Love + friendship = problems...

[silence]

Patsu: that's about how it is going here as well, so it means I must be doing something right

I hope I can keep my skin as thick long enough and refill my health bar regularly, I'm almost out of power. I think I need a few days off.

Thanks for the support guys, just what I needed. Damn, I start to feel like with family here, never would have thought...

hey, good luck.... i hope it turns out better then it turned out for me...

thumb up...go for it

 

[_xxx_]

Hvala!

 

[Sonic]

If she backs away at times it seems like it is still a small trust issue there. Like at times she could forget about all the worries in the world with you, but at others she may still be pretty vunerable. When she backs away, let her have the space but let her know that if anything is on her mind she can tell you. Never think it is you that is making her back away!

If she is a touchy feely sort of person with others like she touches you, then nevermind that paragraph.

 

[Miksu]

Thanks for the support guys, just what I needed. Damn, I start to feel like with family here, never would have thought...

Good luck then. And remember to report back

 

[_xxx_]

When she backs away, let her have the space but let her know that if anything is on her mind she can tell you.

That's exactly what I do. I just hoped there's gonna be some progress sooner...

Never think it is you that is making her back away!

You don't happen to have any telepatic abilities, do you?
I keep telling that to myself, but yes, it was one of the things that bothered me a lot.

If she is a touchy feely sort of person with others like she touches you, then nevermind that paragraph.

No, it's definitely only with me. I thought that too and did my observations.

 

[Sonic]

Well, everything is layed out in front for you.

And good luck!

The reason why you feel like you have no experience is reallybecause nothing can prepare you for it. These are natural feelings you get when you really like someone in a way that you want to spend A LOT of your time with the girl. Love is very different from lust, but the two are quite often intertwined at times.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

When she backs away, let her have the space but let her know that if anything is on her mind she can tell you.

That's exactly what I do. I just hoped there's gonna be some progress sooner...

Never think it is you that is making her back away!

You don't happen to have any telepatic abilities, do you?
I keep telling that to myself, but yes, it was one of the things that bothered me a lot.

If she is a touchy feely sort of person with others like she touches you, then nevermind that paragraph.

No, it's definitely only with me. I thought that too and did my observations.

Heya _XXX_,

I dated a woman (well, girl really) like this a number of years back. Twice. Atleast from my experience, it's not fun. It was a similar situation. We were very good friends, and there was this weird underlying emotional tension. Even though she ended up admitting to really liking me, she was scared, and she kept backing off whenever we got too intimate. Eventually she broke up with me (A week before prom no less). A year later, we got back together in college, and basically the same thing happened. She got scared after a couple of months and ended it. After that we basically both broke off ties from each other. She changed colleges and moved to another state (probably not just because of me), and I pretty much decided I wanted to have nothing to do with her anymore.

Well, a year later I met the woman who is now my wife (MUCH better situation). We have had our own problems, but honestly it was/is a much easier relationship to be in. Specifically, because we both put effort into continuing it. I think the biggest problem with the one earlier was that I was trying to carry it all by myself.

About a month or two after my wife and I got engaged, I ran into the other girl I had dated (this was probably about 4 years later). She apparently was miserable the entire time she had moved away and had come back to try and restart. She told me how much she regretted pushing away the people she cared about the most. I think back about that every once and a while. It's odd, because I felt bad. I didn't hate her, nor did any of the old feelings rekindle. It was more that I was kind of embarrased for her. I had moved on, and while it was nice enough to see her again and catch up a bit, the relationship with my wife is far deeper and more intimate than anything I had shared with her.

Anyway, I guess my advice for you is to make sure you aren't trying to carry the relationship. You might start seeing her, and she might even really like you, but if you are the one always responsible for holding it together you'll end up hating it.

Nite_Hawk

 

[patsu]

Hey,

I didn't want to post Part II because I thought it may confuse people. But seeing Nite_Hawk's post prompted me to continue. The bottomline is:
Follow your heart. Every case is different.

Train Wreck
========
So... our relationship was on track for about a year. Uncertainty crept in again near the end of the second year. Her father, the absolute authority of her conversative family, didn't like me. He wanted her to marry high for obvious reasons (Her older sister also got married to a French millionaire). I was too young, my future was (well, still is 8^) ) uncertain and I had to return to my country due to a prior contract with the government.

To cut a long painful story short, I ran out of time. She graduated and the whole family moved to Texas (from Illinois). Her father acted actively to disrupt our relationship. I was faced with 2 choices:
(A) Carry the relationship myself and seek her out to continue the relationship.
(B) Be realistic (I had heard enough long distance horror stories). Stop seeing her.

She was torned between her family and me, and went back to her initial state from time to time (Back to Square 1 all over again guys). After 6 months, I returned to my own country according to the contract. Essentially, I chose (B) due to my lack of action. I was also very conscious of Nike_Hawk's recommendation (She has to share the relationship to make it work).

Aftermath
=======
The strange thing is I waited for this "One Hit Kill" like I would get drunk, yell my lungs out, cry my eyes dry but it never happen. Instead I was haunted by this deep guilt for the rest of my life (even now). I can't explain the feeling but it can be painful sometimes.

I spent 2 more years in total solitude, living alone in a small quarter. And then 7 years seeing my wife before I got married. My wife has the exact opposite personality. I appreciate her simple, direct and warm personality a lot. Eventually my small family moved to California, US due to an overseas assignment.

Then 3 years later (12 years since we lost contact), I got a call from her on a Sunday morning (5:30am). I don't know how she got my number. It started like this, "Do you remember a girl in college [pause]... ?"

I recognized her voice instantly, and I was once again overwhelmed by the familiar pain.

Resolution
=======
After I left, she got married to someone within a rather short time. They had 2 kids and later she divorced him (at about the same time I got married).

I brought my wife down to see her during Christmas (about 3 years ago). She is still as beautiful and sharp as ever. I found out more about our shared past though 8^)

If I had picked (A), the relationship might have survived (I'll never know for sure). She needed more time to deal with the situation and she was indeed waiting for my phone call despite the brief good-bye. Up till these days, I can tell she still likes me a lot. I ran out of patience even though I liked her, and failed her. It affected her life too (That's how I see it).

Sometimes your partner may not be ready, or you may not have good enough information on whether she's carrying her part of the relationship or not; it may mean you have to go alone to find out more. Follow your heart. Keep your eyes open. Every case is different.

So _xxx_, don't leave any regrets ok ? When you come back, you can write your Love Encounters book. I'm sure Dave Bauman don't mind providing the foreword for this Beyond3D Romance book to attract more female engineers to the forum. then Console Talk won't be so explosive.

 

[_xxx_]

Now that's quite a sad story there. I also had a relationship with long distance between us and it turned out being a horror story as well, so I can only confirm that.

I did a few failures myself when I was younger, but I'm definitely sure there will be no relationships over distance bigger than an 1 hour drive, that's for sure. Too stressful otherwise, for both.

EDIT: if you could go back, would you do the same?

 

[patsu]

Yeah it sucked.

EDIT: if you could go back, would you do the same?

"Do the same" as in I would still go after her like I did. I debated with myself for 3 months before chasing her initially because I knew I had to leave the country in 3 years. Didn't want to cause any trouble for her. Unfortunately, I couldn't hold back. I was too attracted to her physically. I had to find out what's wrong with her since she didn't seem to have a boy friend yet. 8^)

She totally blew my mind away once I got to know her. She was:

* Telepathic (knowing what I want at the right time, mostly because we think alike... and both of us are terminally curious)

* Pleasant to be with (Down to earth, not petty over little things, not control freak, not neat freak, no need to act like a gentleman, ... sort of like a very good guy friend, a soulmate mostly)

* Wickedly sexy and naughty sometimes (*nod* *nod*). Yet innocent in so many ways. I used to laugh at her questions from time to time.

* Talented (She's a great and efficient cook, also performed gymnastics, guitar, singing, some drumming, and *more* for me when we were stucked in town 8^D. Must be lonely while she lived in France)

* Hardworking (She stayed up until 2-3 am doing homework everyday, and still found time to write articles for some newsletter).

* Chatty (She would talk about what's on her mind, has the depth to talk about technical stuff with me). I'm more a listener. But whenever the topic changed to our relationship, she keep quiet or gave weird answers that sent me tangent to whatever I was onto.


In a nutshell, she changed my perspectives of women, actually human and life in general. I did not know one could do/learn so much in mere 25 years.



"Do differently" as in I would spend more time terminating the relationship... instead of dropping it so abruptly. I think she was expecting me to show up with full health again, but I never called or showed up after the brief good bye. I was already in Cold Turkey mode.

This would mean some more (a lot more ?) phone calls, or even driving to Texas to make sure she was ok after her graduation. Whether she would change her mind and we hook up again as a result of this, I have no idea. But I certainly have no resources to maintain the long distance relationship if she kept acting up.

If the whole mess were to happen after I started work, then I would have spent every penny to get her.



While dating my wife later, I flirted with other women a little just to make sure I'm on the right track 8^). She gave me a totally different but more productive experiences, eventually we hit it off and got married.

 

[_xxx_]

While dating my wife later, I flirted with other women a little just to make sure I'm on the right track 8^). She gave me a totally different but more productive experiences, eventually we hit it off and got married.

Well, all is well that ends well

 

[_xxx_]

Anyway, I thought about all that and decided not to put any more effort into it. Either it'll develop naturally or it's not worth it anyway. I don't need another stressful relationship at the moment, so I'll just wait and see.

 

[patsu]

Wot can I say ? Hope the girl is lucky enuf to have you then

 

[Humus]

So any similar experiences, ideas, whatever?

I went through a very similar story. A very long one too, so I'm not sure if I want to type it all down, but I can share a couple of lessons learned. It ended pretty bad, from being very good friends to mutual hate, she moved out of the town (I guess she wanted to escape it all) and I got haunted by this story which totally destroyed my studies for half a year and took a lot of time to fully recover from.
Anyway, if you think that this woman feels the same about you as you do for her, then make sure that that's really the case and you're not just misinterpreting anything, like common friendlyness or an flirty attitude. Look if she's the same way to other people, or if it's just with you. In my case I thought she really liked me on that level, but after the thing when I looked at it in a more sober way I found that she was just flirting randomly with all and everyone, and I had misinterpreted that to mean anything. The second lesson, move slowly so you can back out if things don't go the right way. Don't suddenly send an email pouring out your entire heart's content, like I did ... Which leads to the next lesson, don't use email. It's a horribly bad medium to communicate emotions.

 

[Zaphod]

Good luck man. I know what you're going through.

a) Meet -> (Dating) -> Fling -> Relationship = Easy.
b) Meet -> (Dating) -> (Fling) -> Freindship = Easy.
c) Meet -> Freindship -> Fling -> Who? = Easy (but messy).
d) Meet -> Freindship -> Relationship = Difficult (but apperantly doable).

My thing with this girl was/is: Meet -> Fling ->Freindship -> [intermission] -> Meet -> Rekindling -> Rinse & Repeat. In flux between a) and b). Exhausting. This girl and I are *so* not ment to be together, but somehow we tend to forget that after some time apart, then remember why we broke it off in the first place, then stay aquainted, then drift or move apart, then...

 

[_xxx_]

Well, it's half of d) right now. But I really want to avoid that kind of stress, so I'll only join in if it should happen naturally.

 

[Sage]

does she happen to be married to another friend of yours? if she is, then i can help!














okay thats not really funny. not at all. ive lost everyone now and theres noone to hug me when i need it most. Hell, the only people i have to talk to now is are you losers!

so, if you canot afford to lose her as a friend then dont risk it. if you can then dont stand around and wait for someone else to come along and grab her up!

 

[patsu]

I saw your latest adventure in the other thread. Up till now, I'm rather indifferent to whether you did the right thing or not (Usually I'm against it strongly).

I thought your female friend has a symbiotic relationship with you (She seems to be drawing from you on various levels to help her go through with the divorce). Being married for a few years, she probably already knows how much exactly this will hurt her husband (and so one more step closer to the divorce), and I think she's also getting you to share the blame because of the intimacy you have shared with her. So all the best, hopefully all these lead to a meaningful next-step.

But dude, for everyone's sake, I so hope there is no baby involved. You better be prepared IMHO, it's really not fun unless it's a fruit of love.

As for _xxx_, if I read him correctly, I think he's just playing by ear now. He will probably re-evaluate the situation again should things turn out favorably or when there's another party involved. Hopefully he reports back when that happens. There seems to be no time pressure on him anyway.

 

[_xxx_]

There is no other party involved, that's something I prefer to avoid if possible. I'm evaluating the situation because if I should do anything, than it should be something nice that makes sense. Just getting girls for sex is easy, I actually still have a few I see occassionaly. That's something that does not satisfy me anymore, though. Something's missing, I'm all for feelings right now.

Anyway, she doesn't seem to be capable to open up, so it feels like beating a dead horse at the moment. So I'll just lean back and enjoy the show, maybe something will happen, maybe not.

Strangely enough, I can advise other people much better than what I can do for myself. I'm missing some more distance to my own case. But I'm aware of that.

I'll keep you updated if anything should happen.

 

[_xxx_]

okay thats not really funny. not at all. ive lost everyone now and theres noone to hug me when i need it most. Hell, the only people i have to talk to now is are you losers!

so, if you canot afford to lose her as a friend then dont risk it. if you can then dont stand around and wait for someone else to come along and grab her up!

Be happy, you're free now. Noone there to tell you what to do or what's "right" or "wrong". You're your own best friend. We "losers" are still here to give you some alternative thinking at times, so you can analyze yourself and see what's the right decision for YOU.

I have no problems with someone else grabbing the girl. Either it works out fine or not, one mustn't be posessive. That kills any freedom and feelings that might be there. You have to learn to let go if that's the right thing to do.