Once I was in the train, minding my own business, reading an unusual, interesting book. The guy seating in front of me noticed it and we started talking. It turned out, we live in the same city. We both were relatively new there.
FF a week. We went out to get some burgers. Talked about basically everything. We had what could only qualify as a wonderful time together. Chatted for hours, even talked about travelling together to a country I know relatively well and he’d like to visit.
Where I live, split checks are custom. I always hated them, so thinking (wrongly, as it’d turn out) we’d see each other again very soon, I paid for the whole bill.
Before going home, I even cited Casablanca’s well known ‘beginning of a long friendship’ line.
Never heard from him after that. When I tried to reach out, only a half-hearted bs ‘oh sorry, I’m so bad at replying texts’ came.
Never saw him again.
Really shattered my confidence in people, and myself.
Angus, if you’re out there. WTF man. Why.
He might have thought you were romantically interested in him, wasn’t interested, and didn’t know how to communicate that without being worried he might offend you.
There’s this concept of a relationship escalator and everybody rightly shits on how much it fucks things up on the back end of erotic relationships.
But in pretty much every kind of new relationship, whether it’s business, friendship, family, or romance, people expect to increase their commitments gradually, in coordination with the other person.
Yes, this means that most people looking to make new friends and lovers expect you to act a little less excited about getting to know them than you actually are. 🤷🏻♀️
Actually, the only way I’ve been able to make sense of what happened is thinking that he might have been interested in me, correctly sensed I’d never be, and didn’t want to be hurt.
Also entirely possible.
It’s a tightrope walk. Put in too much effort and you risk pushing them away. Not enough effort and they lose interest. That is also why, in my experience, it is a good idea to have multiple friends. If you’re someone who needs a lot of attention, it allows you to have multiple sources of attention without being smothering towards one person.
If getting messaged once a week or so to ask if you wanna hang is “smothering” and “risk pushing” you away, then maybe, just maybe, the problem is not the dude messaging.
It’s not a tightrope walk, a friendship is built on mutual respect. Feeling left out and lonely because there is no reciprocation whatsoever is normal. Calling this OP’s fault is extremely toxic, holy shit. If it’s a tightrope walk, you didn’t wanna be friends from the very beginning and are bad at communicating your intent.
The implication of OP’s post is that they are unable to make new friends. Somethingsomethingcommondenominator…
If getting messaged once a week or so to ask if you wanna hang is “smothering” and “risk pushing” you away, then maybe, just maybe, the problem is not the dude messaging.
Where does OP say that this is what they are doing? The assumption I would get from the meme is that they are trying to have long form conversations over text, which can be exhausting for other people - especially if you just met.
The whole phrasing of the meme puts off huge neediness vibes, which is kind of the joke. *Of course" OP has a hard time making friends, because they are so lonely. Catch 22, remember, was a comedy.
The secret is to make friends with common interests and focus on the interests.
Yep, all too familiar with the cycle. :/
Realistically it’s probably me that’s doing something wrong, but I haven’t figured out what.
Doesnt have to be. People sometimes are comfortable in their lives and dont want new friends.
Also today social media has fucked people and they think all they need is the phone.
