Dear Sarasa:

“I thought he might have feelings for me.. I can tell from his eyes”- we can’t tell what is in a person’s mind and heart by looking in their eyes. When we look in someone’s eyes, we tend to see what we want/ need to see. If we need love, we imagine that we see love..

It is important to establish verbal communication with a person, using words, asking questions and listening to answers, if we want to know what is going on in a person’s mind and heart.

I am sorry, Sarasa. I know you wanted something from him that you did not get.

anita

Dear Sarasa:

Following feeling confused yesterday after reading your March 17 post, and later, after reading teaK’s insightful post to you, bringing something to my attention that I didn’t adequately notice before, I re-read your posts and I have a few comments for you this morning:

1. You wrote yesterday: “He was probably lonely and using me to fill the void”- after re-reading your posts, it seems to me that it is you who are lonely and using him to fill the void in your life, and that you are projecting what is true about you-> into him. In other words, you are lonely and you desperately need him, but you imagine that he is lonely and that he desperately needs you.

Earlier, you wrote: “he is super emotionally attached to me”- again, seems to me that you are projecting yourself into him: you are super emotionally attached to him, and you imagine that he is super emotionally attached to you.

You also wrote earlier: “I am like his only friend and person he is closed to in his life”- seems to me that you are not close to anyone in your life, that you don’t have friends, and you imagine that he is more of a friend to you than he is. You wrote to me on March 8: “I have no one to talk to except you”, you have no one to talk to, not your family, not friends.. not him.

2. You wrote yesterday: “I knew about his anxiety from before. There were times he thought of ending his life.. he has terrible anxiety”- I think that you have been increasing his anxiety in the following ways:

(a) Confronting him: “After I confronted him how he has been hiding stuff from me lately, his anxiety flared up“.

(b) Disrespecting his repeated requests that you leave him alone, and chasing him. In the following are his repeated requests that you leave him alone, and  italicized is you chasing him:

“he requested some alone time… asked me to leave him alone… Usually, when he has terrible anxiety, he would ask for space, so it’s nothing new to me…  I tried calling him… he wouldn’t pick up but texted me instead to leave him alone… I followed up with him the next day… I spoke with him today to make sure he is fine”.

(c) Being a mystery to him, which means, not telling him the truth about what you think, feel and want. You wrote earlier: “He  is somewhat of a mystery… His words tell me something else vs his actions. I guess I will never know what his true intentions are”- seems to me that it is you who are a mystery to him. Your words don’t match your thoughts, feelings and wants. It is you who is not letting him know of your true intentions.

Now I am thinking that he told you that he is chatting with another girl and that maybe it will turn romantic with her because he thought that you are okay with being a non-romantic friend. Maybe you told him, or suggested to him, that you are okay with being his friend, and only a friend,  and that it is okay with you that he is interested romantically in other girls.

At some point, you wrote him a goodbye text, not because you intended to say goodbye, but because you wanted to test him, to see how he will react: “I want to see his reaction when I pull myself away…I just left him a long text thanking him for everything.. like a farewell” – “like a farewell”, but not really a farewell, as you never stopped communicating with him. The farewell text was a dishonest manipulative tactic meant to test him, not to say goodbye.

My closing thoughts: you wrote earlier, “Clearly I need help”- I think that you need to (1) Look into yourself and see what is true to you, instead of projecting yourself into another. (2) Be honest with yourself and with others about your thoughts, feelings, wants and intentions. Tell yourself and others simply and directly what is true to you. Don’t be a mystery; be transparent. (3) Stop confronting him for as long as you are not honest and transparent with him, it’s bad for his anxiety, (4) Respect his requests to be left alone, for as long as he needs to be left alone. If the last thing that happened in your communication with him,  is that you sent him a message, don’t send him a second message unless and until he positively replies to your first message. Don’t chase/ harass him- it’s bad for his anxiety.

If you want to, you are welcome to share about the void in your life, and how lonely you are.

anita

Dear Sarasa,

what I am noticing is that you’re talking about his behavior, saying that he was texting you all the time, calling you every day, checking on you if you don’t respond immediately. You say you got quite attached to that – you got used to him contacting you frequently. But you don’t say if you have a romantic interest in him or not. I asked you in my previous post whether you told him how you feel, you haven’t responded to that. But maybe a better question is – do you know how you feel towards him? Are you clear on that with yourself?

Dear Sarasa,

no problem, glad to hear from you.

“I am a little confused how I feel about him”

If he were to admit his feelings for you (say in a hypothetical scenario), how would you feel? Would you reciprocate or there would be something standing in the way?