It makes me sad to write this post because it means my romance with Dr. Nutrition is over. I hesitantly wrote that I was a bit concerned that he hadn't contacted me since our date on Wednesday, and sadly nothing has changed.
After pole-dancing class (yes, pole-dancing--and it was hard as hell!) with my friend M, we went to have a beer. She is a dating expert, if such a thing exists, and I told her the whole story. Her response was simply, "What the fuck?!" She said, "You have a right to know what's going on. His communication pattern has changed, and he's not keeping you in the loop. You're half of the equation and you have a right to know what's going on." She also added that she doesn't have time to play the waiting game and would rather cut to the chase.
On my way home, I jokingly texted him that I was fairly certain I didn't have a career in pole-dancing ahead of me and asked if he had time to chat. No response. About an hour later, I decided to give him a call. No response. I left him a message, "Haven't heard from you in a few days and was wondering if we could chat before I leave town." No response. No response. No response. No phone call. No text. No email this morning. No Facebook chat. Nada.
I went into my therapy session with C on the brink of tears, and as soon as the door was shut, I started crying. I have so much else going on with this 3-week cross-country trip with a woman from Kenya, but all I can think about is how I just got duped by a guy I mistook for one of the good ones. You all were fooled too, right? What, with the ballroom lessons, the telling his mom about me, the "You're a beautiful person," the date after date routine? WTF?! I repeat, WTF?!
There were no red flags. No signs that he was wavering. Nothing to make me think he was just going to start being a dick and blowing me off. At least with SCL there were warning signs, even if I didn't want to admit it. I. Just. Don't. GET. IT.
Yes, I could excuse him. I could say that he's changing jobs or his phone broke or that he was just busy. But those are excuses, none of which I'm buying. I'm pissed off that he has yet to muster up the decency to say, "Hey, I changed my mind." For a guy who claims to be fearless, he seems like quite the coward right now. A coward I'd love to punch in the face!
So, what to do now? When it has been a full 24 hours, I will send him a final email, ending with "If I don't hear from you, I assume you don't want to see me anymore." Because I'm done with his hot-then-cold of the Katy Perry variety bullshit.
And I also priority shipped a copy of Self-Esteem because clearly I'm going to need some building up again after this disappointment.
While I admit that you are most likely right, on the slim chance that you are not, I would encourage you to give him more than 24 hours. Give him at least 2-3 days before telling him that you're assuming you're not seeing each other anymore. I know it's excruciating, but you never know what's going on. It could be something stupid and unrelated to you. If you freak out without giving him time to respond, that could be a turn-off.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry this is happening to you. That sucks. Dating is really difficult. :(
WAIT!!! Do not do anything drastic here!
ReplyDeleteOk. So, I've been around the block a few times (and you know that I'm still single and therefore you might not want to listen to me as I obviously can't figure it out myself - although I'd like to think that I'm just extremely picky and that's my real problem - ok, as usual I digress)....
But in my unfortunately loooong bout of Singledom, I have noticed a pattern among men! Here it is: THEY DO NOT ACT LIKE WOMEN!
Yup. That's it! That's the pattern. It's as simple as that. Men are not like us! They do not think or rationalize like we do and therefore he is probably not noticing that he has changed his communication pattern. And he is probably not really thinking that he needs to respond to your texts within the timeframe you are expecting. I do not really know anything about men and have no idea what's going on in their heads, but I do bet that it's not what you think is going on.
I say - give him some time. When I first started dating the Beautiful Swede, it was infuriating! He would randomly text me -sometimes up to almost a week after! He was totally hot and cold. I had no idea what was going on. And there was so many times that I was about to text him to say - alright, I'm done now... but I didn't do it. And in the end, my patience won out and we ended up dating for a year and a half and finally managed to establish normal communication patterns. But it was a slow start. All I know if I did send him that "it's over" text too early, then it really would have been over, but instead I decided that I wouldn't care. I would take control of the situation by not caring (alright, of course I cared, but I tried to tell myself I didn't and I dated other people as fast as I possibly could). In the end it turned out that there were other women involved at the time and in the end, because I was "so cool" he chose me.
Even with non-relationship type guys that I meet... I'm always amazed that two, three, four weeks later they will text me out of the blue and ask me to hang out.
Clearly, men do not work like women work.
On the other hand, I can understand your desire to take control of the situation and be the one to end it with him. To stand up and say "I will not be treated like this." And that makes sense too... but I just caution you to be careful. If you in anyway want to keep this open, to give him room for another chance, then wait a few more days before you decide it's over.
But hey, seriously, what do I know?
But good luck to you! Looking forward to hear the outcome. But I really really feel confident that if you give it just a litle more time and try really hard not to focus on it (i.e. get out and date other people), that you will hear from him again.
I'm sorry, lovely. I think not knowing is worse than being told "you suck" to your face. At least you have closure.
ReplyDeleteBut, my advice? I wouldn't even email him - clearly he won't respond. If you send the email, then you'll just be waiting in vain for a response to that. Save yourself the anxiety and heart ache and just move on. However, I realize this is easier said than done. But good luck, and sadly, welcome to the single life!
Ugh, I'm sorry you are hurting over this. I think you're on the right track for getting past this though. Yes, there might be some slim possibility that something is going on (although, not to pick on IWOM, but the example of a man who wasn't communicative because other women were involved at the time is not the greatest example, even if they did end up together, imo), but you know that you want a man who can communicate better than that. Even if something is going on, he at least owes you a text or an email or a call to say, "hey, things are crazy, it's not you, I'm still crazy about you, but please be patient with me."
ReplyDeleteI've dated men like him or IWOM's man before, and they always leave you feeling empty or not good enough or wondering whether you were just their second choice because something else didn't work out. And I've dated my current man, who went out of his way to communicate what he was feeling when he wanted the relationship to move to the next steps and always calls and texts when he says he will and there's a huge difference.
You know yourself and you know what you want, and now you've discovered that Dr. Nutrition doesn't measure up. So you can move on knowing that HE isn't good enough for YOU. And it's better to know it now, instead of further down the road. I hope you do get some kind of closure at some point from him, but even more I hope you realize that you did nothing wrong and you deserve to find a better man than that.
(For the record, I do agree with the comments that suggest waiting more than 24 hours, but in order to give yourself a little time to change your mind about how you want to deal with it or what you want to say to him, not because I think you should give him a break.)
I agree with some of the above responses...don't send that final message. If he really has decided to be an ass and ignore you then he just won't care and you might be tempted to keep sending more and start to sound crazy. If something reasonable has come up to stop his communication then you will still sound crazy for jumping the gun.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you need to find closure on your own and just leave the other person out of it completely. If you rely on a final message to HIM then you are not the one in control. If he decided it was over by stopping communication then you only validate his behavior by acknowledging it.
Just. Don't. Text.
Oh men! Whats wrong with them! I don't have any words of wisdom, BUT I do want to say No farewell letter!! Please!
ReplyDeleteWell you already know how I feel on the situation. And I think it's pretty lame that he can't even be bothered to say something back. Even if he is busy he could at the very least say "Hey, I'm busy."
ReplyDeleteYou deserve better and I'm glad you see that. Send the email and have your closure. Then move on.
I'm behind, so maybe things changed since this post, but I'm sorry this happened.
ReplyDeleteSometimes there are let downs in the dating world. We fantasize when everything is going perfectly and then bam it's over just like that. You didn't do anything wrong. These things unfortunately happen. You meet a lot of different type of guys when you're dating. Some will be great, some will be bad. Some will hurt you and some you'll hurt. Ugh it sucks...I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until I read your next post, but I'm starting not to trust him.
"Because I'm done with his hot-then-cold of the Katy Perry variety bullshit."
ReplyDeleteOh gawd. This confirms it. You are my ex-boyfriend, and I am SCL. I can't tell you how irritating I found it when he told me that I'm like "that Katy Perry song. Where you're hot and cold all the time."
It's funny, we always allow ourselves to get so wrapped up in ourselves, we forget there's another person involved.
the whole technology thing just makes it more obvious when we don't hear from someone because of all the avenues we could. regardless of what happens, you shouldn't let him take your self-esteem down a single notch.
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