Dear sam1:

It seems to me that you are overly thinking this, obviously anxious and looking for evidence of approaching danger, looking for the first sign that this person will hurt you. You look for the sign so to be prepared and not be caught by surprise. As it hurts so much more when we don’t expect it.

The real issue fueling your anxiety is not the fact that he didn’t text you back after your texting him yesterday, but that as you wrote, you have been hurt a lo before. Would you like to share about that?

anita

Dear sam1:

Before your experiences with those few guys, one losing his too-soon-loving feelings for you and the other never calling you back, where you as a child (way before dating started) rejected by a parent or both? If you were, those early experiences need to be processed.

Otherwise, with this guy and any other, you will need to adjust your expectations to reality and take it really slow. Notice when you get anxious and purposefully calm yourself. You have to come to terms with the nature of dating: that is that it takes a long, long time to get to know a person (without desperate needs and feelings clouding our ability to see the reality for what it is), to develop trust (based on who the person is, in real life, not in our fantasy and wishful thinking) and to have more and more experiences together. It simply takes a lot of time and attention-over-time. You can’t rush it by keeping tracks on who is texting how often.

anita

Dear sam1:
t
Yes, one cannot micro-manage a relationship, got to give it time and room to grow, if it will.

If your tendency to need a lot of reassurance and being very scared of rejection pre-dated your dating life, then it probably has its origin in your childhood, those formative years, termed so because we form then. Children, minor and into adulthood are very motivated to view their childhoods and parents as good and even perfect. If you do need to look there, you may be surprised.

anita

Dear sam1:

I think it is okay to text him. Sure. Why not? Be truthful in what you text him, make it simple and direct.

anita

Dear sam1:

You wrote that you “base my self worth on my relationships (terrible I know)” – a child bases her or his self worth on her relationship with her parent/s. No other way to come out of childhood with self worth. Most don’t and keep looking for it in another person, usually a romantic partner, and with the same desperation of a child needing it from the parent. It is this desperation that makes you so anxious-

I don’t know of any other way to fix this without re-visiting one’s childhood and seeing that little girl that you were, seeing her hurt, her struggles and in so doing, re-connecting with that part of yourself.

You don’t have to have physically or verbally aggressive parents to end up a hurt child, getting out into the world without an adequate sense of self worth: It can be parents that are simply not available, per-occupied. It can be parents who believe in doing and achieving only, not attending to the child’s feelings. It can be parents who encourage a child to look happy and frown when she is sad. It can be parents who do not allow mistakes, who act as if it is possible to not make mistakes.

I don’t know any other way.

anita

Dear sam1:

It is possible that you had only him in mind for some time now, he had a few women in mind at the same time, texting with one and the other and meeting with whomever was available and close by at any one time. He could be multi-tasking, or multi dating.

Maybe. How are you feeling? And are you waiting anxiously for a text back still?

anita

Dear sam1:

You had one date with him. You had strong feelings about him, about a future relationship with him. He said he had a great time and would like to see you again.

All your thoughts and feelings about him since the date were your own, all happening in-between-your-ears, literally, while what was happening in between-his-ears was not the same. That is certain. You were wishing and hoping and ready to attach and he was not. This does not mean there might not be a relationship with him in the future. It means he didn’t share your thoughts and feelings. He had his own that didn’t fit with yours.

This is a very important point to consider: when we feel so much and wish so much we tend to believe the other feels this way too. It is a distorted thinking category called Emotional Reasoning: we want something so much, we imagine it is happening.

Pay attention to this in future interactions with this guy and with others in the future. It will bring you clarity and wisdom.

As to this guy, possibilities are he had an emergency and that is why he didn’t respond to your last text. Or he has been so involved in a family function, a party, another girl. Or he doesn’t care any more, that when he told you he had a great time and would like to see you again, that was a social-lubrication type of lie, something he says almost automatically at the end of a date, as if it is something a man is supposed to say. These are some possibilities that come to mind.

Thing is don’t get attached to your own thoughts and feelings imagining another is thinking and feeling the same (Emotional Reasoning)- be open to possibilities and be curious to know what is really happening.

It is possible that he forgot or does not intend to have the second date with you. It is possible he remembers. I would text him a few days before the planned date to verify, letting him know that if he does not respond within 4 hours or so, that you will make other plans. Then follow through.

anita