Dear Carol:

A summary of your story: you met a man, “instant connection”, dated for a month, “totally smitten”, but called it off because you felt that he was not that into you. Next you randomly bumped into him several times over the years, one of which led to a three months relationship so far between you, 34, and he, 39.  On the first week of the current three month relationship, you asked him “how he saw this”, and his answer was that he saw you “as a friend”. You were upset but continued “no strings”. At one point you expressed to him your dissatisfaction and he expressed to you that you and him “weren’t just ‘friends'”, and the two of you “agreed to see how things go, with the intention of a relationship”.

Next, he told you that “he thought things were going well”, but not so in your mind: you are anxious and distressed, “why hasn’t he messaged? Why am I the only one making plans?.. I drunkenly text, ‘I really like you, not sure how mutual it is'”. Next, he told you that you “keep doing this and it makes him feel down.

He put some effort into the relationship: invited you to a friends’ function, a date, put a photo of you and him on his social media; you want that “excited feeling, a smitten feeling”, but instead, now in lockdown, you are overthinking, and not relieved (for long) by the fact that he told you recently that even if there was no lockdown, “the thought of dating anyone else didn’t cross his mind”. You feel that he doesn’t ring you enough, that you are always pursuing him, and you don’t want to “be impatient like last time and mess this up”.

Seems to me that you are indeed impatient. You are anxious now, lockdown and all, but you were anxious no less before in the context of relationships. You get so anxious that you want to end a relationship rather than wait for .. a gradual progression of intimacy, trust and such.

You want it here-and-now, or else be gone!

“Maybe I need to calm the hell down?”- yes, of course.

“Or maybe I’m just wasting my time with this guy?”- maybe, but in a lockdown, there is plenty of time to waste: he can’t have a new woman in his life, not if he practices social distancing like he is supposed to, and you can’t have a new man in your life.. so what’s the rush when there is nowhere to go?

“Waste” your time now with this man by not calling him often, wait for him to call you, wait a whole day and the night to come while getting busy with other things, distracting (music, movies, this website, etc.) and let it be.

I put waste in parenthesis because I don’t see the waste yet, it’s been only three months.

How were your previous relationships like?

anita