Dear Leelee:

I read your previous two threads as well as your current one. You are now about 25. A year ago, you met a man from a dating app. After the second date with him, an oyster restaurant, he texted you: “Let’s take some time to know each other better, no rush right:)?”After a third date, I think, he texted you: “And sorry but I want us to take time, you need to know what you are getting into”. You texted him: “What am I gonna getting into?” and he texted back: “exactly you need to discover”. I suppose that new relationship didn’t  last long following the third date or so.

After reading your current thread I figure what that man meant is that you need to get to know him before you decide that you love him and want to be his girlfriend, or marry him. He meant that a second or third date is too early for you to tell him that you love him and want to spend the rest of his life with him, and then demand that he says the same to you.

About a year later, last month, you met another man from a dating app. In the first two weeks of dating, the two of you met quite often, he introduced you to his coworkers, you were holding hands and kissing, and he asked you to be his girlfriend. Week 3 and 4 of dating, he withdrew.

You wrote: “his work gets so busy and he barely has time to spend with me, we were fighting about that. At some point, I asked him, ‘what am I to you?’ he just asked me to relax“. 

Later he told you: “I don’t want to suddenly rush into relationship.. You love the idea of me, but you don’t really love me, how could you, we just met very recently. We don’t really know each other yet. Complaining others and claiming they ‘should love you’ will drive people away.”

“There is no perfect guy or perfect girl, all this fantasy romance stuff you listen to and see in movies is complete nonsense.. people nowadays, especially girls depict this perfect guy or person who should just sweep them off their feet and be this prince charming. This isn’t real and it’s selfish.. I feel a little pressured to be in relationship with you. I can’t be the perfect guy you want so desperately”.

Here are indications that you pressured this current man:

1. “At some point, I asked him, ‘what am I to you?’ he just asked me to relax“- meaning you were not relaxed, meaning in the second or third week of dating him, never having met him before, you already wanted a committed relationship and you demanded it angrily.

2. He told you: “I feel a little pressured to be in relationship with you. I can’t be the perfect guy you want so desperately“-  right away, not knowing him longer than a week or two or so, you already pressured him and expressed to him a desperation to be in a relationship with him.

3. He told you: “Complaining others and claiming they ‘should love you’ will drive people away“- meaning you complained to him that he doesn’t love you and you drove him away. This is why he withdrew from you but not all the way, he is still in contact with you.

In summary: you need to no longer pressure men you just meet to love you and to be in a committed relationship with you. Get to know them first, give them the time to get to know you. Date a man for at least three months before suggesting (not demanding, not pressuring) a committed relationship.

You don’t have to be sexually intimate with a man you meet- just date the man, ask questions, let him ask you questions.  Over time get to know more about his life and he about yours,  introduce to each other the people in your life.

The two men you met through the dating app that you shared about, you rushed them both, pressured them and that turned them off to you. I suppose you told them both that you love them, that they are perfect for you.. and they felt strange about that, how can it be, they asked themselves, how can she say I am the perfect man for her.. she just met me, she doesn’t know me!

anita

leelee,

This is a great experience by adding to your wisdom in how to “do” relationships.  It does not matter who wants the romantic relationship if it is so soon.  Whether he or you saying you want to be boy/girlfriends and exclusive, the other person should throttle that back and take it slower. The proper response is “let’s see how we are after 6 months of dating.”

The two words that have high level of misinterpretation are “friends” and “love.”  People rarely know what that means in practice and usually don’t have the same idea which each one means.

My suggestion remains: Go let him “go figure it out” while you move on by having a full life without him.  If he comes back then you are responsible for taking upon yourself in pinning down what sort of relationship both you and he wants and what that looks like.

Mark

It was probably because of looks because he asked you that.