Hi SereneWolf,

(just as a side note, quoting is working fine for me: you select (copy-paste) the text you want to quote, and you press the quotation mark button)

How you doing?

I am not doing that well, since some old health issues (knee problems) resurrected again, which have magically disappeared in the last 1.5 years, since I’ve been suffering from back pain. Well now they are back, so now I need to start dealing with that too…aarrgh… I hope it’s temporary though and will get better…

I finally started my travel journey! Yaaaaay!
I started with world’s tallest statue, Statue of Unity. It was so much fun.

Oh wow, congratulations! I’ve checked the Statue of Unity (didn’t even know about it), and oh my, it’s 182 m high, which is almost double the height of Statue of Liberty! Must admit, it’s not that beautiful :), but it is impressive, for sure. How did you cope with the high temperatures that were measured in India recently?

no you didn’t go overboard and I request that you do. I’d prefer a brutal honestly.

I am glad you don’t mind me being “brutally honest”, i.e. sharing my theory about what is possibly going on for you in a romantic relationship. So basically, a relationship for you means war, not peace (or at least it meant that till now):

I think it’s like the sergeant you mentioned before. Once he’s aware that there’d be an attack. All he thinks about is war. Not peace.

You expect to be attacked/judged/criticized, and you prepare for it by putting up your shield as soon as you feel some small conflict or disagreement. And even before you get into a relationship, you count on being attacked (and judged and criticized), and so you want to prevent that by perfecting yourself as much as possible, so you can be “good enough” and not that susceptible to criticism:

Yes and also because of that my self esteem went lower so like even if I get women out of my “league” (It happened most of the time, Physically or career wise) I’d just question my worth like how did I get this kind of women? She way better than me there’s no way this is gonna be long term. Sooner or later she’d know that she’s somehow “better” than me and she’d obviously choose something better and leave. And I think that’s where superiority/inferiority dynamic is happening. and because of that I mostly tried keep on edge and improving myself like lil better than her.

This sounds like the imposter syndrome: the belief that you are not good enough, that you are a fake, and that you will be “found out” sooner or later. You mentioned it once with regard to your job, but it seems that it applies to your love life as well.

In fact, maybe your imposter syndrome is slowly weakening in the work setting (you said you feel quite good about yourself at your new job, and that the environment is very supportive too). But it may still be present in romantic relationships?

The core of the imposter syndrome is the belief that you are not good enough. It seems you believe you are not handsome enough and that you don’t have a good enough/well-paid enough job (It happened most of the time, Physically or career wise). Perhaps you also believe you are not creative enough (I know I’m not that much creative person)?

So you’d need to work on telling yourself that you are good enough to have a healthy, fulfilling relationship, that you can offer a lot, that you have all these great qualities (including empathy), and that you are a catch, not an impostor!

Similarly like you were telling yourself about being a good work force – being an asset, not a liability – you need to be telling yourself about being a good partner. Do you think you can do that?

In fact, you’ve already listed what qualities you value in a partner, so you can check yourself for those qualities…

If I may make two remarks about it:

Honesty & Trust – yes, sounds good, but are you aware that you actually lack trust when it comes to romantic relationships? You don’t trust that the person doesn’t want to harm you. You prepare for war…

Feeling of Unconditional love – hmmm I think accepting the person as they are, without wanting to change anything major on them – would be a better goal. Because it’s okay to have certain expectations on our partner, but also to view them with love and acceptance, not as flawed and in need of change. If we cannot accept our partner as they are, but want them to change in some major way, that’s not a healthy relationship.

Okay, perhaps that can be called unconditional love – accepting the person as they are, without requiring or expecting them to change in significant ways. In short, love and accept the person in front of you, don’t expect them to change 🙂

That’s a principle you haven’t followed in your first and even your second LDR (because you wanted the girl to change). But I think you’ve learned in the meanwhile that it’s not the way to go.

But nowadays who wants to show their true self? She mentioned few times how hard it is for her to open up and being vulnerable.

So she is similar to you then? 🙂

But she makes me angry too. Like on Weekend she texted like She missed talking to me. I replied who’s stopping you? and then she replies me for that 2 days after with a funny IG reel.

Okay, so she acted vulnerable, expressing that she misses talking to you. But then you came back with a very non-vulnerable response, something like: “well if you miss me, why don’t you write more?” No wonder it took her 2 days to reply, and it was with some funny video. So she tried being vulnerable, but you shut her down, and of course she doesn’t want to be even more vulnerable, so she starts playing it “cool” too, waiting 2 days to reply and then sending a funny video.

However, if she was trying to indirectly accuse you of not writing more frequently (i.e. not initiating conversations, or being slow to respond), while you know that it’s not the case, then I can understand your non-vulnerable response. Because if she is the one who ghosts you from time to time, or doesn’t reply on time etc, then it would make sense to be a bit sarcastic with her and not fall for her subtle accusations.

So you’d need to see: is she really ambivalent and “changes colour like a chamaeleon”, while you are steadily present and responsive? Or you too are playing games, not wanting to show too much interest – and that’s why she is constantly switching from hot to cold?

In other words: is only she playing games, or you are playing games too?

And I have much better things to do than focusing on someone like her who isn’t sure of anything and changes colour like a chamaeleon. Like I’m exhausted with dating games. Like if it’s a Yes or no. and confusing vibes.

As I said, you’d need to ask yourself: is she the only one who is sending confusing vibes, or you are doing the same?

With Casual I can at least be straight forward and clear like hey I’m working on myself and I can’t commit with you for a full fledge relationship but I wouldn’t mind spending a good time with you if you’re okay with it. I want clear and straight forward things. NO BS.

When you say casual, you’re talking about FWB, right? Not committing to a full fledged relationship, but having a good time with the girl?

So would you like to be FWB with this new girl? Have you told her that? Because as far as I know, you refused a regular relationship, but you didn’t tell her you’d like FWB, right? You weren’t really “clear and straight forward”.

Not that I support FWB relationships – I don’t think they are clear and straightforward at all. But still, ask yourself: did you tell her what you really want? And is it what you really want?

That way there’s also good possibility of gaining a friendship first which is must having a good time or like you know not feel alone since we’re all social creatures. And from friendship there’s also good possibility of deepen the relationship if things go well.

Hmm. It never happened with you though, because all of your female friendships ended up with the girl finding a boyfriend and sort of “abandoning” you, or at least not having that level of closeness with you anymore. So you’ve never progressed from friends to lovers.

In fact, if I understood well, being friends and keeping it platonic is what enabled you to open up and be emotionally vulnerable with a girl. Because you didn’t feel the usual fear that you feel in intimate relationships. So you could relax and be more authentic, rather than being on guard, preparing for a battle…

and another pattern that I noticed is that if I’m good friends with a person I’d try be vulnerable with them more easily

Yeah, you were able to open up with girls whom you viewed as strictly platonic. So that might be a catch-22: that you can’t really be open and vulnerable with someone whom you consider more than friends. Because that’s what activates the fear response (fear of intimate relationship) and you go into the self-defense mode.

In other words, it could be that “benefits” trigger a fear response for you, so once you get involved in a sexual relationship, you start being on guard and the intimacy and openness (and lack of fear) that you experienced as “friends only” is gone.

So it could be that FWB wouldn’t really work for you. Actually you’ve tried it briefly with the doctor, but it didn’t work out and you eventually called it quits. I am guessing that even if she let you “off the hook” and dropped expectations about commitment, you still felt the basic fear that you feel in a sexual/intimate relationship, and that’s why you left?

Because I know my intentions are good and I’d prefer the same from her.

Well, as things stand at the moment, your main intention is not to get hurt. And you think you can achieve that by first being in a FWB situation, which will then gradually progress into a committed relationship, if all goes fine.

But that’s a myth. First, because as soon as sex gets involved, it seems that your fear gets activated and you block vulnerability, and with it, the prospect of a long-term, committed, emotionally intimate relationship.

And second, because FWB is not a good form of relationship for a girl either, because most girls want attachment and do get attached if being physically intimate.

The girl might pretend that she doesn’t want a committed relationship, and that it’s all cool for her, but she actually does care (like the doctor did) and is getting hurt in such a relationship.

Or the girl herself has intimacy issues and fears commitment, but in that case, she can’t be a good candidate for a long-term, committed relationship. So for example, if you are planning to find a potential future wife out of the FWB pool, you most likely won’t find her.

You know what they say: you can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t have fun in a non-committed, casual relationship and then expect that it over time turns into a committed, loving relationship that will potentially last a lifetime. Most girls don’t work like that. And you neither, as it seems 😉

So when you say “my intentions are good”, I do think that your fear is governing your intentions when it comes to romantic relationships. And if you fear, it cannot be a basis for any kind of deep, loving relationship.

Your fear cannot be solved (or dissolved) by going the FWB route either – I hope I’ve shown you that it’s kind of an internal contradiction and catch-22. And a very suboptimal solution, both for you and the girl involved.

So… there is only one way to deal with your fear: heal it. If you try to avoid it and work around it, you end up with bad solutions, such as FWB or the sailor approach (just “benefits”, no friendship). None of those protect you from fear, but only add to the pain.

You know the saying: “The only way out is through”. Which means: facing and healing the fear. (I could tell the same to myself, in another area of life. But anyway, no workarounds are possible…)