Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Okay, here’s how stupid I am.
I went to music school for the first time since summer and F was in his office with the door shut. My teacher knocked on the door to say goodnight and I heard F and another person say “Goodnight” – a woman! I could hear that they were listening to music. I started to get so upset, thinking that he was in there flirting with a woman the way he’d flirted with me in there over the summer… as I was paying for my October course, the door opened and Junior – another musician – the woman and F came out. They went outside to go smoke. I made up my mind that I was going to bid them goodnight politely and peace out; I sure as hell wasn’t going to compete with another woman!!!! F was smiling awkwardly/nervously and I blurted out something equally awkward/nervous. I made myself smile at the girl; she was grinning at me. I wished them all goodnight sweetly and left.
As I was pulling into my driveway, it hit me – a) he wasn’t alone in the office with the woman b) I knew her. It was Olivia, Junior’s girl-friend! I’d met her a few weeks ago (the night I called F a coglione). No wonder she was smiling so nicely at me! And I didn’t even go over to greet her.
Talk about being stupid. I was all upset for NOTHING… AND i was rude to Olivia… AND I missed a precious chance to interact with F!!!!
I should be mad at myself but instead I’m just kind of laughing over it. And relieved that it wasn’t what I thought!!!! But, boy, every time I think I have a grip on the situation, I learn that I’m just a damn mess. He must think I’m such a psycho. I wouldn’t blame him.
My therapist is back tonight after 3 weeks of vacation. Thank god.
I wonder if our first impression is correct, and then we twist it in our heads later to try to extract meaning that isn’t there?
Hi, Kaila! nice to hear from you again… I’m glad you like my ‘3 months to live’ plan. now let’s see if i can actually make my head work that way!
some clarification on minor points:
1) i wouldn’t call him a ladies’ man… he’s very handsome and lots of women want to be with him, but in 5 years, i’ve only ever seen him flirt with that waitress last month. and, i guess, me for brief periods.
2) i was the one who brought up improving my italian. i’ve spoken italian my whole life but i never went to school so i’m insecure about my writing skills (can’t spell…). i told him that i thought it might be interesting to take a class and see what happens. he hemmed and hawed and said he doesn’t think i need one, that it’d be wasted money. later, he suggested looking at song lyrics – ‘if you want, if there’s time.’
3) the frenemy is a man. i mentioned him back when that scene at the nightclub happened; he’s the guy i’ve always suspected that F thinks I might be “with.” He wouldn’t be alone; a lot of our friends think there’s something going on between us (there absolutely is not). This frenemy – we’ll call him “S” – originally gave me some really interesting insight about F, but then his insights turned weird and snaky so I stopped confiding in him. I started confiding in him again out of desperation last June, when F shut the door in my face again. S has told me on a few occasions, “F always stares at me when he sees me. He knows I’m in your circle, he takes notice of who you’re with”… but that night at the club he told me, “get any ideas out of your head. there’s nothing between you. he loves her and if you cared about him at all, you’d go over and see if he’s okay.” Naturally, I’ve stopped confiding in him again but once in a while he’ll throw something out, like “if you tell him you’re leaving, he’ll write you off faster than you can blink.” I suspect that S said this to keep me from leaving (his reaction when I told him was really emotional), but at the same time I can’t help but wonder if he’s right.
My encounter with F at the boutique was nice. But, just as you said, that night at the club changed me…. and our more recent experience where he cut me off before I could invite him to dinner and said our whole fun, random day was all to help his friend has changed me, too. It’s hard for me to enjoy simply being with him; I keep telling myself, “he doesn’t want you he doesn’t want you he doesn’t want you”. When I got home, instead of being happy that we’d had a nice chat, I started obsessing over the fact that he said, “Your friend was just in here. That girl I always see you with, I don’t know her name. Is she a good friend of yours?” because I got it into my head that he asked that because he wants to date her; I kid you not, I didn’t sleep for two nights.
This is my way of protecting myself. It really sucks. Right now I’m having a really hard time believing that he wanted something special with me, or that he could ever want anything special with me again. But today I feel strangely positive! Not about him, just positive in general, which is a nice change of pace because I’ve felt like crap for the past few months.
EMK’s idea is that the negative signs are the truth. For example, if he sleeps with you and says you’re hot (positive) but he won’t introduce you to his friends and he only calls you once a week (negative) EMK thinks that it’s obvious you’re just the booty call, not a girlfriend. Or, alternately, he says he loves talking to you but hasn’t asked you out, it’s because you are just a woman he likes but isn’t attracted to.
I think a sign that we might be reading too much into something is when we come up with many alternate explanations or start to obsess and feel terrible. What do you think?
I knew I wasn’t alone!! It’s so hard sometimes. Sometimes, I’ll swing back and forth between finding ‘signs’ that he doesn’t want me and signs that he might in the SAME conversation!!
@wondering412 I actually think that the more you know, the less you read in, because you don’t have to guess; you know where they’re coming from, you know the context, right? I think my problem is I know very little and I extrapolate, sometimes dangerously.We were never “together” in the traditional sense; we dated briefly. he was very intense about me but (because of my terror of intimacy) i sent crazy mixed signals and things derailed. To make a very long and painful story short, we’ve been drifting in and out of each other’s lives for the past 5 years and it’s been a melee of mixed signals ever since. This summer has been especially intense and I’m at my wit’s end. A huge part of the problem is that we’ve never had a really open talk about things, which is why I try to fill in the gaps myself and end up in a panic most of the time. I literally don’t know what to think anymore. I obsess and obsess and obsess and I don’t know how to understand what’s in front of me.
Example: today I ran into him in front of his family’s boutique (where we first met) and he said, “Your friend was in here earlier. The girl I always see you with, the one with the blue eyes who looks Irish. I don’t know her name. Is she a good friend of yours?” My first reaction: he notices who i’m with!!! (which is true, he always has, he’s always said things like “which friend? the one i always see you with? the tall one with the short hair?”). But then, later on, I thought: “oh god!!!” and all evening, I’ve been wigging out thinking that he said that because he wants to date my friend and wants to find out if I’m close with her before making his move. See? Stuff like this.
@scatteredtracks I hate the universe and its signs!!!!!! They follow me everywhere, too…There is an online dating guru called Evan Marc Katz – have any of you ever read his stuff? He’s a very big believer in “believe the negatives, ignore the positives”… what do you think about that?
brief update: ran into him today while i was doing errands. he was standing outside his family’s store, where we first met in 2010 and he followed me for 5 blocks to ask me for my number. He stopped working there 4 years ago and i haven’t seen him there since, so seeing him there today was a shock for me – very bittersweet. he was waiting for his aunts to close up so that he could go have lunch with them. we chatted outside the store for about 40 minutes. it was nice; neutral, friendly and pleasant.
i was glad that i was able to be calm throughout the chat. it was also a big relief to see that there don’t seem to have been terrible ramifications to my having tried to invite him to dinner, called him an asshole, or practically ignored him saturday night; he tapped me on the arm to make a point as we were walking across the piazza and said that if i wanted to improve my italian, we could look at some song translations – “if there’s time” – so i guess i didn’t piss him off or horrify him. from my end, i made sure to be neutral and friendly and not give off any signals of desire/desperation (i didn’t touch him or react to him suggesting the song translation thing). he was so cute. it was so good to spend time with him. as we were walking to our respective destinations – him to his aunt’s house and me to my car – i was just overcome with this incredible urge to touch him, or hold him… i just put my hands in my pockets and just tried to think of something else.
it was a nice chat. slightly awkward but pleasant goodbye. right now i’m trying so hard not to read anything into it. as we were talking i thought, “this is totally neutral. there are no signals, nothing to read into” but i did pick up on a couple of things that made me think, “hmm” and that now i am obsessively picking apart. sigh. it’s hard for me to know when the things i notice are important and when i’m just blowing things out of proportion.
that’s it! nice, friendly, pleasant. there is no such thing as destiny, there is no such thing as magic. and time is running out. i will tell him. i will adopt the “three months to live” attitude – how about that? where nothing matters and i can do all the things i’ve always been too afraid to do. i guess timing is important here now. one of my friends (frenemies?) told me, “if you tell him you’re leaving, he will write you off faster than you can blink” and that scared the crap out of me. then again, this friend might have ulterior motives and isn’t really to be trusted. so maybe a month in advance. the moment has to be right. i guess i’ll know it when i feel it.
ugh, yeah. hot and cold. the story of my relationship with him! i literally don’t have any more time for this nonsense. maybe i just need to adopt the attitude of “i’m leaving anyway so who gives a crap” and just be his friend, be myself, no agenda, no expectations just… be. and before i go, tell him. maybe about a month before, as you said.
Hi, Kaila. You are 100% right – I have GOT to get a grip! I haven’t been right in the head ever since he started pulling away from me at the end of June, and especially not since that scene at the club with his ex. That moment was so shocking for me. It negated everything I thought he and I had been sharing, and I don’t know what’s real anymore. I create monsters and demons in my own head; I think I partially do it as a sort of superstitious way of protecting myself. I think, “things are never as bad as they seem in my paranoid freak outs, so if I have a paranoid freak out, it’s a way of insuring that something horrible actually WON’T happen.” I tend to do this more often when something awful surprises me out of left field (like that scene at the club; I didn’t expect his gorilla-like behavior in a million years). I get afraid of more terrible surprises so I invent ugly fantasies and then when they don’t come true, I’m relieved. Nine times out of ten it “works,” but it’s a horrible way to live. I’ve been torturing myself with thoughts of him and this waitress but, of course, you’re right – what do I know? They’re flirting. Maybe he just wants to get laid. Maybe he just wants to make his ex jealous. Maybe he’s just blowing off steam. And yet, I’ve been telling myself that it’s TRUE LOVE and, well, who knows, it could be that, too, but there’s no reason to go down that road just yet. I’m only hurting myself on purpose, needlessly, so that I remain stuck and miserable.
Yes, I’m scared of more pain, but you know what I’m just as – if not even more – scared of? Being wrong. Reading things wrong, that is. It’s SO HARD for me not to read into his behavior and I don’t want to do that anymore. My therapist and I have worked so hard on getting me to trust my instincts, the things I see in front of me, but I feel like it doesn’t work. I don’t have this problem with any other person in my life, and have never had it with any other person. I’m also afraid of making him uncomfortable, or making a fool of myself… and at the same time, afraid of missing signs that he might want to be closer! Like that night when he tried to invite me for dinner and I ran away to feed my cat, you know? Or when he touches me flirtatiously and I just stand there like stone…
I saw him on Saturday night. I guess you – and others I’ve talked to – were right; he didn’t seem to care that I called him an asshole. I was sitting on a stoop by the bar’s entrance and he waved at me to get my attention; that made me feel better. We said hi to each other warmly and then he went on his way. We didn’t really interact for the rest of the night; I spent most of my time with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. He didn’t seem to be interacting that much with the waitress, either – he was much more occupied with other friends, including other female friends who he was clearly happy to talk to and hugging warmly. It seemed more like the waitress was seeking him out instead of the other way around. It didn’t seem like he gave her any special treatment. I purposely gave him space, trying to remember that I need to detach at some point. Later in the evening, my friend went to the bathroom and I sat by myself on the stoop by the entrance of the bar again. He came over to the bar’s entrance and stood by himself, watching the crowd. We were just a few feet apart, separated only by a trash can, both of us staring straight ahead and talking to no one. I caught his eye and smiled. He said, “Penelope” in kind of a weird voice (resigned? accusatory? not warm or happy, anyway). I said, “Francesco”. He gave me a thumbs up. I gave him two thumbs up. I tried to make an inside joke of ours but some people came up to him at that moment and drowned out my words. They left, and then F and I both went back to staring straight ahead, not talking to anyone. At that moment, all I wanted in the world was for him to come sit down next to me – I know that’s unfair, considering that I’d left him alone all night and our previous encounter had involved me calling him a coglione. We just sat there like two strangers, and just 3 weeks before, I’d eaten the food he’d cooked. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened in our history; us acting like strangers after a warm, lovely encounter.
My friend came back and then he went back to his own friends. He left before I could say goodbye. I know I could have gone over to stand next to him and chat a bit, but I’m confused. Should I be starting the detachment process and leaving my head clear so that I don’t read into more of his neutral, friendly behavior and derail my plans to leave Italy? Or, considering that I’ll never see him again in a few months, be trying to have as many good encounters with him as possible so as to end this association on a positive note?
I know what your answer will be – seek him out and talk to him. And I agree. At least let him hear these things once, from my mouth, so that they don’t have to die inside of me. I know he’s not the right man for me, but I can’t stop thinking about him. This is the week we started dating, 5 years ago. First date: his favorite pub, walking around the ancient quarter, talking until 3 in the morning on the cathedral steps. He told me, “I’ve never approached a woman the way I approached you. I just knew we had things in common, I knew we were the same, I knew you would understand me and I understood you. I picked you, like a flower.”
It’s always a bit hard to remember. Maybe those were all just pick up lines. But I know I need to be grateful for what I have. Once upon a time, someone like him fancied me. He got over me a long time ago and now what remains is affection and respect. He enjoys spending time with me. I have to be happy with that.
hi, Kaila (starlight, ikkemarl…). It’s been such a hard couple of weeks. I don’t feel any better; I feel like I’m losing my mind. I haven’t seen him since the night I called him an asshole; I’ve been too afraid to go near him and have been torturing myself with the thought that by now he has probably made this waitress his girlfriend. Not constructive, I know. I can’t stop crying. I keep asking myself if I’ve just imagined everything.
I will see him tonight; there’s an event in town. I’ve lain low for the past couple of weeks, hiding at home and nursing my frazzled self but I know I can’t stay home forever and eventually i’m going to have to see him. For my own peace of mind, I need to greet him nicely. I also need to see what’s going on with him and this waitress – at least if it’s true I’ll know that I’ve been crying over something real, instead of making myself crazy for nothing.
But I’m so nervous and scared. I don’t know how to BE around him. Yes, yes, of course, polite and nice. But it’s so hard for me not to look for “signs” that he still has feelings for me, and when he smiles at me I turn to putty. I’m also afraid that he’ll feel uncomfortable around me now that I tried to talk about his “destiny and fate” thing. And, of course, seeing him with the waitress will hurt.
I don’t feel angry anymore, just hurt and sad, which is good – I don’t think I’ll be calling him any more nasty names. But I’m so afraid of more pain, and I’m also afraid of making him uncomfortable. And so help me god, there’s still a part of me that whispers: keep an eye out for signs so that you don’t miss them! How crazy can I be?? When am I going to finally get it into my head that any feelings he had for me died years ago and now he just likes my company?
I know I have to see him – after a few months, I’ll never see him again. I just feel so scared.
*Obviously, not a real blessing: they don’t need it, it’s not my place, etc. I mean “my blessing” in my head, emotionally letting go and being happy for them.
I’m so flattered that you would like to read my writing. I kind of feel like you have been… this stuff with F is a story in itself and if we aren’t meant to be together after all… which i’m starting to think we’re not.
What are you interested in reading, short stories or travel articles? Maybe you can sen me your contact and i can link you to something…
Haven’t seen him since the night I called him an idiot/asshole, anyway. Dreading it; either I have to see him frolicking with the waitress or he’ll be cold to me, and who’d blame him after I called him a coglione. Assuming he’s normal, I don’t know how to be around him. I don’t want to be cold, but I don’t want to make him uncomfortable with my desire for him. I guess I just have to swallow my feelings as usual.
I’m trying to come up with a plan to let go of him, finger by finger.
1) Give him and the waitress my blessing
2) fully accept that we’re not right for each other and that I made up the whole connection in my mind
3) Give him back the movies he “lent” me 5 years ago
4) Make my plans to move back to the States
5) before I go, tell him that he meant a great deal to me, that I’m grateful to have known him, and I wish him the best in his life.Probably best in the meantime to see him as little as possible, so I can start detaching.
Hi, Kaila… sorry I haven’t responded – I went to the islands with some girlfriends for the weekend and there was no internet. It was nice to get away, although I’m still having a hard time controlling my emotions.
Regarding what you said about it COULD be him doing what I did to him, sure, I see that it’s POSSIBLE … but I just don’t think it’s likely, nor do I think it’s healthy for me to keep hoping that deep deep down inside he still has feelings for me. This past summer I’ve been through the emotional wringer; he let me get closer to him than I’d been in years, and then made me feel so utterly insignificant. I need to grow up. Stop looking for zebras when I see horse hooves. Believe his actions and his words; stop clinging to this “connection” I feel when we’re together. It’s apparently all on my side.
I’ve been very down; have been torturing myself with thoughts of him and this waitress. I’m sure they’re together by now. Why wouldn’t they be? I saw how they flirted. If she’s what he wants, then he’ll have her because he’s irresistible. She’s what he wants; someone young and sweet. I’m old and neurotic.
I can’t go through this again – watching him with another woman. I need to stay in Italy until at least December – legal things, and my parents are coming for Christmas – but I would leave tomorrow if I could, job or no job.
oh, one other thing:
he’s seen as a stud in this town – my friend said, “That guy has had the most beautiful women in this place.” While we were dating, F said to me, “I’ve never had trouble getting women.” I think I might have been the only one who gave him any problems. And, I guess, his ex recently, hence that crazy scene at the club a couple of months ago. Where the heck is she in all of this now?
The waitress is a really, really sweet girl but I feel low and heartsick. I know I’m probably jumping the gun – just because they’re flirting doesn’t mean she’s going to become his new serious girlfriend – but it’s just another reminder that he doesn’t want anything with me, and I’ve just been dreaming this whole time.
side note: why did I hate his friend? “friend” is a loose term – this guy is the neighborhood drunk/drug addict who haunts the bar we go to. He’s local color, famous for the insane things he says. The regulars at the bar tolerate him to be nice, but he’s considered a dangerous freak. No one is close to him. F even told me himself that they’re not close.
I hated him because a couple of years ago, after F and I reconnected, this guy came up to me at the bar and said, “Hey, you’re in love with F. F says you’re intelligent and funny, but that’s it. So you love him but he doesn’t care about you. It’s just a dream!” This was only the second time I’d ever seen this guy. He said this in front of the bartender. Not only were his words gutting, but humiliating as well. I avoided that guy like the plague ever since. I have no idea if F knows that the guy said those things to me (I doubt the guy even remembered afterwards). F had only seen us interact once or twice. I think it’s highly doubtful that he would have engineered the whole evening just to get me to make peace with a dangerous sloppy drunk.
I don’t know, Kaila. We met when he was 35 and I was 30. His girlfriend after we stopped dating was 13 years younger than him. The waitress is 15 years younger than him. I have no idea how old his previous partners were, but this young girl thing seems to be the trend of the past few years. It’s possible he thought I was young as well; this is not to toot my own horn, but people are usually shocked to hear my age – I routinely get told that I look 5-10 years younger, and guys in their 20s hit on me all the time.
Age aside, I do know that I am a different kind of animal than his past (and current) women. I’m bi-racial, speak 4 languages, have lived in 5 countries, have a Master’s degree, and have written for internationally renowned publications. My first book is on the road to being published. He always went on and on about how I’m so “intelligent”; one of his nicknames for me was “genius.” He told me that his sister was “thrilled” that he was dating an intelligent woman “for a change.” I asked him, “You dated women who weren’t intelligent before?” And he said, “Yes. They were all local girls, with narrow minds. That’s not what I want anymore. Now I want a beautiful mind, like yours.” But after me, his girlfriend worked at a beach club. And now he’s playing around with a waitress. Nothing wrong with either of those jobs; they’re just a different breed of girl to me, and also different to what he said he wanted.
Do you know what’s so ridiculous and what I need to stop doing RIGHT NOW? I’m remembering back when we dated. At his sister’s birthday party, their friends were all excited to meet me and I referred to F as “my first friend in town.” I’m remembering the time he said, “I like spending time with you because you make me see old things in a new way. Now tell me why you like spending time with me!” and I replied, “you show me around town.” I’m remembering the time he offered to paint my apartment in exchange for a home-cooked meal and I ignored him, and I’m remembering the time I invited him to my birthday party and sent a mass invite on facebook, to him and only other men, to purposely make him think that he wasn’t being invited because he was special. I did those things because he hadn’t tried to kiss me; I made up my mind that he only wanted to be friends, and then I didn’t want to give him the opportunity to hurt me. I didn’t trust him or his motives.
I need to stop thinking about that because that’s ME, with my problems. He cut me off from inviting him to dinner because he isn’t interested in me other than as a friend. Whatever he felt for me died a long time ago (and who could blame him). What’s left is affection and respect. Me thinking about my own stupid mistakes is just diving into fantasy to stave off the pain.
I’m so afraid that by calling him an asshole, I’ve launched another of our horrible cold periods.
