied on me to keep showing up at the dance studio where he teaches, but when I disappeared off of Facebook (I closed my account due to privacy concerns, wanting more privacy, you think?) he texted and I confirmed yes, no FB account and what I said about not going back to the studio but wanting to get out and dance elsewhere and not to be a stranger, to use my number, he said okay. Historically however he gets very busy with his work (2 jobs and a business) and his daughter (teen) and might not issue any invitation because he is very hard up for money...however he's told me that and I still told him not to be a stranger. I've known him for a year, I met him and the guy I'd been seeing at the same time. Initially he would always act out, do something silly, when we were hanging out together at the studio or dancing. Now that he's comfortable around me, he doesn't do that so much. It was really irritating sometimes, to be having a good time and then have to deal with the silly act, glad it abated. When we get together we have a good time, but the social space we exist in was not one where you could, say, date and then break up, without it being awkward. And again, there's dating someone you've been attracted to that now is available to you only because the competition went down and almost died. From a guy's perspective...and if there's any chance of the guy coming back, nobody wants to be that guy who stole the woman, even if the woman declared herself single. It just looks bad.
The other guy knew I was with the guy who ended up in a coma. Plus the woman at the studio who went off on me verbally probably fed him false information about me when she realized that we became dance partners. Meddling. If that's the case and he didn't take the time to talk to me about it, but just believed what someone else said, he's off my list. I prefer people who make their own decisions and discuss things that might bother them.
My problem is that all the guys I know have this sense of honor. I should be grateful. However, it doesn't do me any good.
Oh, then there's the guy who was attracted to me before I even started dating the guy who went into a coma. Instead of asking for my number and asking me out, he hedged, and then in the interim started dating his dance partner, who lives in my town. He wanted to date me too so I said yes, we could go out sometimes, then he said he couldn't cheat on his current girlfriend after all. But he's been doing that all along. I think what he meant was that he was peeved because I was okay with him dating me and dating other people, not jealous enough for his taste I suppose, he wanted someone who would beg him to be exclusive. WTF? I don't have a problem if a 54 year old man is dating multiple women, I had no intentions of having sex with him, just going out. If he'd wanted sex he would have had to be exclusive and honestly, after I got to know him a bit, that wasn't going to happen, nice to know I didn't fit the bill for his M.O.
I did get some insight into what my ex had been doing all those years.
Nope, history cannot be hidden where I live. It doesn't work that way around here. I was crazy about my guy friend, and from what I heard he was crazy about me. Maybe it just s*cks from a guy's perspective to feel like you're second pick, even though it's not that way at all. I think other people are still stuck in some kind of constructive narrative in their heads that he is going to get better and come looking for me. Or the risk of having to deal with the situation if that happens is way too much for the one guy I've spent so much time with. He really needs to go visit and see what's what. For me, I can't, so I'm going to make decisions on my day to day experience, and I don't see my guy here, what I see is he's in another state and his sister has guardianship and decied no relationship and that guardianship will go on for at least a year, maybe more. Even when it stops there are still his entire family and his acquaintances to consider, I don't want to be around some of them. They're dealbreakers. He would admit before that they were a huge hassle, but never had the guts to set boundaries or to limit their legal authority in case he had some kind of emergency. So there are consequences to that. Which, unfortunately, he is experiencing.
Living in a small town is tough. While people are really supportive, you can have all kinds of people making decisions for you based on how they perceive a sitaution. It's nice, but really, there are limits. My landlord is different, he has been through a lot, and was the first to say it's time to move on. Easier said than done. It's one thing to stop judging myself and to blow off anyone who does. But other people do judge themselves. And there is no way to keep anything secret around here.
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I need to get out 
