I'm single again....

Some of you may remember the “I’m taken!” thread I posted last year when I decided to make a go of an Internet relationship. I haven’t said much about this relationship on here since then, other than occasional references here and there to “S” or “my boyfriend.”

He’s since gotten very busy doing work at church, and hasn’t communicated much to me at all in the past couple of weeks or month. While I understand people being busy, I felt that I was being put on the back burner, and he didn’t make any effort to communicate. I sent him an email with several important questions about the relationship a couple of weeks ago, which to date he hasn’t responded to. People have said that if he didn’t respond, it meant that he didn’t want to say anything to me.

After much thinking about this and his past unreliability (blaming my phone lines for calls not getting through, constantly forgetting to call me, etc.), I felt I had to say something for my sanity’s sake.
No words can describe how I feel right now.

Suffice to say that I officially ended it.

I feel bad for breaking up for the surface reason of “he’s too busy for me,” but then there WAS the whole lack of communication thing also.

Nothing can describe how I feel right now. Suffice to say that I officially ended it earlier this afternoon. I thought he deserved the courtesy of knowing, rather than our just drifting apart. He knew already how I felt: remember that email he never answered? :stuck_out_tongue: (which he says he’ll answer now as soon as he can, because I at least deserve that… ha ha ha, we shall see on THAT one! :stuck_out_tongue: )
He’s apologizing profusely now, and saying that he didn’t anticipate his life getting so crazy. I can understand that, but all I wanted was for him to COMMUNICATE once in a while!

Maybe I’m not understanding enough, but I put in a lot of effort into this thing. He says he wishes me nothing but blessings and happiness, and wants me to know that he’ll always be my friend. (and maybe we were only meant to be together for just over eleven months)

Before everyone gets the idea that I feel totally nonchalant about things, I don’t! A part of me still loves him, as contradictory as that may sound. So now I feel absolutely horrible that I even have to do this to him, to us. But my practical side asserts itself and says that there wasn’t that much of a future.

Sigh… I hope it gets easier. :frowning:

Flamsterette_X: Here’s a big ol’ Johnny-Hug. I became un-engaged a couple of months ago. :frowning:

If it’s any consolation to you, my pad has been designated the Official Party Site this summer. Come on down to Birch Bay, and we can have a BBQ and lounge in the hot tub. You and I will be the only single people here (except for one friend’s seven-year-old son).

Flamsterette_X–You have my sympathies. But if you know that you did what you had to, it’ll get better. At least you can know that you didn’t sink more time and emotional energy into someone who wasn’t going to give you the same kind of commitment back.

Besides–it’s better to be single than it is to be with the wrong person.

Oh, and, if I’m around at all this summer–can I come party with you guys? I’ll be in need of a good blowout by then.

Did you ever meet him?

Hey there, Flamsterette_X, I’ve had my share of long distance relationships. One lived in Chicago while I lived in Milwaukee, and his career prevented his moving up, and I was completely unprepared for big city moving down. So we commuted for two years. Some of the best times I’ve had were those stolen weekends. Eventually, it became just to hard to keep things goping litke this - he would head out for six weeeks to produce a play, or be in an industrial video or some other gig, or direct and independent film. Weird thing - he married a woman like me. EXACTLY like me, only 10 years older. That kinda pisses me off. But we’re still friends, and I will see him the next time I am in town or he is out here to visit his family.

Another lived in the UK and I was still in Milwaukee. We planned on getting married. I messed up, and there were other problems not wholly of my doing, but I’ll be adult and say I was the main reason for our breakup. We talked every day. Found a great phone service that lets you call the UK for less than a call across our own country. Yahoo!IM was a main product of our relationship. But communication and daily honestly are difficult when you’re not acutlaly confronted by the other person’s presence evry day. It really is. You dont have to answer that phone cause it’s the last twenty miuutes of that show you’ve waited for for weeks. Little things start carrying over. And I realized I was in love with his mind, his soul, his persona, his rapier wit, his awesome vocabulary and the ability to create a really rife insult on a moment’s notice, but it’s hard to be in love with a man you’re really not sharing space with for 24/7 for a significant amount of time.

Then again, that could be all crap, cause I met my new man two years ago tody, and moved in his house the end of that year - across the country, away from family and everything I knew and was comfrortable with. Scary. But here we are. And he was not what I expected. And i was not all he expected. But we’re learning the art of compromise and adaptation.

Long distance is hard. But you almost get addicted to thej in a way, cause - hell, you have a relationship, but you’re not really accountable - they’re somewhere else!

I should dtop talking now - evening meds hit.

I’ll try again after surgery tomorrow.

Inky

Tough call Flammie. I feel for you. Hardly an easy decision to make.
It’s all very well him apologising now, but the fact remains that he hasn’t made communication a high enough priority. And with a LD relationship, communication is all you have.

Here’s a suggstion – a little risky, but you might want to consider
He’s apologising, promising to mend his ways, maybe even truly repentant. Meanwhile you rightly suspect the lack of committment to communication is the death knell to the relationship. Stop him mid-apology and suggest he might want to woo you. You know, the good old boy chases girl thing. Let him know that you are concerned about the level of communication and that he will need to win your confidence through his actions. If he is really sincere he will amend the communication thing, take the initiative himself, learn a bit of what it means to be romantic. You get your guy back, plus the confidence that he is really committed. And if he doesn’t play ball, then you are no worse off than you are now.

That’s just my two cents, not knowing the specifics, nor what is feasible. But I hate to see a good thing go down the tubes.

J.

Thanks, all.
Johnny L.A.: Here’s a Flami Hug right back. For those who have experienced them, they’re a very good thing. I believe I read about your un-engagement then too… sigh :frowning:

Haha, sounds like an idea! Might be just the thing, too. :smiley:
Scribble: That’s very true. Certain people I know said they could see things coming to a head from a long way off, but I was just blind to them / denied them to myself. He wanted me to wait till JUNE to call him / have him call me, and this was in January before his life got extremely busy with the church work and stuff. Maybe if he communicated more frequently than once a week online, I could have handled that. But yes… I did what was the right thing for me. It may have seemed sudden to him, but I’d been thinking about it for quite some time before.
Agent Foxtrot: No, I did not. He had / has certain debts, loans, and such to pay off. Too bad, really… but then I don’t have to do something to “relationship mementoes” seeing as he never sent me a thing despite his promises to do so. I guess it’s a good thing I only spent $18.72 on him. (there was more that was intended for him, but after I came to think about this ultimate decision, I either gave it away / used it myself / threw it out :stuck_out_tongue: )
Ink a dink a dink: Little things DO carry over… there was this one time he said he fell asleep and didn’t call me, but I personally thought he was doing something else. Trusting someone like that when they’re so far away is indeed hard.

“You have a relationship, but you’re not accountable to them since they’re somewhere else!” <— Hahaha! Too funny! Honestly and fairly, I felt we were both taking advantage of that “loophole.” (even though we shouldn’t have been… but hey, I suppose it’s natural enough :stuck_out_tongue: )
j_sum1: Exactly. To be fair, I could have communicated to him a little more, but I did let him know of my feelings in that unanswered email I sent… yes, it did include a mention of my ending things.

Oh, he is / was romantic enough online, but we never did the whole “boy chases girl” thing. In fact, the manner of our getting together was rather less exciting: we were talking on AIM the first weekend of last April, and we danced around the subject of our emerging feelings for each other. Finally I asked him point-blank whether he loved me as much as I thought he might. Things then took off from there. (wow, I typed that entire last paragraph without crying… that must be a good sign :stuck_out_tongue: )

That idea sounds good in theory, but I don’t know if it’ll work in practice. I really think we both need a couple of days to begin processing stuff before we talk a lot more. Unless he wants to talk first, which probably has a snowball’s chance in hell of happening. But who knows, I might try it sometime.

You have a good head on your shoulders Flamsterette. It sounds like you are doing the right thing. Remember, there’s lots of people here to support you.
J.

Not to mention lots of people here to meet! Think of all the Doper couples we’ve had.

There are plenty of other guys out there. It might not feel like it now, but it’s true. You’ve got a lot to offer. Some smart, wonderful guy out there will figure that out and really value you. Unlike this guy you just dumped. I mean, really. He wanted to wait until JUNE to speak with you? That’s just lame. Either that, or what he wanted in a relationship wasn’t at all what would have made you happy.

Sending supporting thoughts your way!

Sorry to hear about the turn of events.

Given that you recognize how important communication is to you in a relationship (good for you!), perhaps you may want to think about why you would settle for an “internet relationship” when there are probably lots of people right outside yoru door that you could have a face-to-face relationship with instead. Just food for thought in the future.

Isn’t there a thread that lists which members are currently single and which aren’t? Could be useful, that. :smiley:

Thanks, guys. Now I’m at the stage where I’m idealizing everything, and saying that it was “just” a communication issue… but who knows if he’d still be “too busy” then to talk to me. I mean, he WAS a sweet guy and all… but deep down, I know it’s just a rationalization. I think I need a few days to myself before I try talking to him rationally about things.

plnnr: Now is not the time to think about that, but I’ll keep it in mind.

Scribble: That’s right, bloody JUNE. His phone had been having “issues” (who knows whether that was true or not, as he always insisted he was being honest), so I’d have to wait till he got a new phone or something. I don’t know about that…

Arwin: That might be an idea… where is it?

Can I have a Doper couple? I mean, I’m in a relationship, I just want a Doper couple of my very own.

Flamsterette_X: you’re doing fine, it seems. Good luck!

I think I’ll be fine in a while… but I foresee being an utter wreck. Sort of, not really.

My take on this is that he wants you around as a “back up.” He doesn’t show signs of really being interested. Of course, I could be full of it too.

But I think you made the right choice and should stick with it.

Hey, Flami, I’m very sorry to hear all of this, but you made the right decision. If he really wants to make a better go of it, he’ll do something more to get your attention. Until then, stick with what you’ve done. Again, you’ve made the right decision. You’ll find another guy soon if you want to, you’re too good a girl to slip through, so to speak.

Khadaji: Yeah, that could conceivably be the case. I’m not going to ask him those questions right now, if ever… maybe in a LONG while! But looking back on it, he’s not been acting interested since maybe December. Who knows.

JimSox5: Somehow, I’m not sure that will happen… but I guess you never know. Someone else told me that the reason he apparently took it so well was because he expected something like this to happen, and was hoping I’d do it. Possibly. Oh well.
Right now, I’m wondering if perhaps a temporary break would not have been a better idea. But what is done can’t be undone, especially since I spent so much time thinking about it in the first place. It wouldn’t be impractical to change our minds, but that needs time.

I wish he’d answered the email, that he’d been more reliable, that I had been more vocal about what I thought… oh, a squillion things. But at least I let him know that it was over… he certainly deserved that final knowledge because I still care about him.

Radiohead’s Just comes to mind:

You do it to yourself
You do
And that’s what really hurts
Is you do it to yourself
Just you
You and no-one else
You do it to yourself

I don’t know what to do now… it was the right decision, but I do feel terrible. I expect I will be feeling this way for some time to come, as well. Even if he was expecting it, I know that this isn’t the time to question him about that. Maybe later, but not now.

I ended up talking to him, deliberately letting it come at the close of his workday so I wouldn’t go on and on. I never said I was known for my tremendous willpower. :stuck_out_tongue:

I told him that I still loved and cared for him a lot, but that I was willing to be friends. I also told him that he was a wonderful person, and that I wished him all the best. He actually responded and thanked me, and we acknowledged our respective mistakes. For now, we’ll be friends… that’s what I had in mind originally, and he can’t say anything more than that right now either.
Yet, I’m still wondering whether things would have turned out differently yesterday if I’d said: “Darling, we need to talk / I really need to hear your voice.” They might have, but my practical side says it would have been like all the other times he forgot to call or whatever. Darn brain. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m not lecturing you, believe me; just curious: You fell in love with him without having ever met him?

Adam

What am I, chopped liver? :smiley:

[sub]sheesh, you’d think I’d be invited just for my cooking, let alone my voluptuous…erm, pulcritudionous…why can’t I spell tonight? Okay, my singleness and warm fuzziness. Okay, okay, I admit it…I just wanna sit in the hot tub. Which, if I recall correctly, you told me didn’t WORK. [suspicious look] [/sub]