A
female
age
36-40,
*arkeyedgirl
writes:Dear Agony Aunts,I've posted here before and gotten such great advice, words that truly helped me with the problems in my life.Recovering from a breakup I met a boy in one of my classes. Immediately I could tell he was attracted to me, and I tried to just keep my distance. But slowly and surely he took every chance he could get to talk to me, be in group projects with me, etc.For weeks I felt like he was courting me. There were very sweet things, insisting on walking me home, even going separate ways and then catching up with me because he just felt dutiful, walking me the rest of the way. We shared ideas, could talk for hours and hours, until dawn. I read him a dorky little horoscope once complete with lucky numbers, and he remarked with a smile about how both our ages were in it.Finally he asked me about the ex he saw in my pictures online, how handsome he was, and asked how he could ever compare. I told him I was still in a great deal of pain, and didn't want anything with anyone. When he found out we'd only been together less than a year, he dismissed the whole thing and told me I'd be fine. That's he'd just gotten out of a seven year relationship and that in comparison what I was feeling was nothing. And he kept pursuing.Finally he kissed me. By now my own feelings had grown and I was having a hard time not thinking about him all the time. We'd see each other in the hallways and his face would glow. He'd text me to tell me he couldn't stop thinking about me, tell me how incredibly beautiful I was, etc.When we finally slept together we didn't lave my bedroom for almost two days. It was very fiery for a time. I'd told him I didn't want anything serious and he was hurting too and so I thought, well, we'll be lovers then. Just casual. And I was fine with that.He refrained from telling me he had herpes until he was literally on top of me naked, citing just how embarrassing it is to tell someone. Having had a lover who'd had herpes and knowing just how badly it can damage someone's pride I let it slide. But then requested he use a condom and he flat our refused. Yes, I was stupid to go any farther, but by then was of course just too filled with passion to stop.....Then he said something to me that really hurt me. I took a long time to sit down and think about how I felt. I knew he had his own troubles in his life and I wanted to be as conscientious of that as I could because as his friend that last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt him or make his life harder. I strove to write him with all the diplomacy and cooperativeness and fairness that I could to save the friendship underlying our lovership. When he got the letter he was dismissive, denied things, and even hostile. He literally laughed in my face over several things, telling me I was just young and melodramatic, how much I didn't understand about the world, that I was being ridiculous, and basically ended it by saying it was all a giant misunderstanding and that we were to not talk about it anymore and move on to happier things.A second time he said things that truly hurt me. This time I simply fell to the many lessons I've had about self respect, and that when someone treats you with less respect than you deserve it's because you let them. Not wanting to stand in front of him and get my face laughed at, I simply walked away. I was civil to him in class. I was never rude. I gave him comprehensive feedback on his projects. He started finding anyway he could to hang out near me, would wait four hours in the computer lab to accidentally bump into me, go to events near my house trying to crash into me. Finally one night we did and he put his arm around me, awkward and obviously nervous. He asked me not to cut him out of my life.Seeing that I actually meant something to him, well, it meant something to me. So I said fine, I'll try this again.The next two weeks he spent treating me as cold as ice. He put a huge distance between us. Pushed away on me hard. When I'd see him he'd answer in grunts. I'd ask him if he was attending certain events and he'd say no, and then I'd run into him on the bus ten minutes later with a giant group of all our mutual friends heading to the very event. I found out later his ex had moved in with her new boyfriend, and I suppose it was finally sinking in that she was never coming back to him.One day we sat on the grass at in the sun behind a local theater. They had glass walls around the stairs to the stage, and the line girls were running up and down between the stage and the dressing rooms in mini skirts. I watched him ogle every single one of them, making comments about how lucky we were and this was the best seat in the house. Late I tried to kiss him and he shrank away, made some joke about how my libido was out of control. And that made me feel disgusting. He told me he just didn't feel in a sexual mood lately and was too messed up. This right after I watched him leer up all those mini skirts.I asked if we could just meet and talk so I could understand where we were at, if he was truly ending us being lovers. I gave him beers and was as open and kind as I could be so he wouldn't feel confronted. He told me how much I liked him was really unattractive, and that I should know that that's a huge turn off. That if he were in my position he'd fuck five other people just to prove to himself and them that he didn't need them, to say fuck them, because HE had his pride. He told me I should have a little dignity. The he told me it would never work because of this and that and our families were too different, etc. Told me I OBVIOUSLY wanted a boyfriend and shut me down every single time I told him he was mistaken.I know how people's feelings work and I knew this was just him pushing away, and I just tried with all my might to appeal to his human side. I told him that he was my best friend and I cared about him. I told him I had affection for him, wanted to show it. I asked if we couldn't just be honest, why we had to hide and maneuver all the time, if we couldn't just be adults, if we always had to play games? And he laughed at me. He said, "that's how it WORKS." And finally told me that basically he'd just gotten carried away, but always knew we'd be great "chums."I walked away from that meeting feeling more insulted than I ever have in my life. I knew he was just grasping at straws for some excuse, but the ammo he used on me while I was there in front of him voluntarily with ears and arms and heart open cut me. He chided me for my lack of self respect, forgetting how recently I'd literally walked away completely. He told me he was ending the sexual aspects of the relationship because he didn't want to give me herpes, which was a complete slap in the face. As the carrier of a lifelong sexually transmitted disease, with multiple partners, who refuses to use protection when EXPRESSLY requested, I told him how insulting it was he'd expect me to swallow that, especially when he'd had the sex he'd wanted. For days I couldn't help crying, KNOWING that I had to walk away.It's been about three months now. I've told him numerous times how I feel, he still texts and tries to bump into me. He keeps telling me that he want's to be friends and that he misses me. He tells me he just felt confined and needed space and was intentionally harsh to me to ensure he got what he needed. "Nothing personal." He adds, it was just him being scared.He told me he guesses he just needed someone to make him feel like a man again. He told me to my face he guesses he just got what he wanted. And that's how I feel. I feel disgusting. Even violated. I feel played. I feel distrustful. I feel hurt. I feel exhausted. I feel like I didn't want anything but platonic and he did. And he took it to that level. That he got what he wanted and now I'm the one paying for it.The hardest part is that the school we go to is an art school, and I have never, NEVER found a collaborator I work so well with. It's life we're psychic. We are on exactly the same wavelength. He gives me the greatest feedback, pushes my wok to a higher level, and I do the same for him.More than that we share so many interests. Every time we hang out we can't get to bed before the sun comes up because we can't stop talking. Honestly, I haven't felt such a deep connection in years. I came to feel like I had a best friend. And I miss him every singly day.He is intelligent, sophisticated, creative, a total joy to be with. Then turns around and is selfish, childish, impossible to talk to, hurtful, mean, and leaves me feeling like I'm trying to work with a three year old. There are these incredibly wonderful things about him, paired with such ugly parts....But I've asked him to do right by me and treat me with respect, and in his mind he does. But he does and says things that deeply, deeply cut me, and it doesn't matter to him. He ridicules me for it. If they aren't his feelings, those feelings don't matter. I feel like a used condom, and I've told him that. I feel like a toy. I feel used. I feel like he subjected a friend to a hunt that made him feel good about himself again, made him feel like he still had game, and that gave him strength. I feel like he took exactly what he needed in the face of me telling him I wasn't ready and was still in pain, and then threw away the sincerest things I can give when he was finished. He is selfish. He takes the easiest way out he can at the cost of my happiness and even health. He doesn't stand up for or protect his friends. He treats me like shit, and doesn't even see it. At 33 years old, he has no concept of what I hold highest in this world, empathy, kindness, compassion, cooperation, maturity, respect. I share myself with someone when and if I meet a person who I think is special. I do backflips to take care of the people I care about. And I do these things for free, but I try at least to reserve it for those who appreciate it and treasure it.One thing I know for sure is that if you play with babies you wind up changing diapers. But for as much as he means to me I keep TRYING to find a way... How do you reason with someone who is unreasonable? How do you rationalize with someone not rational? How do you appeal to someone to be an ADULT?I feel like all the forgiving, forgetting, compromising and work is placed solely on me. And I don't feel like doing that work and suffering for someone who won't even treat me with basic human consideration and respect, to whom my feelings are a joke.More than that, I don't don't want to just be "chums." He got to fuck me when he wanted to fuck me and is now off scott free. He took exactly what he needed from me and now wants to keep me as a consolation prize. I am just so sick of having men take what they want and throw me away like garbage. Honestly if he doesn't want to be lovers with me anymore, I don't want to be friends. I am still very attracted to him, I want to share those parts of myself with him, I think about it all the time. He disregarded the pain I was in by pursuing a sexual relationship, then ends it when it held no more use to him. It's excruciating emotionally to go from lovers to friend with someone who you wants, and I don't think I'm willing to bear that hardship just so he can have his chum. I would rather be a hundred miles away instead of standing in front of a wall. I feel like he gets everything he wants and I'm the one who does all the giving. And I am just done with having men have their cake and eat it too at my emotional cost.I guess mine is a duel question. Is there anything to do but walk away, as painful as it is? And is it immature to be bitter with someone for throwing you away as a lover when if you were just more mature you could have a wonderful friendship?
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a break, best friend, condom, herpes, his ex, immature, libido, move on, moved in, swallow, text Reply to this Question
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, darkeyedgirl +, writes (14 August 2011):
darkeyedgirl is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks everyone,
Your support and advice really helps. It sucks so much to feel so severe, being the one to end something while someone smiles at you, texts you, makes it obvious that despite their retardedness you mean something to them..... but this was not ok, and it's not something I can compromise on. My arms are always open, but I've learned that it has to be someone's choice to walk into them, and that I can't bridge that gap between actually respecting me and not even if I wish I could.....
Thanks everyone:)
A
female
reader, Lucky786  +, writes (31 July 2011):
 "He refrained from telling me he had herpes until he was literally on top of me naked, citing just how embarrassing it is to tell someone. Having had a lover who'd had herpes and knowing just how badly it can damage someone's pride I let it slide. But then requested he use a condom and he flat our refused."
It would at about this time that I would have jumped up and run out of the door and out of his love life FOREVER.
This guy has loser written all over him.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (31 July 2011): You want him to be a better person than he is. I'm sorry but it won't happen.
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A
female
reader, Moo's Mum  +, writes (31 July 2011):
 What a complete wank he is. You have done nothing wrong here doll absoutely nothing. He is so completely clueless about how life works that it takes my breath away. You don't owe this man (if in fact you can call him a man) ANYTHING. If I were in your shoes I would have absoutely nothing to do with him he's equal to spit on the footpath as far as I'm concerned.
Move on and get as far away from him as you can he's toxic and sick!
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (31 July 2011): This man sounds disgusting. Get out of there NOW.
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