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Dating: to play the part of the one who doesn't wait


Datepalm

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15 hours ago, Starkess said:

Fuck this guy, seriously.

In the most figurative way possible!

Other than that I have trouble giving advice since I would find a "will we or won't we?" sexual tension relationship with a coworker to be hell.  I guess the only thing I'd say is that there is a TON of middle ground between mutually supportive emotionally health marriage that leaves you suffocated and playing third fiddle with work d-bag.  Maybe you could find an honest, low maintenance, see each other once or twice a week kinda thing and see if that works better? 

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9 minutes ago, MinDonner said:

Once or twice a week is... LOW maintenance?! :o:leaving:

A helluva lot less than most marriages (at least assuming you live in the same city).

EDIT:  Do you think that once or twice a week is too much time and effort?  Because to me the work non-relationship you outlined sounds like a lot more time and emotional investment than that. 

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The thing with work is that I have to go there anyway, but an extra one or two nights A WEEK going out? Holy shit who has time for that? 

My brain keeps trying to persuade me that I'm the bad guy here - I had a stupid jealous reaction and now he's all hurt that I doubted his true friendship - but I must resist. If I'm the bad guy then I can fix it by apologising!! Ugh stupid brain. 

Anyway I guess I'll need to return the extremely expensive macro lens he lent me - that's gonna be a bit awkward, but can't have it hanging around my house like an unwanted Mitt Romney bobblehead... 

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20 hours ago, Kelli Fury said:

Min, welcome back, I love you. This dude is a toxic fuckboy who has been toying with you this whole time. It was bad and not worth your time as it was before, now it would be completely insane to view him as anything more than strictly a colleague (one who is frankly extremely unprofessional). You should rejoice at being replaced for his mindfucking

 

15 hours ago, Kelli Fury said:

Pleasant unrealizable sexual tension = free emotional labor and ego stroking on demand with no investment on his part, only yours. He's manipulating three perfectly good women right now, stop being one of them

 

2 hours ago, Kelli Fury said:

Just because he was a great guy who did everything right doesn't mean he was a right fit for you. Everybody has to go through tons of guys who don't work out before finding the right fit. You haven't thrown up your hands when dysfunction didn't work out yet, why not give function another shot, or just doing you for awhile?

Kelli is batting 1000 in this thread.  Dang.

Min, I love you and am so glad you're back.  I'm seldom on here either, but do drop in sporadically.

This guy...he's a bad guy.  He's a user and a taker.  You deserve better than this.  And I absolutely adore everything Kelli said, but the last post...spot on.  You can have functional and not feel smothered.  It's awesome when you find it and until you do, you shouldn't be settling for some crappy user who is charming but totally sketchy.

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3 hours ago, MinDonner said:

Guys, I already tried a mutually-supportive emotionally-healthy marriage with a lovely guy who some of you have met, and who I am still good friends with. It nearly suffocated the life out of me and I had to flee. I fear that dysfunction may be my lot in life, and I'm cool with that; I just need to find a way to make it work a bit better for me.

This is the part of advising that gets a little dicy for me. 

 

I value people's agency and self-determination. So I really do respect your decision to go on with this ambiguously half-satisfying non-committed pseudo relationship, if that's your pick. 

 

At the same time, what Kelli said. 

 

And, just for compare and contrast: 

 

My husband and I are very independent. We speak less than 3 sentences to each other most evenings. He'd go see movies I don't care about, and vice versa, and then we would go to see movies we both like. So the point is that relationships do not have a fixed quantity of inter-mixing. It's as much or as little as you two want, and are happy about. Granted, when you love someone, you'd naturally want to spend time with them. And I do want to spend time with my husband, just not in a way that makes us always do things together as a couple. It's okay that he likes to watch B-horror movies from the 50s while I play online games, and it's okay that he goes to brunch with a group of people while I sleep in on Saturdays, etc. Giving each other space is an important reason why our relationship works for us. So if you were feeling suffocated while in a functional relationship, I just want to make the point that being emotionally supportive doesn't have to _also_ mean suffocating. 

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17 minutes ago, MinDonner said:

The thing with work is that I have to go there anyway, but an extra one or two nights A WEEK going out? Holy shit who has time for that?

Maybe you could invite him to things that you're already going to?

20 minutes ago, MinDonner said:

My brain keeps trying to persuade me that I'm the bad guy here - I had a stupid jealous reaction and now he's all hurt that I doubted his true friendship - but I must resist. If I'm the bad guy then I can fix it by apologising!! Ugh stupid brain.

I think you should actually be proud of yourself for calling him on his bullshit.  You resisted the urge to be passive aggressive ("I'm too busy to help you right now") in order to avoid confrontation and stay in his good graces.  Or worse yet, you could have just done the work in the hope that being a doormat will get him to like you.

But you avoided both those pitfalls.  Great job, brain!

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8 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

So I really do respect your decision to go on with this ambiguously half-satisfying non-committed pseudo relationship, if that's your pick. 

And, just for compare and contrast: 

 

My husband and I are very independent. We speak less than 3 sentences to each other most evenings. He'd go see movies I don't care about, and vice versa, and then we would go to see movies we both like. So the point is that relationships do not have a fixed quantity of inter-mixing. It's as much or as little as you two want, and are happy about. Granted, when you love someone, you'd naturally want to spend time with them. And I do want to spend time with my husband, just not in a way that makes us always do things together as a couple. It's okay that he likes to watch B-horror movies from the 50s while I play online games, and it's okay that he goes to brunch with a group of people while I sleep in on Saturdays, etc. Giving each other space is an important reason why our relationship works for us. So if you were feeling suffocated while in a functional relationship, I just want to make the point that being emotionally supportive doesn't have to _also_ mean suffocating. 

Had to come back to say that I love this - TP's description of his marriage is a great example of supportive, respectful, functional, all while allowing for needed space and independence.  I don't ever want to feel smothered.  I also don't  want to feel disrespected or used.

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I, too, have felt suffocated in most of my relationships, functional and otherwise, because I've got too much other cool shit to do. I took some time to sort out that I liked dysfunction for it's entertaining project value, because in functional relationships I got bored and wandered off, so I sought chaos to keep myself interested. It was a bad plan. Some exboyfriend domestic abuse related court dates later, I learned this. Then I met the current boy, previously referred to as Young Boring Danzig in this thread. We never fight. He never pesters me. He lives with me but I am never suffocated because he has his own life and doesn't horn himself into the parts of my life that don't involve him. He reads while I play video games. My guy friends can stay at our apartment when they are in town. He is never jealous of my clients or about my exes. I have spoken to him on the phone ONCE in the six years I have known him for 2 minutes. I don't have to tell him where I am and I don't need to know where he is. It's very chill. You could get a YBD, he's good looking and loyal and no maintenance and nice to my cats. He paypals me his share of the rent, we have separate wifi bandwidth.

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3 hours ago, MinDonner said:

My brain keeps trying to persuade me that I'm the bad guy here - I had a stupid jealous reaction and now he's all hurt that I doubted his true friendship - but I must resist. If I'm the bad guy then I can fix it by apologising!! Ugh stupid brain. 

It sounds like he's been manipulating you for a long time and this reaction is the result of such behavior. If I were you I'd repair the relationship enough so that it doesn't complicate your work environment and cut bait on everything else. Didn't you say at one point that the guy is a total narcissist? 

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Min - I think you're so cool. I really do think you're awesome. I totally understand where you're coming from enjoying the will-they-wont-they part. A lot of the time it is the best bit, the most exciting. But is it worth it with some people? With this guy...no. He's an asshole, look at how he treats his girlfriend. He could just...not be in a relationship but he is. And he's disrespecting her all the time. He's doing the same thing to you.  

And can I say that there's a huge amount of middle ground between marriage and this asshole. There really is. 

I think keep it a friendly-ish work relationship and cut the rest. He isn't worth it. Don't do extra work for him - that makes him sound lazy and incompetent. You don't want someone like that. Begging emotional labour from you all the time just for a few flirts. 

You're awesome - you can do so much better.

13 hours ago, Lily Valley said:

I'm with you on this.  When dating, once or twice a month is fine with me.  

 

 

same here. I have way too much stuff to do at the moment. 2 jobs (well...1 and a half I guess), volunteering project at museum, working on MA, learning to drive, trying to squeeze in trips to see friends and family in between all this when I can. 1 or 2 days a week would just be suffocating to me. I like my own space too much. I sometimes worry about that because I think it'd be fun to start a relationship but for now I'm totally okay with my own company. Would be nice to date a BIT tho. But I just wouldn't wanna give away too much of my time every week. 

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10 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

 Begging emotional labour from you all the time just for a few flirts.

I think emotional labour is par the course for dysfunctional non-relationships, to be honest. I mean, that what they are. If one is treating this kind of thing like a hobby, well, woodworking or hiking is labour-for-pleasure too. What seems like a red(der) flag to me is the actual un-paid labour. And trying to weasel out of the beer-for-CV-editing exchange is just low.

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On 19/10/2017 at 10:32 AM, Datepalm said:

I think emotional labour is par the course for dysfunctional non-relationships, to be honest. I mean, that what they are. If one is treating this kind of thing like a hobby, well, woodworking or hiking is labour-for-pleasure too. 

This is disturbingly accurate :lol:

I'm hanging tough, he's still blanking me, probably expecting that I'm gonna crack and apologise like all previous occasions. NOPE. 

Worried about New Girl though; she's from a sheltered background and this is like her 2nd job since Uni; I knew what I was getting into with this dude but she's gonna get badly burned. I'm making a point of still talking to her so she doesn't fear that I'll retaliate, but is there any way I can warn her without looking like crazy jealous lady?  

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2 hours ago, MinDonner said:

but is there any way I can warn her without looking like crazy jealous lady?  

Absolutely not.   Stay out of it.   Remember that living well is the best revenge, also putting people on the ignore channel is satisfying.  In this case, just carry on in a cool professional manner with him and stay friendly and supportive to her.

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I third the above, no way to warn her. And if she's enough of a babe in the woods she doesn't know dude at work with a girlfriend is bad news the world is gonna break her no matter what you warn her of. 

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