Relationships

[BlackDragonSlayer]

you said date right
you ought to say date to be clear

I'm going to be seeing her again tonight, so, yeah, I'll make sure to clarify that (and also emphasize that she shouldn't feel any pressure about saying no if she wants to!).

[SlowPokemon]

Best o' luck!

[Zunawe]

Long

So, two summers ago, my girlfriend broke up with me. And it was really hard on both of us. The basic reason is that she expected to be moving in a certain direction in her life, but I (and our friend group) was inevitably never going to go that way. And I completely trust that too; I always had the feeling it was true, but hoped she would be willing to stay around me despite it.

Anyway, she broke up with me and asked for distance and time. We both had a hard time and there wasn't any contact excepting an "Are you doing okay," conversation a couple weeks later. This was almost the start of my second year of college, so our friend group had split into two apartments (one with guys, one with girls). Since the guys physically had the things to do (board games, media, etc...), hanging out typically meant the girls coming to our apartment. My ex obviously didn't because she and I were still figuring stuff out. And part of her intent was to distance herself a little from our group anyway. She had also become much closer friends with another girl in our group and they spent a good amount of time together.

Now months pass without either of us saying a word to each other. She and the other girl slowly ceased all response in our text chat. I had essentially agreed to let her figure out what she needed to do, which meant to me that she would have to be the one to first break the silence, if that was going to happen. Snippets I heard from other people who interacted with her kinda painted her in a light I was a little uncomfortable with. I did my best to ignore it because it was only stuff people found notable enough to mention in passing. Things that wouldn't indicate all that much about her. But having not had contact with her for about half a year, and especially after being told by her that she wanted to take her life in a different direction, the little images I got piled up into an idea that conflicted with what I expected and hoped would be her. And the thing that made that idea grow was that she never said a word to me, directly or indirectly, and she never went out of her way to interact with the friends she made freshman year.

It was a year and a half before we had any sort of conversation, and it only had to do with a glitched out group text. It was no more than 10 texts between us, but it was almost strangely civil. At least, given the only image I could conjure of her potentially changed personality.


And now I have to back up a little to change the frame of reference. While we were dating, she was having some conflicts with another girl in the group. This other person was basically being a poor friend and my ex was done with it. That was apparently exacerbated over the summer along with some other stuff. Essentially, my ex and her friend sorta divided themselves from the other three girls in their apartment. Those three girls were the ones that tended to come visit us to play board games.

Apparently, after those three came back from visiting us, they would sometimes mention that we talked about disliking my ex and our other friend. Which is a complete lie. We actually pretty often mentioned that we wished they would visit more often. In fact, we were a little hurt that they stopped talking to us. And on the other side, when they heard that we didn't want them around, they probably were a little hurt and stopped wanting to interact with us. Given that she and I had broken up and not spoken, it was an upsetting but not unreasonable thought. But wrong.

So I spent months of my time fighting grief perpetuated by uncertainty and conflicting ideas, and she likely went through something similar, because of some petty lies. I'm very upset and only just getting a handle on everything after she broke up with me, and it's been a year and a half since then.

And I feel like I should say something to her, but I don't know how to approach all this. I'm more intimidated by her now than I ever was getting to know her.

[close]

tl;dr People can be awful, and it doesn't take much to seriously screw with somebody's emotions.

[ThatHiddenCharacter]

Long

So, two summers ago, my girlfriend broke up with me. And it was really hard on both of us. The basic reason is that she expected to be moving in a certain direction in her life, but I (and our friend group) was inevitably never going to go that way. And I completely trust that too; I always had the feeling it was true, but hoped she would be willing to stay around me despite it.

Anyway, she broke up with me and asked for distance and time. We both had a hard time and there wasn't any contact excepting an "Are you doing okay," conversation a couple weeks later. This was almost the start of my second year of college, so our friend group had split into two apartments (one with guys, one with girls). Since the guys physically had the things to do (board games, media, etc...), hanging out typically meant the girls coming to our apartment. My ex obviously didn't because she and I were still figuring stuff out. And part of her intent was to distance herself a little from our group anyway. She had also become much closer friends with another girl in our group and they spent a good amount of time together.

Now months pass without either of us saying a word to each other. She and the other girl slowly ceased all response in our text chat. I had essentially agreed to let her figure out what she needed to do, which meant to me that she would have to be the one to first break the silence, if that was going to happen. Snippets I heard from other people who interacted with her kinda painted her in a light I was a little uncomfortable with. I did my best to ignore it because it was only stuff people found notable enough to mention in passing. Things that wouldn't indicate all that much about her. But having not had contact with her for about half a year, and especially after being told by her that she wanted to take her life in a different direction, the little images I got piled up into an idea that conflicted with what I expected and hoped would be her. And the thing that made that idea grow was that she never said a word to me, directly or indirectly, and she never went out of her way to interact with the friends she made freshman year.

It was a year and a half before we had any sort of conversation, and it only had to do with a glitched out group text. It was no more than 10 texts between us, but it was almost strangely civil. At least, given the only image I could conjure of her potentially changed personality.


And now I have to back up a little to change the frame of reference. While we were dating, she was having some conflicts with another girl in the group. This other person was basically being a poor friend and my ex was done with it. That was apparently exacerbated over the summer along with some other stuff. Essentially, my ex and her friend sorta divided themselves from the other three girls in their apartment. Those three girls were the ones that tended to come visit us to play board games.

Apparently, after those three came back from visiting us, they would sometimes mention that we talked about disliking my ex and our other friend. Which is a complete lie. We actually pretty often mentioned that we wished they would visit more often. In fact, we were a little hurt that they stopped talking to us. And on the other side, when they heard that we didn't want them around, they probably were a little hurt and stopped wanting to interact with us. Given that she and I had broken up and not spoken, it was an upsetting but not unreasonable thought. But wrong.

So I spent months of my time fighting grief perpetuated by uncertainty and conflicting ideas, and she likely went through something similar, because of some petty lies. I'm very upset and only just getting a handle on everything after she broke up with me, and it's been a year and a half since then.

And I feel like I should say something to her, but I don't know how to approach all this. I'm more intimidated by her now than I ever was getting to know her.

[close]

tl;dr People can be awful, and it doesn't take much to seriously screw with somebody's emotions.

Wow. That was... wow. First of all, you should become an author because you are amazing with words. Second of all, I think you should talk to her so that she doesn't think you were saying you disliked her. You wouldn't want that to be her last image of you. (And yes, I did read the whole thing.)

[FireArrow]

At this point you've got nothing to lose. What's she going to do, somehow avoid you more than she already does?

[LeviR.star]

How'd it go?

[Zunawe]

At this point you've got nothing to lose. What's she going to do, somehow avoid you more than she already does?

It's not really a question of the logical choice, but after so long, all the things I built up in my head and all the things I'm unsure about would collapse. And that uncertainty is scary. Not only that, but I still feel like I'm not supposed to be the one to talk to her first. At this point, that almost certainly doesn't matter, but it's a thing I've had in my head for a long time.

I'll do it at some point. I just need to figure out what I want out of it and to build up the courage and rhetoric to talk to her.

[Dudeman]

I think what you should want out of it is a mutual understanding of how you see each other. You think she's been doing some questionable stuff and want to know that she isn't; she might think you've been badmouthing her and wants to know that you aren't. At this point you're both wrapped up in uncertainty, and the longer you wait to address it, the worse it's going to get, to the point that you'll never be able to say anything because you don't know where to start.

I'm confident that things will work out between you and you'll both be able to move on, but yeah, I get that it's hard to know where to start. Just don't wait too long.

[BlackDragonSlayer]

Ugh. Why am I so bad at expressing myself with spoken words? I'm half-convinced I should become a mute and handle all my important business through text, email, or Facebook messenger or snail mail. I'm that hopeless.

[Zunawe]

According to my girlfriend, I'm a shiny Rayquaza.

[Dudeman]

You're black?

[Zunawe]

If you search my real name online, yes.

[Dudeman]

oh oops that was intended to be a joke but that's cool too

[Zunawe]

I'm not the person who comes up when you search my name.

[Dudeman]

STOP MESSING WITH MY EVERYTHING