Some of you may know that I have recently been dating someone new for the first time in 16 years. I wanted to let you all know that things didn’t work out. I was fully committed to be who she needed, but without going fully into it, she has a lot of trauma and projects it onto all men, even good ones. Friday would have been a month since our first date and I had such a great romantic themed dinner planned that I was going to make for her (and I don’t even cook for myself much) each item was thoughtfully chosen by me and was gluten free because she has celiac.
Yesterday I decided against my better judgment to break the boundary I made about not seeing her every day this week and honestly its a good thing I did because her true colors were shown today. The impromptu date was going great but then we were talking for the third time about why she still isn’t comfortable kissing me yet, and all I said was, “I totally respect that you aren’t comfortable yet and I will wait, but can you tell me what it is that is holding you back?” And she said, “I just know kissing leads to other stuff. Which leads to more intimate stuff.” And I said, “maybe with other guys but I am not like other guys” to which she said, “I’ve heard that before” so I said, “well honestly that isn’t fair to compare me to other guys who have hurt you in the past when I have been nothing but respectful” and she said, “I knew you were going to say that. I think you should take me home.” So then we had a 10 minute awkward and emotional car ride where I was choking back tears and saying I don’t want this to end over this, with mostly silence from her.
Fast forward to today I text her again apologizing and asking her to go deeper about what is holding her back and what she is doing to heal from that trauma. No response until almost 3 pm. In that time I was talking to another friend who has quickly become my best friend and life coach, and I realized that the woman I was dating and I should just be done because we want different things. Then she texts me and asks to talk at her place tomorrow morning so I sent her a message saying I had been thinking about it and I didn’t think we should continue seeing each other, wished her well, etc. Well she then flipped on me and nitpicked my apology and assigned incorrect subtext to it, basically making me the bad guy because I was the one who ended things. She then told me to bring back some stuff she left in my car (a bag of bottles that we were going to return for the refunds and a picture frame she got for free on the Facebook marketplace.) And she demanded I bring them back today and I said today isn’t going to work for me, but I would also like my stuff back too please. And she said you gave me those as gifts so I am not giving them back, forget it, keep everything i’m done. And then she blocked me. To be clear, one item.I requested back was a gift, the other was a loaned jacket.
I ignored a lot of red flags in this woman because I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt and wait until she opened up to tell me about the things that I and others viewed as red flags, because I am so starved for love after being single for 16 years that I was willing to ignore those red flags to feel loved and wanted again. We held hands, danced, and cuddled so I definitely was not misreading something that was just friendship. If she would have been clear that she wasn’t ready to date, that would have changed everything. We met on Facebook Dating and nowhere on her profile did it say anything about not being ready to date. In fact she asked me out on our first date which was very spontaneous.
Ironically 2 weeks in, I prayed to God that if this was not the right woman for me to close the door. One week later, while on a mini road trip with her, I hit a deer. It hit on the passenger side and made it so that we could not open the door to get her out of the car without forcing it. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
But, it wasn’t all bad. I did learn a few good things through this experience:
1. Trust your gut, not your heart – the Bible teaches that our hearts are desperately wicked, yet the world teaches us to “follow our heart”. My heart, my desire to love and be loved, lead me into a bad situationship… all the while my stomach was turning. Every awkward silence, every short answer, every break of eye contact told me she wasn’t right for me and me ignoring it literally made me sick. It wasn’t butterflies in my stomach, it was anxiety.
2. Assess a person’s intentions before catching feelings – I have always been a love at first sight kind of guy. A woman smiles at me and she’s got me; hook, line, and sinker. This is no way to live as it causes repeated heartbreak. Instead, don’t just assume that because someone is showing interest in you that they are as committed to the relationship as you are. Give what you get in return and only catch feelings after you discuss what they are looking for and it aligns with what you are looking for.
3. Don’t ignore red flags – No matter how long it has been since you were in a relationship, don’t settle for someone that isn’t right for you just because you are lonely. Enjoy the solitude until the right person makes their way into the fortress. 😉
4. Assess your circle – collect data on everyone you meet. Don’t just let anyone into your inner circle. I let this woman into mine way too quickly and now my nephew is heartbroken that Uncle Stevie had to break up with this seemingly wonderful person that he got to know and had fun with. He seemed just as excited for me as I was that I was finally dating someone and it seemed to be going well. Also don’t forget that people can be ejected from your inner circle straight to the void, which is where she is now.
5. Avoid Avoidants – As a middle child, most of my life I have struggled with having an anxious attachment style (which I am actively working on). Craving attention, always thinking I did something wrong to deserve being ignored, etc. When an anxious gets together with an avoidant, that is a recipe for disaster. That awkward car ride home when I was practically begging to know how I can fix it, she avoided most of what I said because it made her uncomfortable to acknowledge it. But I deserve to be acknowledged. I deserve to be heard and responded to. What I did not deserve was the blame shifting and misrepresentation of what I actually said and did. Even though I was apologizing, I knew deep down that I didn’t have to because I didn’t do anything wrong. People with anxious attachment take too much accountability for things they often don’t need to while Avoidants don’t take any accountability for any of their own shortcomings. They instead shift the focus to something surface level that you said or did wrong and make it a deal breaker because they can’t face the fact that maybe they are defective and need to work on fixing their life before they leave a trail of broken hearts in their wake.
6. Boundaries and communication are important – It is important to set and stick to your boundaries from the get go and communicate them clearly so that nobody gets confused about the expectations of the relationship. If I had known she wasn’t comfortable with intimacy from the start and not ready for dating, I would not have pursued her romantically but rather just be friends with clear boundaries established from the get go.
7. Distance makes the heart grow fonder; overexposure does the opposite – if you are seeing someone you dated for about a month like 80% of the days in that month, and went on many multiple double digit hour dates in that month, that is not a healthy way to build a lasting relationship, especially when you seem to be the only one putting in any effort to actually get to know the person. A new relationship should improve your existing life, not consume it.
8. Even experiences that end bad can provide good and beautiful life lessons – I don’t feel that I failed to make a relationship work. Instead I see it as I learned to be more selective of the people I choose to let into my world. It wasn’t all bad. I rediscovered my love for art in all of it’s forms and the serenity that creating it can provide. I also realized that I shouldn’t force love to come my way. Instead I should work on being the best possible version of myself so that when the right woman does come along, I will be ready for her.
Thank you for reading this extremely long blog and I ask that if you did read it please like, comment, and follow me on all social media at: superstevestamp
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