A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Hey everyone i’m an 18 year old Canadian living overseas...my question is regarding how to go about being in a relationship with a guy i am interested in...but i’m going to give a bit of background information to help out with my question....i moved here two years ago and they’ve been a rough couple of years for me... i realised i have had binge eating disorder for my entire life (or as long as i can remember anyway), and felt incredibly depressed (i had no idea until last year) and alone in this country, and have also moved out of home for the past year (on good terms with my parents but still a drastic change)...i felt i had no controle over how fast my life was going or anything really, and started to hate msyself and my body more than ever, which led to bulimia, and eventually anorexia in the past year. I have gotten help and have started to really see the light and move on from my disorders. I’m not completely perfect in terms of eating habits yet but i regularily eat a healthy amount, weigh a healthy weight, and no longer purge regardless of what i eat. My last normal relationship was at 15, i had a long distance relationship at 16 which obviously did not work out for various reasons but has led to my trust in men dramatically decreasing, along with playing on a mens sports team and learning more than i really want to about how men see and talk about women(this also contributed to my anorexia/bulimia). I guess i really don’t know how to be in a relationship with a man. I have dated a few people over the past year but my insecurities about my body and self, and lack of trust led me to basically run away within the first couple of weeks of even simply dating any of them..i’m a total commitmentphobe. I basically couldn’t handle being touched at all, cuddled, and even at one stage going out in anything but trackpants or hoodies and only if i absolutely had to like for a class which cancelled out pretty much my entire social life. Now that i’m feeling relatively stable i have become so much more confident and the best way i can describe it is that my eating disorder is like permanently being stuck in a fat suit, and having a pair of glasses on that only allowed me to see my flaws and magnify them...but i feel like although the glasses i can not completely get rid of, the feeling of being in a fat suit has for the most part gone away. I realised how much i had changed when this weekend a newer friend of mine (we’ll call him Joe) and i walked home together after a day/night of partying with friends and ended up cuddling and talking a lot and kissing..he stayed the night but we didn’t have sex(im a virgin). The thing is i was comfortable with him seeing my body and touching my body, and it made me want more than ever to just trust somebody and be close with somebody the way you do in a relationship, i have run from this for so long and i have just gotten this overwhealming urge to get this ability to trust back. I couldn’t believe how much we found out we had in common and he’s such a sweetheart and was totally respectful. We are supposed to catch up tomorrow (he is going to text me after work) but i don’t really know how to do relationships anymore. When i was in my last relationship texting barely existed, facebook didn’t exist...it was a totally different set of etiquette if you will to follow...i don’t know how to handle this-is it too forward to text him tomorrow before he texts me? I hate clingy girls and i really don’t want to come off as being that way. I’m really interested and i don’t want to scare him away or allow myself to be scared off as easily as i used to. Before i started recovery, if i was in the situation and he didn’t text or even texted to reschedule i would have freaked out, thought it was because i was too fat and all his friends told him i was and he thought so too, had a breakdown and avoided any contact with him and not eaten for a couple of weeks. I think i am past that now...i am just scared to let myself recognize any feelings for anyone because i got burned so badly the last few times it happened (mostly due to my own actions and insecurities). To complicate things further, i know him thorugh my neighbours who are new to living here and the night before i ended up watching tv and cuddling with and kissing one of them (my neighbour)...which i immediately regretted...i did tell ‘joe’ the night he was here and he said he didn’t care and said i worry too much i just odn’t want this to make him jealous or ruin my friendship with the neighbour if ‘joe’ and i were to start dating...i am just worried of what he will think of me if it happens. Thankfully ‘joe’ and i decided to keep it quiet for right now, however.Anyway i am really just hoping to find out what is normal in starting a relationship now? From the guys perspectives what is too forward or clingy in terms of texts and such this early on? If i’m sitting around thinking about him i just want to text and say ‘hey hope your day has gone well! Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!’ but is that weird or anything, or just a cute gesture? I seriously am at a loss when it comes to this. I know i sound so silly it’s just that things have changed so much in the last 4 years i really don’t know how this works any more. Thanks for reading and please offer ANY help you can!!
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a break, anorexic, depressed, facebook, jealous, kissing, long distance, move on, moved out, neighbour, text Reply to this Question
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female
reader, Emilysanswers  +, writes (30 September 2008):
The best thing to do I have found is just to relax. If you feel like texting him just to say hi and that you are looking forward to seeing him, then do it.
As for your neighbour then you just have to ignore that, yes you kissed him but you just have to move on. It doesn't matter if he gets upset. Sometimes that's going to happen.
Chill out and don't over think everything. Concentrate on having fun with joe and relaxing. If you don't feel comfortable with the whole facebook thing then don't use it to communicate with your boyfriend.
Good Luck!! xx
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