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Silent in my wondering

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  • #359057
    John
    Participant

    Good morning to everyone across this universe, love and joy to you one and all!

    I am attempting to make reason to an event in my life that has shaken my strong beliefs in my abilities to relate and trust in others. Let me say that my words do not apply to everyone who is in the world, and doing their very best to interact honestly and faithfully in the name of love and compassion, and goodness as my law and creed, no matter who or where..

     

    Months ago, after meeting a wonderful lady on a dating website, fully fleshing and expanding on all relevant information honestly and forthright, we meet and discuss openly the matters of life, good and bad and all things and we seemed to be at great ease with one another. We shared information of a personal nature in trust and confidence, also respect and caution for respectful boundaries. As our talks became exclusive and more trusting we began to reveal things about ourselves that are more troubling or, for lack of a better word..the not so good. In this time, we talk about the fact that I was born a premature baby, and developed a condition known as Cerebral Palsy, which can affect coordination and motion..but is very mild as it relates to me. She lets me know that despite this, the connection we shared..the depth of our visions, dreams and a hopeful beginning of what can truly be meaningful is what mattered most of all, and the light between us could not be dimmed, and her message was come to me without fear, and connect to our ethereal, eternal blessing in unity..well that is the song that many hope to get a glimpse of when it comes to belonging..so we set a date to meet, and plan a nice dinner and time on the ocean, mind you we shared many pictures and videos etc. let me tell you..in the time leading up to seeing her, the flames of my soul touched parts of me that I always felt reserved for the deepest, most understanding woman..but what ended up happening put me in one of the deepest heartbreaks of my life..

    In hindsight it plays in mind over and over about what might’ve been done or said differently, it has been like a death..a piece of myself left, and perished inside and I’m trying to keep my hope and love for myself alive and it is so hard, not just because of how things played out, but also in the backdrop of history and monumental challenges we are all facing now..

    so the day we meet she sees me..and barely says much, but we interact nicely and talk across the table as we share a meal..but I can see, the change..and our connection did not seem to translate into being together..my disability threw her you could tell. But we went through the motions..it gets weird because we rented a nice space to share in quiet overnight with honorable intentions..we held hands a bit as we lay beside, and I gently pecked her shoulder, little did I know that those precious moments would have to last forever. We had breakfast the next morning, and it was raining which killed our plans for that day so, she decides it’s time to go home, and we made plans to meet again..but it’s when she was no longer looking at me, she dropped the major bomb on me, claiming that I was casual about relaying my disability to her, which I find it hard to agree with..then she completely cheapened our meeting by saying that it was online and that somehow subtracts from meeting a genuine human being, and what hurts most of all..is that I have not heard a single word as to how of my welfare, she did say she needed space and time to process things, but it’s been weeks..my intuition tells me she’s gone forever, and I have deal with the pain and doubt and put the pieces together once more..I just cannot reconcile it because everything we shared, even if we never became more than just kind, supportive people..it will follow me for a long time, as to why someone can open the door so wide and deep, and turn completely away, as if you are just simply expendable? I will never understand..

    thank you all for reading, I wish you all true blessings of peace in your lives, and to all your loved ones and families 😀

    #359145
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    You shared that months ago, you met a woman on a dating website. The two of you “shared information of a personal nature in trust and confidence, also respect and caution for respectful boundaries”. You shared with her that you were born premature and that you suffer from a very mild form of Cerebral Palsy. She then told you that “despite this, the connection we shared.. the depth of our visions, dreams and a hopeful beginning of what can truly be meaningful is what mattered most of all”.

    You then set a date to meet in person, and you looked forward to the date, “the flames of my soul touched parts of me that I always felt reserved for the deepest, most understanding woman”. The two of you arranged for an overnight date. From the start of the date, she barely said much, but you interacted nicely and talk across the table while sharing a meal. You could see that the connection you had with her online wasn’t happening in-person, and you figured that your “disability threw her”. Later the two of you held hands a bit and you gently pecked her shoulder. In the morning, “when she was no longer looking at me, she dropped the major bomb on me, claiming that I was casual about relaying my disability to her.. then she completely cheapened our meeting by saying that it was online and that somehow subtracts from meeting a genuine human being… She did say she needed space and time to process things, but it’s been weeks”.

    You asked: “why someone can open the door so wide and deep, and turn completely away, as if you are just simply expendable? I will never understand”-

    My input: before she met you in person, she imagined you looked a certain way, based on a photo  of you online, perhaps the same as the one you posted here. She saw your photo and liked it. She then added to the image of you in the photo attractive details, and overall, in her mind, she saw an image of you, face and body, that looked attractive to her. As she communicated with you online, the whole time, she imagined that she was communicating with that visual image of you that she had in her mind. She liked you so much, visual image and otherwise, that she planned with you an overnight date.

    When she first saw you in person, she realized that the image she had in her mind was too different from the real life image in front of her. The attractive details that she added to your photo- she found out that she imagined them wrong, and that the real- life image in front of her was not attractive.  At this point and on, she was not able (if she tried), to think something like: maybe I can still like him as much as before, even though he doesn’t look like I thought he did.

    For her, the visual image she had of you before meeting you, and the quality of the online communication, were inseparable. This kind of experience often happens in online dating that progresses to the first in-person, physical date: it happens when one of the people on the date, or both,  imagined the other in a different way than how they look in real life.

    This experience is not particular to having a disability. People are turned off by dates for a variety of reasons: the other being shorter than imagined, heavier than imagined, etc., etc., could be hundreds of reasons.

    Online communication is a mental activity that does not involve the five senses: vision, hearing, smell, touch, and taste (other than seeing a photo of the person, which is a limited visual information). A rea-life date is a physical activity with full exposure to how the person looks, sounds like, how he/ she smells (if being close enough), and how their skin/ body feels (if touching).

    Online she liked you mentally. In person, she didn’t like you physically.

    Again, what happened in your case, is what often happens when online dating proceeds to in-person, physical dating. As painful as it is, everyone who does online dating is at risk of feeling hurt when this happens. What I suggest in the future, is that you consider perhaps posting more photos of yourself on your profile or send such photos to a particular woman before the first physical date.

    Also, be aware of the mental dating factor of online dating, and don’t view the relationship as good before the first physical date. Consider that the first physical date is somewhat stressful for both parties, both worry about the other’s approval or disapproval.

    What do you think of my input?

    anita

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by .
    #359153
    John
    Participant

    True and accurate, however we exchanged many photos and had lengthy video chats, and she saw me from every side..walking across the room or what have you, she said my disability wouldn’t matter but, obviously it did, if she had said beforehand that my condition would be a deal breaker, then I wouldn’t have agreed to date in the first place, she just spoke what she didn’t really mean is my point, and it just makes me wonder. Thank you for reading and also your thoughts on it..

    #359154
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    You are welcome. I understand; she had plenty of photos and even video chats, plenty of opportunities to put together an accurate visual image of you before the first physical date. You think that “she didn’t really mean” what she communicated to you online, before the first date. That’s a possibility, but what do you think was her motivation to say the things to you that she didn’t mean?

    anita

    #359157
    John
    Participant

    That’s the question I’m trying to answer, she just didn’t realize I suppose..but to then place blame me for being casual about my disability is just her way of absolving, I really believed that it was me that mattered in all honesty, and that we were on the very same page, it really hurts when you are defined by others, for what you aren’t as opposed to the long list of good qualities and virtues..in a world that is clamoring for tolerance and acceptance, it would seem even more elusive..

    #359160
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    “In a world that is clamoring for tolerance and acceptance”- often I find answers in the definitions of words. I looked up the definition of clamoring, the verb you used, and found the definition of clamor as a noun: ” a loud persistent outcry, as from a large number of people”. Indeed in these times of civil unrest and demonstrations, there is a loud persistent outcry for equality of all people, and disabled people are included in all people being equal.

    But there is a whole lot more to changing than words and an outcry: it takes each individual person looking into himself or herself and think: am I treating some people as less worthy than others? Am I perceiving some people as less deserving of the good things in life than others.. It takes looking in, evaluating, choosing to see things differently and then following up on the new perception with different action.

    The woman you dated online, and once physically, she may not have done the work. Maybe all she did was an outcry, in the form of strong words that she communicated to you online. But her words were not from her core.

    anita

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by .
    #359164
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    One more thing, reject her definition of you (“it really hurts when you are defined by others”), you are not reject-able because she rejected you: you are not worthy of rejection. You are worthy of acceptance and love. Look for a woman who has the correct definition of you, and until you find her, take in this correct definition: equally worthy of and deserving of respect and love, no less than any other person in the whole wide world.

    anita

    #359166
    John
    Participant

    THAT is priceless advice Anita thank you very kindly..there is reason in your message and what I look for, even if it’s beyond my understanding..forgiveness is where I am with her now, and in gratitude for the moments in time where beautiful unity was the order of the day, even if they didn’t last too long, something was still gained from the experience and the expressions we shared..

    #359173
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear John:

    You are welcome. I do hope you arrive at a place of peace regarding this short relationship. Please feel free to post here anytime, in this thread, or you can start a new thread on any topic. I will be glad to read from you and reply to you anytime you post.

    anita

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