Alexander the Great
Don Juan
- Joined
- May 3, 2008
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[EXTREMELY LONG] False Intimacy
I’ve had a few PM’s with requests for me to elaborate on something I said in the “10 Things you wish you had figured out before turning 30 (or 25, or 40, or 50!) thread:
For those who wanted to know, I’m assuming you guys have had similar experiences? I’d be interested to hear about them. So please post them or PM me if you prefer that.
Anyway, off we go.
In my case, the false intimacy and opennnes was with a girl I stumbled upon on a dating site some years ago. In what she wrote in her profile, she was being very open and honest about herself. In what she wrote, I also recognized myself. These two elements were the big “wow” for me. Of course, she also looked great according to my tastes (that’s why I checked her profile in the first place). So, I messaged her, somewhat extensively but nothing extremely revealing, going into the things she put in her profile, telling how I recognized myself in them. Actually I was already in love a bit. (Yes, this is a Oneitis story, I was a full-blown, desperate AFC at the time, that was the only reason why this has crashed and burned me. Thankfully. I will get into that later a bit.)
Anyway, she mailed me back the very next day. Quite enthousiastic. In that first e-mail, she was very open about herself again, so this time I returned the courtesy. By the second e-mail she sent me, she was already telling me about her problems she had with sex, ex-boyfriends, her personality quirks, winter depressions, you name it. All in a quite innocent, mild, sharing matter, making it seem as if she just knew herself very well and as if she knew how to deal with her issues. (Actually, she didn’t. She just wore them on her sleeve and had made them into romantic excuses of why her life was so difficult, but I only realized that when it was too late.)
By the third e-mail, she spilled her life (his)story, after I had told her to share whatever she wanted to share because I wasn’t sure what she wanted to know from me when she asked me about my history. And when I say spilled, I mean MAJOR spill. Not the genereal lines like you would get with getting to know a new person, keeping it light and fun and innocent. No, details to a great extent. As if I were a confidant. Such, that my first impression was: “Wow, she must really like and trust me”. (Of course, part of why I thought this was because I liked her. Or rather, she appealed to me. Had she not, I would have thought her openness a little strange and premature. In hindsight, I do.)
To continue, she portrayed such openness about quite intimate personal details, that I immediately felt trusted and liked. After all, it’s more normal to go slow in revealing yourself when getting to know someone new. It’s also more normal not to go into the deep end right away on issues in the first place. And because the “slow” is normal, and would have been to me (I wasn’t that open to her at first, and I didn’t expect her to be), the fact that she was so open right away made me think she digged me in a major way. I mean, you don’t spill your guts to just anyone, do you? I don’t. Even if I like someone a lot. But she did. And because she did share herself so openly, I felt compelled to do the same. It felt as that illusive “click”. I felt trusted and close. And from what she said, so did she. And we both admitted feeling a bond soon after the intimate sharing had begun. True,we had a lot of similarites. And I mean a LOT. We even called eachother twins at somepoint (she started that). (Don’t barf please. I already said I was a chump back then. )
Now, it was probably the feelings that I already had, that made me think this girl digged me more than as just a friend. Because she didn’t.
Our first telephone conversation after a month or three was a bit awkward. And while I was more like “Okay, that happens. High expectations, nervosity. Let’s try again. All that chemistry over e-mail is there for a reason”, she was quite the opposite. Try again? Not on your life. She wouldn’t call me and I was too nervous to do so myself. Though she made it seem as if everything was okay when I asked her about it. The intimate messaging continued. A few more uneasy phone calls followed in the months after and then, finally, we met, because she was allegedly too busy with work to get a day off until then.
We went on three dates altogether in the course of four weeks (suddenly she found a way to spend a day and two evenings with me in close succession, where before she didn’t have time for months). But to this day I still don’t know for sure why she went along. Because, I wasn’t dating my long-lost twin or the girl I had had these deep and intimate sharings with. No, I was dating a shy, timid, robot-like person who I couldn’t get to smile if my life depended on it.
If you want to know what hell is like, this is it for me: Being with a girl who looks just like you want a girl to look, with which you’ve had great emotional intimacy with (okay, over e-mail), making you suspect there’s a lot going on (or at least a lot of potential), but she’s all but avoiding your gaze, not returning your smiles, asking questions like it is a script she was reading, giving off body language as if she’d rather be somewhere else, giving you the overall impression that she’s not the least bit interested in you. You can imagine I soon felt as uncomfortable around her as she probably did with me. Well, we probably infected eachother I suppose. (I’m usually not like that, of course, I was nervous as hell because of my feelings, I fully admit that, and she probably mirrored that right back at me. I know this very well, so don’t get started. )
Fast-forward a bit. My feelings had soared despite all this obvious disinterest. Because sometimes, they say, girls that are really into you, go real quiet around you. And hey, this girl was more quiet than a lifeless void, acting timid, went along on every date offer etcetera. Plus we had a great click over e-mail. It’s e-mail, sure, but still. All the factors combined made me convinced that this girl had a crush so hard that she was nervous as hell. Can you blame me? So had I. (And it was probably my projection. )
In an act of, I admit, despair, I confronted her with my feelings. Well, she told me she had never felt the same about me. She was merely confused about why I acted uncomfortable around her. And she was disappointed that we had so little to say to eachother in real life. I was glad, because I wondered about that too. So, I said we should have a talk about that and we did. Over IM no less, because that’s what she felt most comfortable with. (One of her issues, or it could just have been an excuse, was that she preferred IM and e-mail over phone and face-to-face, because she could communicate better over them. Right. Probably just with me.)
Long story short, the way in which that IM talk went, was very, very unpleasant. It was extremely ego-centric on her side. And, because of my feelings, I felt very tricked and used. And for the life of it, I didn’t understand why this girl was seemingly blaming me for everything that had disappointed her. Because that’s how she acted: she pushed every responsibility away from her and onto me (this is typical of women by the way, many recent posts treat this subject). Example: she very coldly stated that it wasn’t her fault that I had feelings and that this was the source of my discomfort around her. True, of course. But come on! Do you say that to a friend? In such a manner?! I don’t. (Yes, we considered eachother friends. I now know better of course.)
Not accepting such a brute twist to what had seemed so promising, not just as man-woman, but for a great deal also as friends (because that’s what we claimed we were, she at the lead, and this wasn’t just LBJF bull**** alone, then again, maybe it was), I sent her a message some time after this talk, in which I held her a mirror, outlining her own behaviour to her and asking her why she was so open and intimate with me over e-mail, and then so closed and seemingly uninterested in the flesh, and so cold and harsh during that IM talk, and more things like that. (Yeah, chumpish, I know. Don’t start. That’s not what this post is about. ) Also, I assumed and stated that she must be shy and didn’t realize this.
I’ve had a few PM’s with requests for me to elaborate on something I said in the “10 Things you wish you had figured out before turning 30 (or 25, or 40, or 50!) thread:
It has taken me some time (I travelled abroad too in the past weeks), but I typed up some additional info on it and it became a bit long (as you can see ). Now, I tried to scale it down, edit out non-essential parts in order to be concise, but then it felt as if there wasn’t enough background to explain things properly. So I decided to just keep the original volume. And since I got several PM’s of people interested to hear about it, I figured more people may be interested, so I also decided to put it up as a thread. Please excuse any rant-ish appearance or any details you may feel unnecessary. I just hope this serves to show a few sinificant things about people (and chumps alike). (Yes, I’m feeling a bit vulnerable revealing myself here like this, hence this apologetic intro. Will somebody please come and hold my hand? )11. Don't mistake the immediate sharing of her deepest secrets and pains by a girl you're just getting to know for honest trust and intimacy.
Healthy people know this as (unconscious) manipulation by an emotionally unstable person. My excuse is that I was somewhat emotionally unstable myself at the time. Had I not been, I would not have fallen for this trap.
For those who wanted to know, I’m assuming you guys have had similar experiences? I’d be interested to hear about them. So please post them or PM me if you prefer that.
Anyway, off we go.
In my case, the false intimacy and opennnes was with a girl I stumbled upon on a dating site some years ago. In what she wrote in her profile, she was being very open and honest about herself. In what she wrote, I also recognized myself. These two elements were the big “wow” for me. Of course, she also looked great according to my tastes (that’s why I checked her profile in the first place). So, I messaged her, somewhat extensively but nothing extremely revealing, going into the things she put in her profile, telling how I recognized myself in them. Actually I was already in love a bit. (Yes, this is a Oneitis story, I was a full-blown, desperate AFC at the time, that was the only reason why this has crashed and burned me. Thankfully. I will get into that later a bit.)
Anyway, she mailed me back the very next day. Quite enthousiastic. In that first e-mail, she was very open about herself again, so this time I returned the courtesy. By the second e-mail she sent me, she was already telling me about her problems she had with sex, ex-boyfriends, her personality quirks, winter depressions, you name it. All in a quite innocent, mild, sharing matter, making it seem as if she just knew herself very well and as if she knew how to deal with her issues. (Actually, she didn’t. She just wore them on her sleeve and had made them into romantic excuses of why her life was so difficult, but I only realized that when it was too late.)
By the third e-mail, she spilled her life (his)story, after I had told her to share whatever she wanted to share because I wasn’t sure what she wanted to know from me when she asked me about my history. And when I say spilled, I mean MAJOR spill. Not the genereal lines like you would get with getting to know a new person, keeping it light and fun and innocent. No, details to a great extent. As if I were a confidant. Such, that my first impression was: “Wow, she must really like and trust me”. (Of course, part of why I thought this was because I liked her. Or rather, she appealed to me. Had she not, I would have thought her openness a little strange and premature. In hindsight, I do.)
To continue, she portrayed such openness about quite intimate personal details, that I immediately felt trusted and liked. After all, it’s more normal to go slow in revealing yourself when getting to know someone new. It’s also more normal not to go into the deep end right away on issues in the first place. And because the “slow” is normal, and would have been to me (I wasn’t that open to her at first, and I didn’t expect her to be), the fact that she was so open right away made me think she digged me in a major way. I mean, you don’t spill your guts to just anyone, do you? I don’t. Even if I like someone a lot. But she did. And because she did share herself so openly, I felt compelled to do the same. It felt as that illusive “click”. I felt trusted and close. And from what she said, so did she. And we both admitted feeling a bond soon after the intimate sharing had begun. True,we had a lot of similarites. And I mean a LOT. We even called eachother twins at somepoint (she started that). (Don’t barf please. I already said I was a chump back then. )
Now, it was probably the feelings that I already had, that made me think this girl digged me more than as just a friend. Because she didn’t.
Our first telephone conversation after a month or three was a bit awkward. And while I was more like “Okay, that happens. High expectations, nervosity. Let’s try again. All that chemistry over e-mail is there for a reason”, she was quite the opposite. Try again? Not on your life. She wouldn’t call me and I was too nervous to do so myself. Though she made it seem as if everything was okay when I asked her about it. The intimate messaging continued. A few more uneasy phone calls followed in the months after and then, finally, we met, because she was allegedly too busy with work to get a day off until then.
We went on three dates altogether in the course of four weeks (suddenly she found a way to spend a day and two evenings with me in close succession, where before she didn’t have time for months). But to this day I still don’t know for sure why she went along. Because, I wasn’t dating my long-lost twin or the girl I had had these deep and intimate sharings with. No, I was dating a shy, timid, robot-like person who I couldn’t get to smile if my life depended on it.
If you want to know what hell is like, this is it for me: Being with a girl who looks just like you want a girl to look, with which you’ve had great emotional intimacy with (okay, over e-mail), making you suspect there’s a lot going on (or at least a lot of potential), but she’s all but avoiding your gaze, not returning your smiles, asking questions like it is a script she was reading, giving off body language as if she’d rather be somewhere else, giving you the overall impression that she’s not the least bit interested in you. You can imagine I soon felt as uncomfortable around her as she probably did with me. Well, we probably infected eachother I suppose. (I’m usually not like that, of course, I was nervous as hell because of my feelings, I fully admit that, and she probably mirrored that right back at me. I know this very well, so don’t get started. )
Fast-forward a bit. My feelings had soared despite all this obvious disinterest. Because sometimes, they say, girls that are really into you, go real quiet around you. And hey, this girl was more quiet than a lifeless void, acting timid, went along on every date offer etcetera. Plus we had a great click over e-mail. It’s e-mail, sure, but still. All the factors combined made me convinced that this girl had a crush so hard that she was nervous as hell. Can you blame me? So had I. (And it was probably my projection. )
In an act of, I admit, despair, I confronted her with my feelings. Well, she told me she had never felt the same about me. She was merely confused about why I acted uncomfortable around her. And she was disappointed that we had so little to say to eachother in real life. I was glad, because I wondered about that too. So, I said we should have a talk about that and we did. Over IM no less, because that’s what she felt most comfortable with. (One of her issues, or it could just have been an excuse, was that she preferred IM and e-mail over phone and face-to-face, because she could communicate better over them. Right. Probably just with me.)
Long story short, the way in which that IM talk went, was very, very unpleasant. It was extremely ego-centric on her side. And, because of my feelings, I felt very tricked and used. And for the life of it, I didn’t understand why this girl was seemingly blaming me for everything that had disappointed her. Because that’s how she acted: she pushed every responsibility away from her and onto me (this is typical of women by the way, many recent posts treat this subject). Example: she very coldly stated that it wasn’t her fault that I had feelings and that this was the source of my discomfort around her. True, of course. But come on! Do you say that to a friend? In such a manner?! I don’t. (Yes, we considered eachother friends. I now know better of course.)
Not accepting such a brute twist to what had seemed so promising, not just as man-woman, but for a great deal also as friends (because that’s what we claimed we were, she at the lead, and this wasn’t just LBJF bull**** alone, then again, maybe it was), I sent her a message some time after this talk, in which I held her a mirror, outlining her own behaviour to her and asking her why she was so open and intimate with me over e-mail, and then so closed and seemingly uninterested in the flesh, and so cold and harsh during that IM talk, and more things like that. (Yeah, chumpish, I know. Don’t start. That’s not what this post is about. ) Also, I assumed and stated that she must be shy and didn’t realize this.
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