Dating: Making the First Move is My Trigger

[dark empathy]

@BigV I'm glad that what I said helped to an extent, I certainly understand what you mean and tears can be very cathartic, I've such moments myself, usually to music and following a really problematic few days..

I can definitely see how predatory, abusive women are more forward, I definitely ran into a few who's response to my genophobia instinctive mocking, very much like my abusers.

Its another symptom of the current "men pursue" dynamic that it gives female predators a free reign, since they get their pick of men not forward enough to have found someone.

My lady is extremely gentle , indeed after a fifteen year emotionally (and sometimes physically), abusive marriage, she finally had enough, only to first be given the run around by a sociopathic emotional predator, and then literally brow beaten into a relationship with a possessive, sexually demanding, and indeed on several occasions actively sexually abusive man fifteen years older than her, a relationship which she entered into literally a week after I had met her in person for the first time after talking online via email for close to five months.

After meeting her in person (at a weekend international music school course), I realised the horrible truth, that I was actually falling in love with her, a feeling that was as much emotional as it was physical. I had no idea that the feeling might be reciprocated at all. We had had a lot of conversations by then, including some literally four or five hour long phone conversations, some of which got very intimate and even touched on my abuse, but I always believed (as I tend to with people who are my friends), that she was basically an extraordinarily good person who tolerated me, I never thought the feeling might be mutual.

After a bloody aweful couple of months (you can still find my posts about them in this part of the forum from May and June 2015), I was in a position I've been in only three times before in my life, a position where I had! to say something about how I felt just to clear the air and get some distance from the situation. I didn't expect she felt the same way, it was obvious to me that nobody could, but I knew if at least I said there would be a resolution for me, for all I expected the same taudry "I'm flattered" which I'd had on the previous occasions.
So on the third of July 2015 I finally admited by phone how i felt, and to absolute shock and horror, she felt the same way, ----- actually her first reply when I told her I loved her was "oh this is terrible!" after which she explained that she felt the same way but was stuck in a relationship which she couldn't bare to end.

I did not realise all of the shit going on with her current boyfriend at that point, indeed I didn't ask her to "runaway" with me or anything of the sort, I was just astoundingly happy that someone could! feel that way about me, since if she did, then maybe someone else could. I said I'd be her sidney carton, to quote dickens, her close loving friend.

A month later in August we met again at an international music school for a week, and it became ridiculously obvious (apparently to everyone at the school as much as to us), that we had a fairly amazing mutual attraction.
We talked about the way we felt, I did not pressurise her at all, but something just wouldn't let us let the thing go, indeed there was one incredibly scary evening when we kissed goodnight, things between us threatened going too far, too fast and we both had to back off.

It was on the Monday (apparently following a massive fight with her previous partner the night before), that she basically told me things weren't' working out with him.

even then, it was a further six weekes before she could extracate herself from the situation since she was worried about causing her previous boyfriend pain, (despite him being less than pleasant), indeed even though said previous boyfriend had apparently been tiring of her, his response when she proposed leaving was ugly in the extreme.

It finished with her basically coming and staying with me for a week in November of fifteen after leaving said boyfriend with extreme acrimony, a few days that were absolutely magical and included the first time I made love aside from my abuse.

She then had to go back to America, and I flew out to Pensylvania to spend Christmas with her, a christmas where we got engaged.
Exactly one year after I first told her how i felt, expecting nothing, we were married!
So, this is why I say the circumstances we met were ridiculously unlikely and why I cannot give any advice. We met on a mailing list about books and music (actually because she liked my book reviews), she didn't even know I was male for a while (she thought i might be, but when I mentioned one book made me cry she wasn't sure).
The irony is she was apparently far more speculating than I was while we were talking online, wondering if I were single, and was actually convinced a post grad student in his early thirties wouldn't be interested in a divorcee nine years older than him.

This is why she was in a vulnerable enough state to get into a mess with said previous possessive boyfriend, indeed she has told me she wasn't sure about the situation but he basically bullied her into moving in with him, (which included moving from Germany, where she was living at the time, to England).

She said for her, the thing that really clinched the problems with said previous partner (problems she said would've existed if I hadn't been around), was that she realized it was yet another abusive situation, a fact confirmed by her friends. After one abusive marriage she thought "I don't need this" and so decided to leave.

According to one good friend of mine who has a masters in humanistic counselling, this! is really unusual. Most people don't get to walk away from one abusive relationship, let alone too, especially women, and even more especially very gentle women, indeed my lady is far stronger than even she knows.

It amazes me just how many ridiculously hollywood romantic cliches we went through in course of getting together. Everything from the "I love you but there is someone else, well we can be friends", to the dramatic meeting at the train station.

This is why I don't feel I can give advice really about finding relationships, since in my case it really does seem like something from someone else's life, a passage from a story or a divine intervention.

Hope this makes sense.

As to codependency, well in our case if anything it is co co dependency since its pretty equal with both of us. One thing however which does frighten me a little is realizing that if I hadn't! met my lady how easily I could have fallen into an abusive pattern, and how profoundly lucky I am to meet someone gentle, selfless, and if I am going to be honest, as much dependent upon me as I am upon her.

As to the "wing man" thing, well since dating has always been a mugs game for me, i've never tried it I'm afraid. Most of my friends, and indeed me myself have ended up in relationships with people who they were previously friends with and shared mutual interests, indeed one tabletop role playing friend of mine described rping as "the thinking person's dating because of all the couples who got together whilst gaming (I used to play a weekly game with three married couples).

Equally, I will say most of my friends have been university students, where a greater level of male/female interaction and mutual interest is quite common.

I did notice when i visited my lady's family in pensylvania that there was a very strict gender devision of interest.
Men talked about sport and hunting and beer and home improvement, women talked about the doings of other women and the births and marriages of their local church or community, (its no wonder my lady, as a girl who enjoys science fiction, performing arts and literature left).

I suppose in that sort of where there is such a rigid line of lifestyle and interest between the sexes that you need a ritualised dating culture just to get men and women to spend some time together .

What I would do in such an environment, god knows, probably be even more stuck than I have been in my life, since at least at university I made a lot of female friends as I said.

 

[BigV]

Dark Empathy, I think chance plays a much bigger part in most things than most of us realize. The only role we play in an otherwise random universe, is by being prepared to take advantage of what opportunities present themselves, imo. Also, I think it helps to be open, and forthcoming, as you were with your lady. You had the courage to express your feelings, which means you were open the possibility of something, however random, happening.

My problem is that I have a hard time expressing my feelings to the women I have feelings for. I've recently come to realize that this is most likely due to attachment problems that began with my mother. I find everything from expressing desire, to my physical needs, to be extremely difficult, because I always expect a hostile response and rejection. When a pattern of attachment problems starts very early in life, it becomes deeply programmed, and is very difficult to un-program. I've only recently become aware of these attachment issues, and only now am I starting to work on them.

Having had more time to think more deeply about my inability to ask women out, or to make the first move, there is one realization that really stands out for me. I really can't stand the idea of women in my culture, and the city where I live (West Coast of Canada) expecting men to jump through hoops for them, and to play the dating game, in order to prove they're worthy. Usually, hoop number one is the one where the man makes the first move. The reason why I can't stand this BS approach to starting relationships is because the very first time I was made to jump through a woman's hoop was when I was abused. My abuser made me play her game, by her rules, and forced me to non-consensually jump through her hoops. It doesn't help that my mother psychologically abused me, I was physically abused by a female teacher in elementary school, and was sexually harassed by older girls as a child. All of my abusers were female, and they all wanted me to jump through hoops that I did not want to jump through. So when a woman acts as though I have to prove my self-worth by glibly jumping through her stupid hoops, my response is to turn my nose up, and to walk away. In my culture and locality, this is how one ends up being single for the rest of their life, because most of the women here want the men they date to play this game. Personally, I'm waiting for the woman who has finally figured out that this game is just that, a game, and is thus nothing more than child's play. Such a woman would realize that not only should she be impressed by me, but she also should be making an effort to impress me. It's a two way street, and anything but a game.

it's funny, because i have never had this problem outside of the area where I live. In Latin America, it's the opposite; whenever I've gone backpacking in South America, the women have always been very forward. Even in rural areas outside of the cities on the west coast, here, the women seem less cold, less angry, less defensive, less materialistic or competitive. So I don't think it's just me, it's my city. I've heard repeatedly that it's one of the worst cities in the world for dating.

So maybe i should just move? I love South America. Great weather, beautiful women, and I could easily find work there. What the hell am I doing in this cold city, full of it's even colder women?