MAN ADVICE v2.0

[Shelby]

When someone loses interest they're eyeing someone else. When their interest returns it's because they couldn't get the more desirable option. Sucks but true.

[Tommy]

2 hours ago, marc32137 said:

It's just gonna be a lesson in patience at this point

That's exactly what this is, follow Gumbo's advice. This is probably very hard for her and jumping into something else may not be something she's prepared to do right now as she let's go of the past. 

 

3 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

When someone loses interest they're eyeing someone else. When their interest returns it's because they couldn't get the more desirable option. Sucks but true.

You may be right but also it may just be that she's emotionally wrecked and doesn't have/want to dedicate herself to a committed relationship right now. Hope it all works out for Marc though. Just stay the course and focus on not being needy and offer any support you can in this time for her.

[Tommy]

I just remembered while revisiting this thread, how you doing @Team Avatar?

[Shelby]

I dunno "saw some old friends" also usually means "saw an old friend" and we all know what that means. I'm part girl I know these things.

[marc32137]

15 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

I dunno "saw some old friends" also usually means "saw an old friend" and we all know what that means. I'm part girl I know these things.

Nah, it was a group of lesbians and a childhood (female) friend.  I have no need to worry that she saw exes or anything like that.

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone!

[Gumbo72203]

7 hours ago, marc32137 said:

I hear ya. We actually hung out last night and talked (and got drunk). I feel a bit more confident about everything now. It's just gonna be a lesson in patience at this point. Thanks!

All good things come to those who wait.  Just keep things moving, keep doing your thing, and don't put pressure on her.  Pressure will make her run, and if you make it about you, she will run. 

 

Girls are tremendously fickle and unpredictable sometimes.  My girlfriend has gone from wanting to break up and thinking we're better as friends to busting my ass and MAKING SURE we're exclusive within the span of a month because she saw an old condom box in my trash that I'd forgotten to throw out for months, because it was sitting in a drawer lol.  She flipped, and was worried i was with other girls.  "Oh but didn't you just say a few weeks ago you thought we should break up because you felt too much pressure and didn't want to be in a relationship and wanted to see other people?"  Quite often, they make no sense haha.  So, the only thing you can do is control your approach to the situation. 

 

I liken it to an owner who has a young, energetic dog, and you're outside playing, or at the dog park.  You (the guy - the dog owner) are standing still, being stoic, just throwing the ball.  Chilling like Hank Hill and his friends in the back lot.  The dog comes and gets the ball, then runs off.... does their own thing for a little while, and then remembers "Oh, hey!  My owner!  He has a ball!" and comes running back so you can throw it again.  Then they run off again.  Then they come back.  At least, this is how it feels with my own situation lol.  Girls have wild emotional swings.  They see things much differently from us.  One day they will be super clingy to you, and then you do something (unintentionally) and all of a sudden they push you away and need space.  It's all a game, some kind of subconscious test to see if you can hold your own and not be compromised.  Can you keep it together, in the face of their storm of madness?  Can you hold your ground?  Can you keep the foundation together?  Can you be relied-upon to have a level head?  They are trying to find out these answers indirectly, I feel.  It's allllll about psychology man. 

 

At least for me, my girlfriend was freaking out because of the "pressure" of being in a relationship.  Which is kind of ridiculous to me now that I'm older, but I get it.  She said she felt obligated to care about me, that I became an influence in her decisions, and she didn't want that.  She said she didn't want to have to worry about someone else if she goes out and does something stupid (which I assumed meant get super drunk and hook up with some rando).  My response?  Then don't fucking do anything stupid!  It's very simple lol. 

 

Anyway.....  TL;DR.  Just don't worry about it man.  Keep yourself around, stay grounded, but don't be too available.  You gotta give some kind of chase for them.  If you're the one who ALWAYS makes yourself available to her, she has the upper hand... and is calling all the shots.  MAKE SURE you have other shit you are doing, that you have your own interests.  You need your own interests, because you need shit to talk about when you're with her.  Otherwise, you're boring, and a boring guy is a single guy. 

 

You've gotta have awesome shit that makes her want to be apart of YOUR life, and not you being the one who is craving to be apart of HER life.  If you just keep doing what you've been doing, she's going to eventually realize "well... i guess we already are basically in a relationship, aren't we?"  And it kind of naturally just becomes itself.  No pressure.  No awkward forceful changing of context and labels.  Just be. 

 

 

 

[Stress On The Sky]

You have to be able to see that comparing interpersonal relationships to dog ownership comes across as a tad misogynistic right?

Your first point of being patient and your conclusion of being interesting are fine but that whole middle section reads poorly. 

[Oblivions]

Just keep living your life, keep your head up, choose options that come your way as they come. IF she decides that she's ready for a relationship again and IF she wants to reach out to you and IF you are still interested in pursuing a relationship with her at that time, you'll want to be in a healthy, productive place where you can accept that offer as your best self and in your best mindset. Give yourself enough credit as a person/human to consider that you deserve and can find someone else who is available and a match and at the right point in their life to be with you. And give her enough credit to take her at her word as a smart, capable person/human and avoid entertaining any exciting imaginary scenarios about her secretly wanting you to change her mind/win her back or her secretly having another lover, etc etc. It's too easy to waste 6 months fantasizing about the past instead of actually building yourself up and living your life.

[Gumbo72203]

14 minutes ago, Stress On The Sky said:

You have to be able to see that comparing interpersonal relationships to dog ownership comes across as a tad misogynistic right?

Your first point of being patient and your conclusion of being interesting are fine but that whole middle section reads poorly. 

lol i know....  but it has NOTHING to do with ownership at all though.    That's just the first thing that came to my mind with how the movements appear to be in my relationship.  I'm just standing here, doing my own thing... staying grounded, not reacting.... and she's kinda zig-zagging around everywhere. 

 

If you've got something else we can compare it to, I'm all ears!  That's just the image that comes to my head when I think about our dynamics.  Maybe a referee for youth hockey?  The ref kinda stays stationary.... and the kids are all buzzing around....  I don't know, something like that lol.

[Gumbo72203]

2 minutes ago, richardsurf said:

Just keep living your life, keep your head up, choose options that come your way as they come. IF she decides that she's ready for a relationship again and IF she wants to reach out to you and IF you are still interested in pursuing a relationship with her at that time, you'll want to be in a healthy, productive place where you can accept that offer as your best self and in your best mindset. Give yourself enough credit as a person/human to consider that you deserve and can find someone else who is available and a match and at the right point in their life to be with you. And give her enough credit to take her at her word as a smart, capable person/human and avoid entertaining any exciting imaginary scenarios about her secretly wanting you to change her mind/win her back or her secretly having another lover, etc etc. It's too easy to waste 6 months fantasizing about the past instead of actually building yourself up and living your life.

Well-stated!  You can only give your all in a relationship if YOU are in a healthy, stable, grounded place. 

[Stress On The Sky]

Maybe any example where there isnt a blatant power hierarchy like person>animal or adult>child cos those sort of examples push a rhetoric where the female is ultimately lesser. 

 

If you can't think of an example that puts both parties on equal footing then what good are the examples? Unless you ultimately do believe women are inferior beings incapable of controlling "wild swings of emotion".

 

[Gumbo72203]

2 minutes ago, Stress On The Sky said:

Maybe any example where there isnt a blatant power hierarchy like person>animal or adult>child cos those sort of examples push a rhetoric where the female is ultimately lesser. 

 

If you can't think of an example that puts both parties on equal footing then what good are the examples? Unless you ultimately do believe women are inferior beings incapable of controlling "wild swings of emotion".

 

Nah that has nothing to do with it.  My example was based on the mechanisms of action only, and the way it looks from my perspective.  The owner/possession paradigm plays zero part in it...  it's just a visual example.  I could give a shit about power hierarchy, that stuff is so lame.  We talk about that a lot...  because she would have ex-boyfriends who would get mad if she hung out with other dudes.  Which I think speaks more to insecurity and an attempt to assert dominance and control over your girlfriend, which is suuuuuper fucking lame. 

 

The dominant/submissive thing is actually one reason why I broke up with my last girlfriend, because she kind of played into that submissive female role, and it drove me crazy.  She never had any original ideas of things she wanted to do...  or what to eat... or where to go...  it was always whatever I wanted to do.  I don't know if you've ever been involved in anything like that, but it was quite maddening for me.  Make up your own mind!  I want you to have interests and ideas and choices!

 

 

[deafening]

The way Gumbo talks about his girlfriend bums me out. 

[deafening]

And we definitely all have wild mood swings which we exclusively use to test the men we are with. 

 

Psychology, man.

[Stress On The Sky]

Gumbo reminds me of Vaughn from Community

 

[Gumbo72203]

I'm re-reading that dog story and i totally see how you guys would have thought i meant something different now... i didn't realize is said "owner" that much haha.  I feel awkward now haha.  I don't pick up on stuff like that because the connotations in my head with what i'm trying to convey are completely different, so things like that don't even register to me, because that's not what I'm trying to imply at all.  I gotta get better at that... being aware of how people could interpret what i type, because you just see the words, and not the mental images that run through my mind... and you are going to apply your own mental frameworks to it. 

2 hours ago, deafening said:

And we definitely all have wild mood swings which we exclusively use to test the men we are with. 

 

Psychology, man.

Could you help me understand then, please?  Because apparently I'm not getting something, and I want to.  Her behaviors/actions and her words just don't line up in my view.  Given how quickly she has swung from telling me she wants to make sure that we're exclusive, and then wanting to break up like 4 days later, saying that I probably just want her for sex, and that the way we met is "weird and not normal" (we met at a concert...  she was with a friend who knew one of my best friends/bandmates; she kept checking me out the whole night, and eventually gave me her number, and we started talking and it went from there.  I'm not sure how more normal you can get haha).  I just... don't understand.  She came up last Thursday because as a Valentines Day present, I'd gotten us tickets to see Nile, who she'd never seen.  We hung out until Saturday when she went home to Long Island, so she could be home for break before the huge storm hit.  (she goes to school in Poughkeepsie, I'm in Albany, NY - about an hour and 15 mins drive). 

 

We had a big talk about exclusivity because i threw away an old box of condoms that had been sitting in my nightstand forever, and she saw those in the trash and got upset, thinking that I'd been cheating on her.  And the talk went to exclusivity because she texted her friend while I showered or something, and he brought up whether we'd officially said that we aren't dating anyone else.  She's like "you better not be seeing anybody else" and we get it resolved, and everything is fine and we cuddle and move on and just do our thing, hanging out and whatever. 

She leaves Saturday night, she texts me regularly the next few days saying stuff like "hey babe i hope your day is going great!" and other typical stuff... using the pet names, showing she's thinking about me.  But then by Monday, she goes dark....  doesn't answer my calls Monday or Tuesday night when i get home, and then Wednesday morning she wants to break up, and says shes done.  This has happened every time she has gone home to her parents house on Long Island. 

 

One of my female friends said it's a bid for attention.  I'm not sure i agree with that though. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by Gumbo72203

[Stress On The Sky]

I would imagine part of the problem people have is that whilst you identify everyone applies  an individualistic mental framework to their words and actions the way you write and the analogies you've made seem to be aiming towards drawing a wider conclusion about womankind in general or at least that's how it reads to me. Your girlfriend's behaviour may in fact be erratic but using that anecdotal evidence and applying it to a whole gender is misguided.

 

Statements like: 

On 14/03/2017 at 7:12 PM, Gumbo72203 said:

Girls have wild emotional swings.  They see things much differently from us.  One day they will be super clingy to you, and then you do something (unintentionally) and all of a sudden they push you away and need space.  It's all a game, some kind of subconscious test to see if you can hold your own and not be compromised.

Would work better if they stayed in the anecdotal realm  and looked more like an opinion on an individual rather than a group like so:
 

On 14/03/2017 at 7:12 PM, Gumbo72203 said:

My girlfriend has wild emotional swings.  She sees things differently from me.  One day she will be super clingy to me, and then I do something (unintentionally) and all of a sudden she pushes me away and needs space.  I feel like to her It's all a game, some kind of subconscious test to see if I can hold my own and not be compromised.

I accept people in this thread are making efforts to draw broader conclusions about what not and what to do regarding their relationships but ultimately every situation differs and not many of us are really qualified to assess the myriad of factors that come into play in any given situation. Putting forward an ironclad model for how all people work is stupid because of the wealth of difference between every person and every relationship. 

TL,DR;

Every relationship and person is different and should be judged as so,

keep your conclusions personal because there is no model that works everywhere,

generic support of the idea of staying strong and self love is great keep that shit coming.

[THE_James_Champ]

2 hours ago, Stress On The Sky said:

Gumbo reminds me of Vaughn from Community

 

tiny nipples.

[deafening]

@Gumbo72203 She is scared and attempting to assert control over the relationship. She wants to break up with you, not you break up with her, even though she most likely doesn't want to break up at all.

 

She isn't getting what she needs and that's either a reflection on her and her expectations or on you. It's probably the former but with the way that you talk about her as an aside as opposed to someone you respect and adore, it's probably both.

 

If she is a 'whatever' to you, just fucking tell her that. If she means a lot to you, just fucking tell her that, but feeling inadequate and insecure in a relationships sucks at any age but it especially sucks worse when you're that young. Probably don't waste her time.

[Gumbo72203]

Thank you @Stress On The Sky and @deafening for your replies!  I have to jet to work so I will address these remarks later, but I loved what you both have said.  So thank you again.  It is much appreciated.  

[abovetheearth]

Here's the deal. If someone says they want to break up, and changed their mind, that's enough for me to walk out the door. Unless you're up for silly games and want to be with someone who doesn't know, this will never stop. Why be with someone who doesn't want to be in it even if the next day she says have a nice day? Fuck that. This is no bid for attention. She's got you figured out and is loving every minute of it. 

[Oblivions]

My general philosophy is that we are all trying to do our best and, sometimes, we fall short of that goal for various reasons. If a partner is in the process of figuring out their own life and relationships and that uncertainty is interrupting your own progress, it's best to walk away with both empathy and firm, clear boundaries. Unless they are being emotionally abusive or getting physical, chalk up a young person's confusion in a relationship more to youth, understandable stress of figuring out one's self, human nature, etc. and less to some diabolical plot to manipulate you. IMO, it is a bit self-involved to view someone's struggles and faults as revolving around you. People are allowed to be confused in a relationship and many people who perform terribly in one relationship can be perfectly competent in their next one. There's no real concrete rules or damning labels, in my experience. We're people. We mess up. We move on or we don't. Life happens. Etc.

Edited March 16, 2017 by richardsurf

[Derek™]

Gumbo, real talk: you've got a few years on me... and as someone in his later 20s who spent a good chunk of 2015 and 2016 bending over backwards for a girl in her early 20s – while playing her mind games and waiting for her to grow up or decide what she wanted – you are 100% better off counting you losses and finding someone closer to your age.  I'm not saying that the age gap is impossible to work with, or that it's not worth it for some rare instances and individuals.  But there's a whole different wavelength that both genders typically operate on, once they hit their mid 20s.  The girl I've been seeing since July lives about 2 hours away, and I don't get to see her quite as often as I'd prefer, but even with travel and logistics I cannot emphasize how much more enjoyable, simplified, natural, and relieving it is to bond with someone who's only a few years younger than myself, vs. someone who lives 5 minutes away but has only been able to legally drink for a year or two.  It's night-and-day different – and probably harder to see with blinders on, with where you're at – but I cannot over-emphasize how much better off you'd be.

[marc32137]

So.. an update. 

 

Last night I came home from doing my podcast and we were texting. She originally made plans to go out for dinner with a friend but the friend couldn't find a sitter for her kid so nothing happened. She told me she just had a quiet night at home. Well this morning, I had to use her work computer for something while she was away and noticed she left her Facebook open. I knew I shouldn't have snooped but I did it anyway. She ended up seeing an ex last night and the messages included the phrases "thanks for an incredible night" and "I love you immensely".  Well... she caught me but I don't think she knows what I know and she's pissed at me for invading her privacy. Rightfully so, honestly, but I'm just devastated. We haven't spoken much today besides work stuff. Ugh, I gave her everything and I'm in pieces. 

[Derek™]

Really sorry to hear that, man, but at least you can take solace in knowing that you have a definitive answer.  No more head games or theoretical scenarios to ponder, for down the road.  It also just tacks on one more classic case that fortifies Shelby's post at the top of this page, which rings true 99.9% of the time.  I'm sure you have plenty of reflection and healing to do, but at least you can officially start moving on and going forward, now.