Dear Ishita:

In this post I will retell your conversations with X part by part (following the “*”), and comment on each part (following an “-“).

* He told you that he “really wanted to resolve this because he was finding it very weird, to behave like a stranger with (you)”, and he asked if there was anything you and him could do to resolve “this distance thing”. You said: “no..”, that this friendship meant too much to you and that you are sad and angry that the two of you had let “this go down the drain so easily, and it can’t be the same anymore, maybe”-

– so far, early in the conversation, he sounds calm, reasonable, mature and sincere, wanting to resolve the conflict and re-establish a friendship with you, while you sound too angry to think reasonably, too angry to address the conflict and try to resolve it.

* He told told you that he has no idea how to talk to you, not wanting to be too formal or too friendly. You suggested that he talks to you “just the way he does with other not so close members of the club, if that’s comfortable to him”-

– your suggestion is not helpful (1) because you and X talked a lot privately, one-to-one, and you don’t know if and how he talks to other club members privately, (2) “not so close” it vague, (3) you diverted the topic from your relationship with him to his relationships with other people.

* You told him that there is probably no way for you to be able to trust him again, particularly if he continues to think that he was not at all “at fault even to the slightest extent” for you “ending up in this pit”. He asked you to give him exact examples of instances when you felt in a pit in regard to him. You refused to give him examples, suggesting that he is a baby (telling him that you will not babysit him), and telling him that he  is smart enough to figure it all out by himself-

– so far, he sounds calm, reasonable, mature and sincere in his efforts to understand the conflict with you. It sounds like he wants to know specific examples of when you felt in a pit when interacting with him, so that he can find out what he said and did that may have caused you to feel in the pit, and change his behavior accordingly.  You, on the other hand,  sound angry, hostile and unreasonable, refusing to give him examples, insulting him (suggesting he is a baby), and wanting him to feel at fault without giving him examples of what you think he did wrong to you, and when.

* You told him that if you give him examples, “he would just try to defend himself”, making you feel stupid and manipulated-

– if in previous conversations with him, you did give hi specific examples and and he gaslighted you, (you mentioned earlier that he gaslighted you), then your refusal to repeat the information you already gave him (or give him new information) and be gaslighted again- is understandable. For example, if you told him in the past that when he called you bae, you felt that he wanted to be your boyfriend, but later after you confessed your feelings for him and he told you that he doesn’t want to be in a relationship with you, you felt devastated/ “in this pit”, and his response was something like: I never called you “bae” (but he did!), or, I called you “bae” because you asked me to call you that (and you didn’t!)- that would be gaslighting you.

*He asked you to explain things to him so that he will know the things he “shouldn’t do to someone next time”-

– Again, he sounds calm, reasonable, mature and sincere.

* You then “tried to explain to him”, telling him that you and him had “a lot of unnecessary expectations from each other.. leading to fights”, and you suggested that these expectations were not appropriate to “just friends”. His response: “I always felt they were resolvable, so I didn’t mind”. You asked him if he enjoys fighting with “just friends” over expectations almost every day. His response: “no, you aren’t the only one, I do have fights with 2-3 more friends”. You then asked him about his fights with his other friends-

– you finally brought up some information that can be addressed: expectations and fights that occurred between you and him almost every day, for some time. His response was that he always felt that they (the expectations and/ or the fights) were resolvable, so he didn’t mind. It could have been helpful if at this point, you asked him how (and when) the fights with you were to be resolved. But instead, you asked him if he enjoyed fighting with you, and he took the opportunity to divert the conversation from what happened between you and him to –>what happens between him and other friends.

* The conversations proceeds to be about him and another friend (Y). You then “swiftly changed it back to us.. (to) having expectations from each other”, and he again asked for examples of  when “over expectations could be the reason of a fight”. You gave him examples of when he over-expected from you, and “he had an explanation to each one of them, except one”, telling you that he over-expected from you just once, and the other examples you have him were not “really legit to be considered as over-expecting”-

–  having read your examples previously, your examples were “legit”. Seems to me that your examples were not convenient for him so he rejected them as illegitimate. He agreed to one example, for no other reason, but to maintain his appearance of being reasonable and mature (an unreasonable and immature person would reject everything and accept nothing).

* Next, you abandoned the topic of his over-expectations of you and pointed to your over-expectations of him: “it’s fine if he doesn’t feel he ever over expected, but what about the times when I did”-

– You referred to the many times when you told him that you think that maybe you are over-expecting from him, and he reassured you that you were not over-expecting from him, which led you to believe that your expectation that he is becoming your boyfriend was realistic.

* His response: that “he genuinely didn’t feel it was an issue, he didn’t feel I was over-expecting, to ask him to call me everyday”, etc., and that “he wasn’t lying, when he said he didn’t feel this was over-expecting”-

– As the conversation proceeded, he used your answers not so to have a meeting of the minds: an honest exchange of ideas with you, and not so to resolve your problem/ your conflict, but to resolve his problem alone. His problem is that you are angry at him, and he doesn’t want you (or anyone, I am guessing) to be angry at him. He wants you to be nice to him, like before. To achieve this aim, he appears calm, reasonable, mature and sincere, so to make you doubt yourself and change your behavior from Anger to Nice. He simply denies what is  convenient for him to deny, giving you a little something so that he appears mature.

* “At that point I didn’t really know what to say”-

– his gaslighting strategy succeeded, he did a good job confusing you.

* You then asked him how much of your devastation during the entire two months (what you called early in the conversation, “this pit”) period was his fault. His response: “just one event and apart from that whatever I did to you, I did it because you were my good friend”. You then “felt so much gaslighted at that moment”-

– he denied everything, gave you the gift of that “just one event”. But he gave you an even bigger gift when he referred to you (“suddenly.. for the first time”) as his “good friend”, and later, as his “best friend”. The purpose of this gift was to melt your anger, to make you feel guilty for being angry at a nice guy who thinks of you as his best friend, and cause your behavior to change from Angry to Nice.

* “I was breaking by then.. realising how much I want to be around him as a friend… I just knew that I really didn’t wish to lose him”-

– and he succeeded, your anger melted, at least for a while, and you ended up wanting to be around him as a friend, which means no longer angry at him.

My summary: britanica. com defines gaslighting as a “technique of deception and psychological manipulation, usually practiced by a single deceiver, or ‘gaslighter,’ on a single victim over an extended period. Its effect is to gradually undermine the victim’s confidence in his own ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or reality from appearance… As part of the process, the victim’s self-esteem is severely damaged, and he becomes additionally dependent on the gaslighter for emotional support and validation… Some of the basic elements of the technique… flatly denying that one has said or done something that ne has obviously said or done; dismissing the victim’s contrary perceptions or feelings as invalid or pathological; questioning the knowledge and impugning the motives of persons who contradict the viewpoint of the gaslighter”, and more.

As you noticed, Ishita, the quote above includes the word “victim”. This young man we are discussing, X, in my developing understanding, is indeed dishonest and manipulative, fitting the term gaslighter, and you are his victim. Not a friend (or a girlfriend), mind you, but a victim.

To continue to communicate with him beyond the minimal formal communication needed in the context of the club you are involved with-  is to continue to damage your mental health: to doubt your valid perceptions and understandings, to be confused a lot of the time, and distressed, less and less able to evaluate other people and situations, etc.

No wonder, if what he told you was true, that his ex-girlfriend broke up with him because it was too stressful for her to be with him (“his girlfriend dumped him saying that she was feeling ‘stressed’ around him”)- it is indeed way too stressful to be in a close relationship of any kind (friendship or romantic) with a person like X.

Run away from him, Ishita, like your health depends on it- because it does!

anita