Maybe I’m just exhausted from getting little sleep last night and feeling really sad, but I could use some support.
I’ve [30m] started dating again since my last break up. For context, I’ve had a pattern of meeting people, looking for the best in them, get kinda excited although realistically I have reservations, and then within 4 months the whole thing blows up.
I’m off the dating apps because they get me down, and I’ve only dated friends a few times because I get huge anxiety about potentially losing a friendship if a relationship goes south. I get huge anxiety about relationships in general just because of a long string of heartbreak.
It’s happening again- I met someone who came to an event I host, and she was so wonderful. Just a beam of light- her optimism matched mine, she is into many of the things I’m into like biking and climbing, and she even led a jam on piano at my event (I’m a musician and it’s a jam based on a principle of musical humanism). At the end of the night, we even got to dancing in the middle of the room. That night I asked her to go swing dancing and if she’d want to see a show I was music directing before. She said yes to both and I felt so excited, but also knowing it was just as friends. I wanted to see if we would be compatible before asking any bigger questions.
The next day I sent a message and a meme, but got no response. My thoughts went to “I’m putting too much pressure on this and she’s reacting” or “she’s not interested” and it made me pretty blue. The next day I messaged her telling her that the place we were dancing is going to be 20s themed just so she knew what to wear if she wanted, and she texted back like normal- all was good again.
That night she came to my show and we both biked up to the Green Mill (the jazz club in Chicago) and we had a great time. In the middle when we went back for a drink, we kissed and I was so excited. We talked and found we had so much in common- our thoughts on the importance of family, community, and how we can lift eachother up to be better than the sum of our parts. We both are active and extroverted, and felt the same how often times we feel like society wants us to shut up and not be extra. We both love the same kinds of beer. We both had struggled with weed- she put it well that her favorite thing about herself is her social skills, but when she’s high it all goes away, just like me. She works for a bike company, I used to work for a bike company. She wants to start a hot dog stand, I want to write a coffee table book about city flags. We even planned to go climbing together for a second date.
I honestly felt like I found my one.
But then she dropped that she had a long distance relationship with a guy in Amsterdam, and that they agreed that it’s okay to be open in their relationship. She said she wasn’t polyamorous, but it was a way that she felt they could be there for each other while allowing their needs to be met. I told her I’m definitely monogamous and had an open relationship before but it wasn’t fun for me. That said she said she was reconsidering her current relationship, but I’ve also been in similar situations where I’ve waited for someone to leave their situation to be with them and those also didn’t go anywhere.
We biked back that night, and we still had a great time, and she messaged me when she got home. I sent her my number over Instagram, but that was the last message I got. I guess id expect a “hey Meep this is __!” Text so I had her number, but I still haven’t heard back. I’m trying not to push it so I’m going to let her be the one to initiate the next conversation.
In the meantime I feel like I’m on an emotional rollercoaster. I mean granted I just met her and I shouldn’t be so heavily invested or excited. I should be taking it slow but I don’t know how. Hell I barely understand what taking it slow means. I should be perfectly fine being alone in my apartment with my cat. I’ve done so much work on myself to try and be in a place where I can feel again, but now I feel like I’m going back into another heartbreak.
I know a lot of this is also because I live alone and my family is 2000 miles away. I wrote a song that paints the picture- “oh, I’m floating away/ oh, I’m floating away/ the spacewalk went wrong/ I clipped into the other side/ of the moon/ just to know what distance feels like”. I want to feel secure. I want to feel at home. But these relationships I find myself in tend to do the exact opposite. I’m back on the high seas and it’s a stormy night.
I just wish I could be like a normal person and not feel. Or at least not feel like this.
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Big feelings are normal, but you gotta get out of your own head. You can’t guess what this relationship will be, and you don’t get to decide. There’s something between you, and you’ll both find out how much or how little with time.
It got a lot easier for me when I learned to frame every interaction with the understanding that it might be the last, for whatever reason.
Maybe their life gets busy, maybe they get a job far away, or maybe I get hit by a car. Life is capricious.
To help me replace fantasizing about everything we might someday have, I try to think hard about what I want them to remember between now and next time we interact.
I ask myself, “of the things I’m good at and comfortable being, which do they need today?”
People always remember how we made them feel, the most.
And sometimes I really do reconnect with an old friend and it’s like no time has passed. And sometimes I don’t, and just hope they remember me as fondly as I remember them.
And sometimes, rarely, friendship grows into something much more. But my approach tends to be the same, however it goes. I try to consciously invest in people I like being around, and give them space to get just what they need from our friendship.
I ask myself, “of the things I’m good at and comfortable being, which do they need today?”
Wow, that’s some brilliant insight that applies to pretty much every relationship in our lives. And so well put; simple, clear.
Hey buddy, I just want to say- normal people do feel. Big feelings are very normal! It’s okay to let yourself be a romantic, and it’s okay to get heartbroken sometimes too. And it’s also okay to say you need a break from dating if it’s stressing you out to much. The important thing is making sure you feel emotionally supported through any of these decisions.
You mentioned you’re far from family. Do you have local friends that you are close with (nonromantically) who you can talk about this kind of stuff with? Men too often are left emotionally isolated in society, and it’s important that you have that kind of support outside of romantic relationships too.
If you’re feeling ungrounded and uncertain where things are going with this woman even when you’re very excited to spend time with her, it can feel like a lot of pressure to do things “right” or not “mess it up”. That can be really hard on your self esteem when you put that kind of responsibility solely on your shoulders! Relationships are team efforts. I’d maybe try to reframe your situation from “I met this woman and she might be the one but she’s got a long distance bf and what if she chooses him over me??” to something more like “I really enjoy this woman’s company, and while she’s figuring out what her long term plan is, I’m happy to spend time with her. If her long term plans don’t align with mine by [date], we can talk about what next steps that means for us, including breaking up.”
Whatever comes next for you, best of luck friend. You deserve people in your corner who support you enthusiastically.
Thank you, that rings so true.
I’ve felt very isolated because my work is in the evenings, so it’s harder to make plans with friends, but this month I get my Mondays and Thursdays back.
As the host of an open mic told me after I had a bad break up- “it’s time to summon the boys”
Your talk of big feelings resonates with me–historically I’ve been the same way. In my case, I eventually realized that I was putting so much of myself into relationships (or even potential relationships) because I didn’t have many other strong relationships in my life (similar situation–far from family, I moved around a lot). I found that I was putting a ton of weight on relationships because I was subconsciously expecting them to fill a ton of emotional needs. That ended up putting unreasonable pressure on my partners, and I felt unable to take things at the pace I wanted.
Not sure if you’re in the same boat, but if you don’t feel like you have a solid group of (nonromantic) friends, I’d suggest considering that. As others have said–big feelings are normal enough, but when you have a solid support system in your life, it’s a lot easier to ride those waves.
