09-03-2017, 07:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-11-2018, 09:18 AM by gayprojectforum.)
Dear Project,
I got to talk to you several times via msn but I think you cannot easily remember me without a more precise reference. Twenty-eight y. o. madly in love with a guy twenty-three with whom I believed to have built a great relationship, then I was abandoned by this guy last summer but in a way that I could not explain, I talked to you for a whole night in the month of September (Nick name: sad). I called you because I needed to get out but talking to you instead gave me a strange feeling, I realized that your way of reasoning and seeing things was extremely different from mine or maybe different from how I had tried to figure out my relationship with that guy.
The thing that struck me most was your vision of couple’s life. I have kept logs of conversations:
Sad wrote: Hello Project, are you busy?
Project wrote: Hello Sad, nice to meet you!
Sad wrote: Maybe you remember, I had written at the end of June, twenty-eight y. o. madly in love with a twenty-three, (he and I had been together in the mountains for Christmas)…
Project wrote: Ah yes … and he had lost his wallet at the hotel and they had given it back to him?
Sad wrote: yes yes exactly! Just that!
Project wrote: Yes, I remember now! A good story, a story that struck me very much. And now, how are you now?
Sad wrote: now I’m single again, the story is over!
Project wrote: but what happened? It seemed that everything was fine…
Sad wrote: he behaved with me in an unworthy manner, treated me with no respect, I had tried to do everything for him and make sure he was okay but he left me as if I were worth nothing to him
Project wrote: but now he’s with another guy?
Sad wrote: no, I do not think
Project wrote: so why is gone?
Sad wrote: I do not know, I did not understand, he told me that he felt too tight, that he did not feel able to make choices, I asked him to meet me but he said no and there was nothing I could do to make him change his opinion, then we just had a fight badly and I sent him to hell and I also think that he took it very badly, but with me, if you want to do something serious it is fine but, if you are just dithering even over fundamental choices, it does not sit well with me at all. It is as if he had used me when he needed me and then had only just left me when I was most in need of him. I thought that at least between us there was a strong relationship, I thought I could rely on him but things were different.
Project wrote: but when it happened?
Sad wrote: more or less a month and a half ago
Project wrote: and after you broke up did you meet again or he disappeared altogether?
Sad wrote: yes he called me, he seemed to want to go back, he told me he loved me but when I asked him if he wanted to go back with me he told me that he did not feel so and that he had not called for it but to know how I was and then I lost my temper and told him to go to hell.
Project wrote: and that was it?
Sad wrote: no, sometimes we also talked on msn but I cannot be on a roller coaster this way, I cannot be exposed to his mood swings, because he basically does not want to be with me and this seems clear to me, I need stability and to him this is not good, that is, the stability seems to him to be a way to give up other things, like if he was closing himself in a trap, and so things cannot go on. I know he is younger than me and maybe he wants to have his experiences but at some point he must also make a clear choice, the fact that now he is alone depends only on him and I do not give a damn, I cannot ruin my life running after him and after everything that comes to his mind. He has a vision of things too different from mine
Project wrote: but is it really true that you do not care about?
Sad wrote: however I cannot tolerate the fact that I have been treated with no respect, let’s face it, Project, now I’m really bad, for me it’s a failure, I need stability, if he doesn’t care at all, I will try to find another guy so that it could be something stable, quiet, with him it would not be so in any case, what do you think about, Project?
Project wrote: are you sure that he wants to break the relationship??
Sad wrote: No, but now I want to close the matter, I cannot go on like this! I’m tired, Project, and I’m disappointed, I had overrated him, I thought that he really cared and instead he proved to be selfish. When he needed me I was there all the time but when I needed him, he didn’t care at all
Project wrote: things you told me long ago about this guy were very positive, just at the level of person, and I’m sorry if, I tell you, but at that time I had the impression that you had a very rigid way of seeing things.
Sad wrote: what is it?
Project wrote: wait, I’ll try to explain, you had in mind a model of close couple and probably the mentality of this guy is not compatible with that model. When you are in love with a person, there is always the risk of actually seeing only some aspects and to complete other aspects according to our desires, but falling really in love means to love a guy for what he is, that is love him even in the aspects that we cannot understand, that usually have deep motivations and are not stupid attitudes, it is possible that couple’s life is not good for him, or not good as you imagine it in the sense of close couple
Sad wrote: it means that he really does not love me! Because he is not willing to give up anything for me
Project wrote: no! Do not say so, really love each other does not mean having to give up something necessarily neither to accept a model of close couple; it’s a whole different thing. I think you could find yourself choosing between the model of close couple and this guy. I would not give for granted that you should give up on this guy and even that the story is over, maybe it’s over the possibility of living with him a story in the way you imagined it and on the other hand does not make sense to think that one must adapt to another, it is possible to find a balance for both but if I have to say what I think, I do not think the story is really over and anyway you do not seem really disappointed.
Sad wrote: I don’t know what to tell you, Project, but now at least for a while, I don’t want any more to know anything about him, then what it means to love one another if you do not feel comfortable as a couple?
Project wrote: I do not know, it’s all to be verified; sometimes we pretend that people adapt to our models, but people and not our models are the absolute value. It is true that this argument should also apply from his point of view, but I think he too may have felt very uncomfortable. Maybe he thought he was accepted as he really was, with all his uncertainties, his contradictions and his need for freedom and not as a guy who had to adapt to what his partner wanted, I will say, however, not to keep rigid positions with him. A relationship doesn’t exist when there is no affection, not when things don’t go according to our plans and here I don’t think that there is no affection and even love.
Sad wrote: well … basically I love him, but it is too difficult for me, no, Project, for me this is not good. I need a minimum of security.
This was our conversation of September and since then many things have happened, I tried to be with other guys, but practically it was impossible because I always had him in mind. Our contacts were not interrupted, he called me several times and was talking to me very seriously, but never wanted to get back together not to deceive me, he said, not to let me think that things could come back as before. He treated me with respect and affection, what I did not expect, even if he did not want to go back to a couple’s relationship with me as before. I do not know if he is in love with another guy, but I don’t think so. With me he is very clear, as he always has been, never good statements and positions always very clear, we have also met in person and more than a single time.
Undoubtedly when I see him I’m taken back to the idea of living with him as a couple, and sometimes it was difficult to accept that it would not happen. He tells me that he needs freedom, to try to live his life, whatever it could be, but that he loves me and I begin to think that it is true, indeed I do. Sometimes we hug and this causes me a strange feeling but it’s a positive felling, I feel that I have not lost him; however, certainly I have to resize my dreams. It’s a bit as you said, Project, I find myself deciding between this guy and the kind of life that I had imagined with him. It still seems very difficult to me to accept that he could be free and could love me even though he fell in love with another guy.
This summer it seemed to me quite inconceivable, now I find it difficult to accept but I do not see it as an absurd hypothesis. In fact, if a guy loves another guy and therefore he doesn’t love you at all because he only thinks of the other guy, then certainly you cannot maintain any relationship, but if the guy could as well continue to love you, even though he is in love with another guy, it would make sense to say that it is better to send everything to hell? I really don’t know, Project.
Evidently, they put us in mind behavior models according to which love must be exclusive, i.e. either with me or with another, but perhaps these models are complications that are not needed at all to love one another. Maybe now it seems to me that I could adapt because in fact now he has not another guy, probably if he had one I could not accept it. In practice, I hope to be everything for him, so he would not need anything else and I would find my peace of mind, in practice a bit as before. That is, now, even if he went away from me, he is still in love with me because really there is not anyone else. Or maybe it could work well even if he really was in love whit another guy? I really don’t know.
With me he was always sincere and I feel that we are really good together. Probably I’m not really everything for him, I’m not enough for him but not in the sense that he devalues me but in the sense that he also needs other things that I cannot give him, I cannot because maybe they are things that I do not understand or just because he also needs affection of others.
In recent times I have the impression that he wants to be close to me, that he cares what I say and what I think and especially that he cares to show me that he loves me but avoiding deluding me. But how can I, Project, to think that maybe we go back together, because it probably will happen, or at least somehow will happen, but how do I then think that he might even have another guy? I’m not saying he could not love me, because I do not think this will happen, but how could I accept not to be everything for him anyway? This thing upsets me. Project, and if, after accepting such a thing, I were worse? And if maybe I’m the one who deceives him because I’m not able to comply with his rules and then I expect it to be business as usual? I think I can find another guy, but it is not what I want.
When I tried to approach other guys I expected from them his reactions, his answers, and instead I found myself in front of quite different things, things from which I was barely involved, in practice I was not involved at all because I thought those guys were not like him. When he’s around I feel his presence very strong and it is not a matter of sex, even arguing with him is another thing. He never tells me I’m right when he thinks that I’m wrong and discussing with him it’s a true discussion, both of us at the same level. After all he has not kept pace but loved me anyway and I have no doubt, but he loved me in his own way. I do not know if we would be back together, it’s probably something else that does not involve the classical concept of couple.
Project, do you understand in what kind of problems I’m involved? It is a situation that previously I would never have accepted for any reason, I would have rejected on principle, but I do not want to be without that guy, certainly the situation in these terms will make me live in anxiety, and I think that the sense of uncertainty will be unavoidable in the future. You really think that it’s possible to find stability this way? That I can be happy even so?
If you want you can publish this e-mail.
__________
Editor replies:
Given that for me there may be different types of relationship between two people – it’s enough to clarify, from the beginning, towards which kind of relationship one is oriented and even its possible evolution - if both the partners agree on a classical couple relationship, however, there cannot be perpetually third parties (other guys): I think it is natural (indeed human) that guys tend, in the long run, to orient a relationship, whatever it could be, towards a classical couple relationship, because it is able to give more stability and emotional reward for the emotional investment that basically it is done in every relationship worthy of the name. In short, I don’t think that "seeing oneself in the prospect of couple life" is only the product of a millennial process of inculturation, but I think it is a natural (and legitimate) expectation when you "invest" so much emotionally on a person.
Alyosha replies:
"sometimes we expect people to adapt to our models, but people, not models, are the absolute value" I take note of this statement and I will recycle it at the next opportunity! The speech made by Project seems to me to be very meaningful and in fact, many couple problems derive from considering models as an absolute value. If I can be sincere, overall, with respect to the first discussion, when Sad was still furious, I had the impression that his external attitude was more of "blackmail" than objective, of the series "if you don’t change I leave you", but that the intention was not at all to leave him, but to let him make a decision, to let him make change his attitude.
The fact that the other kept his positions, led to a downward compromise. If after some time Sad assumes that the other has not yet a guy, probably the problem is not having another guy, but living one’s own life without feeling conditioned or suffocated by the presence of the other, especially if the other has a conditioning attitude, that is tends to pour his expectations on the other, expecting the other to adapt. I see in the 28-year-old an attitude of the "all or nothing" series. Either the two guys form a really tight couple or the 23-year-old goes away with another, as if loosening his grip on him the 23 year old must necessarily run away, when it is clear that he didn't go away even when the relationship seemed finished. As I see it, you should not get used to the idea that he is with another guy, on the contrary you should get used to the idea that loosening the grip on him nothing would really happen, maybe he can just relax and you could avoid the ride in the roller coaster.
Watchermat replies:
"He tells me he needs freedom, to try and make his life". When I hear such speeches, I struggle to hold back my anger. It is true that to hug too tightly around one's own partner is likely to suffocate him but it is equally true that it can be the partner who feels suffocated a little too easily.
Now I'm no longer talking about Sad’s case, but more generally. I'll explain. A person may come to think that by continuing a romantic relationship with someone it is not possible to evolve with one's own life, individually. And so? Does this mean that you cannot have a partner and live a life even as a single person? I don’t think so. The explication lies in "what makes me feel suffocated?". My personal experience has led me to meet many people who are objectively frustrated by being single but at the same time are unable to change a bit of their life, all in the name of their freedom as singles. The simple understanding that the thing is becoming more intimate (and this can also mean that the attendance has gone beyond the 3 meetings) triggers the feeling that their freedom and individuality are in danger. Hence an intolerance and a discomfort that leads to the termination of the relationship (every time) in the space of more or less time (from weeks to months). I wonder if sometimes even the simple idea of a relationship is not enough to put someone in confusion even without the actual suffocating behavior of the partner. The blessed "middle ways" exist, and it is possible to find a balance of spaces, proximities and distances, within the couple life. When there is the possibility of being an individual within a couple it means that things are going well, that the couple is fine. Reaching such a balance requires exposing oneself and getting to know each other more deeply. If, knowing each other more deeply, one understands that it is not possible to continue the relationship one has the sacrosanct right / duty to tell it his partner. But it is not something that concerns the risk of losing one's personal freedom. What do you think?
Blackout replies:
Fine answers by Project, which above all allow us to evaluate a situation outside of our experience. I state that I don’t have the least experience of relationship, so at most I can express my opinion, from the outside. I grew up, I too, with the idea that relationship meant to be two, no more, and the couple was the only concept admitted. But when I started thinking by myself, I realized that this idea doesn’t belong to me, or rather I don’t have to necessarily think that this is the only way to have a relationship, because the situations that can occur will always have peculiar characteristics and I’m not here to give you examples, you can understand it better than me.
Watcher speaks of "a sense of suffocation" especially for singles. And I understand it well because when you are single you build your good habits and the relationship that could possibly occur, selfishly considered, seems to remove rather than add something. And it is perhaps true (often I think it is) that the only idea that that initial feeling can become something, often makes people run away. Well, for me those people are numb sentimentally, I don’t know how to explain it but I think they have developed an inability to certain types of relationships and tend only to close themselves in a safe and muffled world that is that of the single. Time and patience to understand how to build a relationship have been lost. This is just an opinion, as I said, I don’t know anything about relationships.
Totoro replies:
Having always been a guy who "runs away", I’m better inclined to share the positions of the one who has distanced his partner rather than of the one who has written this mail, I would be much more inclined to support his reasons than the moral blackmail and reasoning of the guy of twenty-eight, or so I imagine. I confirm that not always when one goes away he does so because he no longer feels affection for the person he leaves. In the past I happened to be with people who expected from me (note the "expected") that I leaned on them from the emotional point of view. Given that even this simple attitude is something suffocating for me who was accustomed to lick my wounds alone and find it rewarding, the moral blackmail "if you don’t lean on me it means that you don’t love me or that you don’t need me anyway"
had only the effect of bringing me to seriously turn off any kind of affection. Because often, if not always, people tend to think about things starting from their own way of thinking, that is reasoning this way: "for me it is so, so it must be so absolutely for everybody". Frankly I don’t know if they are wrong or not, if the root of my taking distance was that I then identified or if the past things have led me to my conclusions but ultimately I never really wanted a relationship. Even less I can say if others are frustrated by not having a relationship but at the same time are too used to being alone to embark on such a thing, certainly situations are very different and complicated. And it is not even said that when a guy says he wants to live his life he intends to "try to have relationships with others", maybe he can only mean that he needs to be independent and to learn to rely only on his own strength.
Whoknows answers:
Watchermat, I fully agree with you! I really cannot stand those types of relationships in which jealousy takes over and everyone's freedom is greatly limited, but I don’t think I could tolerate the open couple ... but I should try, before judging. In this email, however, one thing is not clear: the guy in question loves him, but doesn’t want the couple. And the sex in their relationship what role does it occupy? In fact, if it doesn’t occupy any role, it can simply mean that this guy loves him as a friend, but that he is not attracted to him. Or he can also be attracted to him, but maybe he realizes that on some aspects their point of view is too far away to allow the creation of a lasting relationship (for example, maybe due to life projects, like one wants to go to foreign and the other not, or one wants to live as a gay out of the closet and the other doesn’t want renounce privacy). In reality, we know the story from a single perspective and it is not even clear what kind of relationship exists between the two guys.
Barbara answers:
The difficult thing about living as a couple or having an affective relationship is precisely the search for this balance that Totoro describes. In a close relationship the need to mediate is continuous and takes place at all levels. To mediate means to come to meet and find a point of agreement. Often it is not a real middle ground, in the sense that maybe one of them adapts much more than the other. Each of us is more or less inclined by character to make his own needs prevail or to let his partner prevail. Many balances also remain unbalanced for a long time, until maybe they explode. It seems to me that in that mail it is also this. One of them was satisfied with how things were going and the other was not. Only that maybe they didn’t want or couldn’t face reality. The other guy had sent messages that perhaps should have been taken into consideration. Maybe nothing would have changed because their needs were too far away and maybe they could have found a solution before closing their relationship. In any case it is very true what Totoro says, that relationships with others and above all conflicts also force us to question ourselves. They lead us to ask ourselves if we expected too much from the other or if our request was legitimate and was therefore the other at fault in not accepting it. I think relationships help us get out of ourselves and grow, however things go. For example, those that have gone wrong can teach us to check in time if there are the minimum conditions to find a compromise. If I’m a person who needs to have his own spaces and not feel invaded by the other, it is very difficult for me for example to hold a relationship with someone who continually needs confirmations. One will feel the air missing and the other will feel abandoned. Sometimes we stay together even when it would be wise to separate and sometimes we prefer to truncate everything even before we have seriously tried to recover the situation. This is also a good dilemma to be dissolved.