Sad, Dazed And Confused

Distorted

OK, would appreciate some outside perspective on this. I was in a long term relationship most of my twenties, now mid thirties, and living in a sort of "bubble" when I fell totally head over heels for a guy. To cut a long story short, nothing physical has ever happened (unless you include frottage initiated by him) although I think at the start of knowing him, a couple of times he tried to kiss me but I felt the situation was'nt right or too rushed, since he seemed to like me and I was pretty sure he would ask me out on a date.

Well, he never asked me out on a proper date but we travelled to some mutual things together alone in his car (we are both athletes) and so eventually I asked him out and we went swimming and then he asked me on a date to the cinema. It seemed like the perfect date, he picked me up in his car and everything, until I got there and realised his male friend from work was to be with us too! So a couple of months later at a party I suggested we had a kiss and he said, and I quote "I'm not comfortable with that. Thats not what I want. I just want to be friends". And then he literally ran away.

I'm older than him (he's now 30), I have never quite had the courage to ask him if this is whats putting him off me. I do look younger than him though. Although I've had two of his friends come on to me and I've turned them both down. He's never had a girlfriend and spends inordinate amounts of time with his parents, particularly his mother. Yet he's just about the most handsome man I've ever seen.

Basically this has been going on for nearly 4 years and I've fallen more deeply in love with him, he runs for the same club as me even though he should have changed due to where he lives, so this means we meet quite a lot. Whenever I start to forget about him, he somehow manages to contact me. He would also act very jealous around any other men that showed an interest in me. He's very flirty IMHO and does things like taking his top off really slowly when I'm around.

This last year though he has lost interest in athletics and isn't really training properly any more. He would only do races if I texted him to suggest them but he won't travel together to them any more. I found out he was on an internet dating site. Somehow we arranged to go on holiday to the same place at the same time with two other guys ie in a small group and I was looking forward to spending some time with him at last and hoping he would fall for me. This was preceded by several texts from him to check I had booked, etc and saying he felt "discouarged" - I assumed he meant by me not his running! But it was awful. He was staying several miles out of the town we were staying in and made virtually no effort to travel in. I saw him 3 times in total and one of those was when he came in for his transfer to the airport. The two other guys were mightily put out at his anti-socialness, he wouldn't even reply to their texts although he replies to mine. He came in once, for 2 1/2 hours and I made the effort to travel out to meet him. We had the nicest chat and he was asking me loads of questions. He also kept looking into my eyes in such a way that I was convinced he was smitten, and his body language was very relaxed when often he looks tense.

So on the final day, when he was in for the airport transfer, I seized my courage and tried to hold his hand. It was as if I had electrocuted him, he snatched his hand away. I realised this was my chance to find out if he was into me or not so I asked him if he didn't want to hold hands, and he said "I don't want to give the wrong impression". And that was it. Oh, he tried to hug me as he left, which is unusual for him, he doesn't do hugs, but I hung back and just shook his hand instead as I felt so rejected.

I suspect he will text me again at some point but just to be friends. He never quite lets me go. But he's not really interested in being a proper friend - one of the other guys asked him to take something back to his house for storage for me as he had to drive the other guy back home as he had broken his collar bone, and he refused, even though he passes right by it on his way home.

Thoughts? I'm going to cut off contact now, I see no point in prolonging the agony further, but I don't really understand it. I was only patient for so long because everyone keeps telling me he is terribly shy, but over the holiday I realised he isn't shy but anti-social (a man who can order in French in a restaurant is not shy) and also not a very determined or even sporty individual (he spent most of his time doing nothing at the place he was staying). Its like he has been putting up a facade whenever he met me in the past. I'm really fed up with him.

Oh and the other thing is I'm pretty mortified at the reaction I got from trying to hold a guy's hand, I don't think I'll be intiating contact with any man in the future! Dangerous creatures!

Miss Fluff

Sounds to me like he is gay. Could be way off the mark here but a few sentences in that is what I would think. For so many reasons. He may just not fancy you at all and that's cool but to have wanted to spend so much time you in the past and to have NOTHING phsyical happen or be reciprocated?

And to be honest I am every so slightly disturbed if the four-year "relationship" you are referring to is with this guy though. You didn't even kiss. You were friends who hung out together quite a bit. Big difference don't you think? It wasn't really a relationship was it? You can't really think that surely?

bedrock#1

ha!! that's exactly what i thought Miss Fluff...... He is gay

unclecessna

Hi OP,

Sorry to hear you're down but things will get better with time. I don't really think that the guy is gay like Miss Fluff does but then again you never know. I have known people who act flakey like this guy has done: giving enough signals here and there to indicate that they are interested and then doing a complete 180 when the other person reciprocates...I think it's probably an ego boost thing myself.

An ex girlfriend of mine prior to meeting me had been meeting a guy like your guy and he had been giving her the same treatment and really messed with her head in general. I met the guy one time by chance and like your guy he was a very handsome guy with on paper a lot going for him but he struck me as kind of missing something personalitywise - like your guy he seemed kind of anti-social in a way and definitely did not seem to know what he wanted.

Later when I had finished with the girl he started his old routine again but by that stage she had lost all interest and told him where to go. It turns out he had been really chasing another girl all along but had kind of used my ex girlfriend as an ego boost when things weren't going his way there though never really having an interest to take things further with her.

Now obviously everyone is different but I think both your guy and this guy seem to have some things in common so you could perhaps draw some parallels between the two and take away what you will. The bottom line in my humble opinion is you did your best and he did not appreciate you, you definitely deserve better than what you have gotten and this guy simply is not worth any further effort or heart break.

AngryBadger

Sounds like this guy needs to grow up OP. Sounds like he's unwilling to deal with the world on any terms but his own, and consequently at some point he just stopped developing emotionally.

I think you're right to cut off contact, whatever this guys reasons are he's not sharing them with you, or making even the remotest effort to change his ways, you're better off without that kind of headmelting carry-on.

jurgenscarl

It could be that this guy is extremely painfully shy and is still a virgin.
That's maybe why he's acting this way.

Colonel_McCoy

I think he is gay.

How Strange

He could be pathologically shy, he could be gay, he could have aspergers, he could have emotional problems, sexual problems. He could have problems coming out of his yazoo but really this is what I think you should do.

Distorted wrote: »

I'm going to cut off contact now, I see no point in prolonging the agony further, but I don't really understand it.

His problems are nothing to do with you. You can't fix him or make him more personable and he clearly has no sexual feelings for you at all otherwise you'd have gotten it together a long time ago.

Quite simply he doesn't even deserve your pity let alone your friendship, companionship or the energy you waste analysing this thing over and over again.

Do yourself a big big favour and move on. If this guy texts you then be blunt and tell him out straight that you've been offended by his rude bizarre behaviour once too often and you've had enough.

Amazotheamazing

You'll never be able to understand it because he's not acting rationally, he's using you as an ego boost. He mightn't mean to mess you around, he mightn't have any feelings at all, you can't tell. All you can do is put him behind you and move on.

I wish I could explain why people act as he has done, but honestly I doubt they even know themselves.

ABajaninCork

Sorry - worng thread!

liah

Did you ever actually have a proper chat about it with him..? Has he ever been with a girl before?

He could be using you for an ego boost. He could be gay. He also could just be terrified of girls due to lack of exposure or whatever else. Has he siblings? Many other female friends? Is his mother overbearing towards him (this could have set his view of women if he hadn't exposure otherwise)? Did he go to an all-boys school? Maybe he had a bad experience with an ex.

Either way you're probably right to cut off contact. But if you really don't want to lose him even as just a friend, maybe just ask him what's up, tell him he can be comfortable telling you anything. But that's up to you if you think it's worth it to have him in your life. I personally wouldn't, but I also probably would've tried to speak to him properly about it a good while ago, too.

Your call whatever you do. All we can do is give you possible reasons, but he's the only one who actually knows.

Beruthiel

Distorted wrote: »

He's never had a girlfriend and spends inordinate amounts of time with his parents, particularly his mother. Yet he's just about the most handsome man I've ever seen.

I agree with the above posters.
I'd put good money on it, he's gay and in total denial of the fact.
I'd go as far as to say, you're the girl that he hoped would make it not so.
Poor lad needs help.

Distorted

Thanks for your replies. This is the kind of perspective I need to hear. In answer to some questions:

Miss Duff - no I don't consider it a relationship at all, though I suspect for him, I'm the closest to having a girlfriend he has had. The longer relationship I refer to was with another guy, we split up 5 years ago.

He could be gay. But he hasn't admitted it, so I have to go on the assumption he isn't gay. Not every guy who doesn't have a girlfriend is gay, not every guy who turns me down is gay! (well actually this is the only time its happened but its the only time I've chased after a guy). Plenty heteresexaul guys mess women around. And then theres the jealousy thing. He could just be a womaniser.

However, I have this instinct that he might just might have had a male on male encounter with a mutual friend. He was acting very ashamed at a race the morning after spending the night at his flat (for proximity to the race) and the friend was previously saying things like "I wouldn't describe myself as 100% heterosexual" and "I can appreciate a pretty face in a man"). I might be totally wrong here and if so, it doesn't mean he is gay. Necessarily. He is also quite vain (he carris sun cream with him all the time and reapplies it, avoids sitting in the sun even for 5 minutes, has quite perfect clothes, not just jeans, constantly says things like he is tired and has minor injuries which wouldn't prevent a more masculine athlete training).

I can see what he gets out of it - ego boost and also his mother really likes me and he often goes to races with her and she obviously sees me as a sort of (loose use of the word here) girlfriend. However his mother is suffering from a degenerative brain condition and pretty soon in a couple of years might not know anything much at all :-(

I can't talk to him, he runs away and I suspect the reason he "likes" me as opposed to other people, including male friends he doesn't really bother with much any more, is because I don't put him on the spot and don't criticise him. At least he knows if I do criticise him, I'm serious and he usually jumps when I say. For a short time.

Also theres the online dating. I don't think he is a virgin. I don't even think he is particularly innocent any more. I suspect quite a few people have had a piece of him. I am just trusting my instinct on this but I detect a whiff of sleazieness about him, about the way he behaves occasionally. He seems not to be physically intimate unless its with strangers IMHO. He meets loads of women through athletics, races and running tracks are full of attractive women and theres plenty of socialising, but he makes no attempt to chat them up (except the time I was there with another guy and he very obviously stood right in front of me, ignoring me, chatting up another girl).

He has done similar with at least two other girls I know of, although not for such long a time. He was flirting with another girl in my club at a race, ignoring me, that his sister knew and when she moved abroad for a year with work, they visited her there on holiday for two weeks. And he did exactly the same as he did with me on holiday, hardly bothering to see her, very rude. And then at a Christmas meal for the athletics club, another girl made a bee line for him when he was sitting down and sat beside him. As soon as she did so, he bounced up, like a jack in the box and without any explanation, fled to the bar. Both girls are nice, attractive, sporty girls but that was a couple of years ago now so maybe online dating is the way for him. A lot of guys I know in the city we live in seem to go for more plain, slightly overweight girls without degrees who don't do sport, that might be what he's looking for.

I have long suspected he has mild Aspergers and that he is a sociopath. The latter is more problematic than the former IMHO. But he has presented an image to me of a sensitive, caring guy who is not only after one thing, which is why I've kept interested. After all, somethings take a while to develop. I thought he was shy, but its not shyness, its something else.

It honestly would have been better if we had just kissed at least at the beginning and none of this long drawn out mess had happened. OTOH there is obviously something in me that craves the "excitement" - I broke up with my long term boyfriend because I was bored, and he is amazing just to gaze at and we have great conversations and get on really well when he is there. I don't understand it, and thats whats stopped me moving on. But he really is very difficult to talk to, and is very secretive, so hard to ask questions.

stackerman

I must be thick or someting . . .
But I seem to be missing this GAY thing, any chance he's 'just not into you' ??

Distorted

sunflower27 wrote: »

You know what OP. He sounds bl00dy awful.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?!?!

You are right to cut him out of your life! I don't blame you.

sf xx

Thats what the other two guys I was on holiday with thought. They were really angry with him, and not just for the way he was treating me. It took him FIVE DAYS to reply to their texts about meeting up, after they had all flown out together, and I think he only replied then because I sent him a saracastic text asking if he was going to bother meeing up with us at all. I've never heard guys before making excuses like "maybe his phone doesn't work abroad" and "maybe he doesn't get a signal where he's staying".

Oh, and his parents are divorced. They divorced 12 years ago. This is the only traumatic event that has ever happened to him! I think his father is a bit of a womaniser, I had the feeling he was chatting me up one time and he was telling me all about his online dating and how his wife left him. Not attractive in a man of 60.

LegacyUser

keving wrote: »

I must be thick or someting . . .
But I seem to be missing this GAY thing, any chance he's 'just not into you' ??

Well it could be the fact that he said

I wouldn't describe myself as 100% heterosexua"

add that to the fact that he ran a mile from a couple of good looking girls in a bar. There seems to be a particular pattern there.

Of course maybe he's just not into the op.

But more worrying is this

I have long suspected he has mild Aspergers and that he is a sociopath.

If that is true why bother with him? Even if you got your wish and he fell head over heels for you it's only going to end badly, and you know that.

OTOH there is obviously something in me that craves the "excitement" - I broke up with my long term boyfriend because I was bored,

I don't know you, but from the outside it sounds like you'd be better off spending time working on yourself and your craving for the "excitement" you'll be happier in the long run. Good luck with whatever you do, but I think you know the answer otherwise you wouldn't have started this thread.

LegacyUser

Going unreg for this. Op, I spent two years chasing after a man who was very, very similar in his behaviour to your guy. Maybe my story can help you gain perspective on yours.

He was also "the most handsome man I'd ever seen", wore beautiful clothes, was very fussy about himself, his health, spent an inordinate amount of time with his father, had little interest in his friends and those he did have interest in, he would let down constantly. I was the only eejit stupid enough to keep forgiving his odd, irrational behaviour. When he wanted to be, he'd have me completely entranced with him and was the most charismatic person I'd ever met at times. It's safe to say, I was obsessed with him and you sound fairly obsessed with this guy too. I couldn't explain to anyone what his hold was over me. I long suspected that the only time he contacted me was when he was very bored or needed somebody to vent to or to just be a sounding board.

The main difference with my guy and yours was that he had sex with me. But even that was very odd. He'd text me sexual messages maybe 70 or 80 times a day on occasion (having had zero interest for a month or two) but then rarely actually wanted to HAVE sex. When we did have sex, I felt like I may as well have been a substitute for his hand (sorry to be crude!). I also detected some sleaziness from him and heard from a group of lads I knew who had gone to a strip club at a stag party that he'd been in there on his own, not paying for dances or anything, just sitting there by himself!

I kept wondering what on EARTH was wrong with me that he didn't want to be with me properly. It took me a long time to come to my senses but I finally copped on that he had serious mental issues and psychiatric problems. He had in fact been diagnosed with a condition previously but had never told me and was off his meds. At first I'd wanted to help him, but you know what? Illness or no illness, he'd refused treatment for years and didn't seem to see me as anything but an extension of himself that he used to prove to himself he was "normal" in some way. (It helped that I'm very outgoing, fun, a lot younger than him and a very pretty girl.. made him feel even more "normal").

If I were you, I'd change my phone number, change where I trained, and start running in the opposite direction away from him ASAP. You're wasting your best years. This could drag on indefinitely. Ditch him. Let him sort out his own problems. You're NO responsibility to him.