When things starts with the Good Doc, I could not believe my luck to have run into such a good, sweet, guy. He was giving and kind and put me first (wow!). However, things moved too quickly for me, as he jumped from ‘get to know you’ to relationship mode. I wasn’t ready and it felt like pressure and expectations.
I do believe I wasn’t/am still not ready to be in a relationship with him because part of the protective response that was recently uncovered is that when really good things happen, I feel undeserving. So I protect myself against them too. Obviously not a behavior that I want to carry forward.
Either way, I wasn’t ready so I asked him to slow down. I let him know that I was enjoying getting to know him, but the speed-up spoked me. The day after that conversation, we went out for drinks and he tried to hook up with me - I was so confused, didn’t I just say I needed to slow down? So the following day, I had the slow down conversation again. Still, he didn’t hear me. He continued to act toward me like one would a girlfriend and I was feeling the pressure big time. So for a third time in five days, I told him I REALLY needed it to slow down. I let him know that I wasn’t ready to jump into a relationship and jumping too soon felt like pressure and expectations. He agreed and understood.
After that I traveling for a few days for work. He informed me he was sad that we wouldn’t hang out for a whole week. Once I was away, I waited for a few days and then said I would be free friday. He jumped at the offer and immediately wrote back asking if I wanted to hang out saturday and if I needed a ride home from the airport on Thursday. Whoa! Slow down! (and, by the time saturday came, he had put out different offers for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday)
While those are wonderful offers that I ordinarily want to hear when I’m dating someone, in this case I feel so Un-Heard! I keep asking him to slow down. And in his own words, to make up for his own insecurities, he is overcompensating - which is not only smothering me but it feels like my request have be ignored.
At this time, I need me to come first. I’m uncovering pretty important stuff about how my mind and emotions work - and I need the time and space to do that. I explained much of what is in this blog to him (because I felt I owed it to him, not because I was ready to share the intimate details of my inner-workings). And I’m still not sure that he’s hearing me.
We are supposed to get pizza and ice cream tonight. After asking three times for him to slow down, instead of opening up to him, I continued to withdraw further and further until now I am afraid I’ve pulled back too far and have no positive feelings left to tap in to. So for tonight, I will tell myself I’m getting pizza and ice cream with a friend. And when the time is right, I’ll let him know that is all I can give him right now. Is friendship. Who knows, maybe when I actually have some space and time, I will feel more for him. But at this point, he didn’t give me the space and time I needed and now I am just too far gone.
I feel a good bit of guilt for pulling back from the first truly nice guy that I’ve been interested in (because I was interested at first!) - but sometimes just because they are nice, but they aren’t necessarily a match.
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