Unlike Before...

[SimonSays]

Because it’s so rare now, if someone new comes into my life, for a moment I imagine they might be the one who helps change things for me. But I hardly ever talk to anyone; most of my time is spent alone in silence, and I certainly never meet someone in the park and spend a few hours sitting on a bench talking. When I did this a few days ago, and she revealed she was a Hare Krishna who hadn’t been to temple in several months, I suggested if she wanted to go I would walk with her to see what it was like.

We arranged to meet the following morning at 10am, and walked for an hour to a part of town I never go. It is always so busy there; a bit overwhelming actually, so much hustle and bustle, and I am not a casual shopper or seeker of stuff. For me, the journey was about visiting a house of God, of which there are many in that area, and this was the only route to get there. While for her it was also a chance to look at things in shops. She had told me she wasn’t a very material person, while also saying she had too much stuff, and then behaved completely opposite to that, which is something I’ve come across many times with people.

It didn’t take long to feel overwhelmed by her. She would constantly stop to look at things, causing me to have to be aware of her in a way I did not enjoy. It reminded me of how it used to be before, when I lived with a woman in the US. I always had to wait while she searched for her misplaced phone again, and she never knew where her keys were. She would stop to take photographs of almost everything along the way; the same things again and again, causing me to lose any rhythm or flow I might have gotten into.

After visiting the temple (which I talk about in another thread), I couldn’t wait to get back and say goodbye. But unlike before, when I lived in the US and had nowhere else to go, I did not need/want anything else this time.

I wore earplugs to protect me from the noise of the busy main road. She knew I had them in, and why, but would still try talking to me anyway, asking several times if I could hear her, making it so much harder for me to deal with.

Unlike before, when I made the huge mistake of having sex when I first arrived, after having only talked online previously, for about 2 months (I would be sharing her single room and sleeping in the same bed) before realising by the second day I had to stop all physical contact completely. It took several weeks to have her accept this and stop trying to change my mind.

Nothing like that this time, and yet I could still feel the same feelings of complication lurking nearby, almost immediately actually, just by having connected with her this way. Only this time I would not be falling into the same trap of wanting more from her, knowing how high the price would be to do so.

I’m sure I will see her around, in the park, at some point, but for now I will go somewhere else for a while. I'm not ready for any kind of connection like that. I have to be so careful.

 

[SimonSays]

Unlike before, when I chose to go to the US and live with someone I'd never met in person, in a single room, sleeping in the same bed, I thought it would make it much easier if we were sexual right away, as that would make sharing a bed much easier. I realised my mistake very quickly, but not quickly enough. Once I did, I wasn't sure how to tell her. I wasn't sure what to say. I didn't really know what had changed in me.

I had done this the wrong way round. And it wasn't that I didn't know that I needed to get to know a person first before it became sexual, and why I had always avoided one night stands in the past. But I now knew without a shadow of doubt that I could not continue being intimate with her. We could only be platonic. Brother and sister. I was to be her companion, not her partner. And yet I still had to share her bed, although I was right up against the wall now, as far as I could be, as I could not bear even the thought of her being close to me, even by accident when she was asleep. Not an easy thing to have to deal with. I didn't want to hurt her. She had done nothing wrong. I'd just given her the wrong idea about what this was, and had to correct it immediately.

But eventually she accepted it, and we could just be together as friends. We supported each other. Looked after each other. Watched things together. She introduced me to the people she knew. I got to see Minnesota in a way I would never have been able to otherwise.

She would from time to time attempt to get me to touch her in nonsexual ways. She had a lot of physical issues and always wanted a massage. But I knew I couldn't do that for her; for me, doing that was still being intimate with someone I wasn't being intimate with. And I also knew that for her this was one step closer to what she still wanted more of from me. But I made it clear that that was not something I would do and eventually she stopped looking for it from me.

Clearly this was not a typical relationship, but then neither of us were very typical people. I'd been living in a van, alone, in the UK, while she was alone in her room in St Paul. It had made sense that we might try to share the winter together rather than do so alone. Unfortunately, I was not physically attracted to her, but also not attracted to her on other levels. There were times when I felt a controlling, mothering love, coming from her, that it began to feel like I had experienced another life with her as my mother. Imagine feeling that and then attempting to make it sexual!

 

[SimonSays]

Okay... so what have I learned from all this?

I could say I've learned that it's better for me to be on my own. But I'm not sure I can really say that because I don't know that's true. It is currently true, and I do feel it is easier to be like this, but I can't say that I wouldn't try getting involved again with the right person in the right situation.

Trouble is... because of how I am, I have no idea who the right person would be. I thought I'd found the right person before, more than once, only to discover I was mistaken.

I'm not sure what kind of empathy I experience; emotional empathy, and you feel what someone else is feeling. I don't have that. Compassionate empathy, and I have to do something to help with somebody else's pain. I have experienced that, but I don't at the moment. Cognitive empathy is something I experience; I become aware of other people's feelings but can only observe what they are experiencing. I can perhaps suggest something that might make things better, but I feel separate and detached and not involved.

And yet...what I experience when I get involved with someone is as if only they exist for me. I feel I get to know them intimately. I feel connected and close. I want to spend as much time as I can with them. I want to do different things and enjoy the experience of sharing those things with them. They take over my world, become my world, and nothing else really matters.

What kind of empathy is that?

I feel as if they are a part of me. I feel like I know them in a way that seems unlikely and yet that's how I feel. It's very intense. And yet it doesn't last. So maybe it's some kind of delusional state? I can see how that might be true. And that would explain why things don't work, because what I'm feeling is not based on reality, only what I experience as reality.

I have a tendency to feel connected to another person in a way that seems more than just based on the experience I've had with them. And it feels so real to me, as I suppose any good delusion would. For a while I seem to be playing the part of someone who really feels that way, and it's good enough to be accepted by the other person as such. But because it's only playing a part, it can't be sustained, and something will eventually happen that lets through a different perception of who I am. I think that creates a paradox. It isn't easy to reconcile. Until this occurs, they were in no doubt they knew who I was, and this glitch changes things in a way that is unrecoverable. It only needs to be a tiny discrepancy; as if I was some kind of conman who was attempting to fool them into believing I was one thing when in reality I was another.

On some level that is probably true, not me being a conman, but being something other than I appear to be. This has happened enough times for me to have to recognise there is some truth in it.

I can't say what it is they see exactly. I believe I was just being myself at the time. But I have noticed, without understanding what I was seeing, this moment take place, as they recognise or realise something they weren't expecting. It creates a kind of distancing, as they come to realise they had being caught within my delusion.

I don't know if what I've just said explains anything as this is really difficult to explain. I think it points to something, but I haven't got deep enough to really understand what's actually going on here. I just thought I'd have a go at doing so, seeing as how I'm the only one on this thread so far.

 

[SimonSays]

I'm wondering if it might be some kind of personality disorder. It's quite confusing to me. I wish I could have one of them contribute to this thread, offer their perspective, as a way of revealing what they experienced, to give my words balance.

I'm relying on how I remember things occurring, and I know how fallible memory can be. I think I'm remembering correctly, and am definitely being honest, but it doesn't explain the issues, nor allow me to see something that lets me understand.

It seems like I may be alone in this area, as this thread has not made anyone feel they have anything to add.

I have a lot of experience, but while I've been quite successful at attempting to make things work, I've also been unsuccessful at doing so, although that has at least allowed me to gain a lot of information about what takes place. I may not be able to experience a long-term relationship, although I have experienced a long-term relationship, temporarily. And the truth is, right now, even spending time with anyone new isn't something I feel I can do for long. And that may have a lot to do with not having any desire to be sexually intimate.

Unlike before, when there was a strong motivation to experience sexual intimacy, coming out of a feeling of closeness that I felt I was missing. At least I thought I was looking for the closeness, and that the sexual component was an essential part of that for me. However, once the sexual component was occurring, the feeling of closeness would slowly change, and instead of it becoming transcendent, spiritual, it became self-indulgent, as if realising that the closeness I'd been looking for was unable to be achieved this way, and the temporary bonding that could come from the sexual, albeit briefly, seemed better than nothing.

I was looking in the wrong place. For the wrong thing. Now, I can see that nothing would have been better. And nothing is what I now have.

 

[Aspychata]

I loved a autistic guy. Very handsome. However he refused to love me. I have to leave to save me.

 

[SusanLR]

Looking for love in all the wrong places, are you?

I'm certainly no expert on love and relationships that are of the sexual nature.
I don't know if I could ever be comfortable living with someone. There is not enough time
in the world to make it feel I know them.
I felt that way about my Mom, but, then I've known her since birth on a daily basis of living with her.

Just like you, I have no real contact with anyone. Just the guy I live with and that is chaos.
Sometimes I find myself just talking about some mundane thing of no real importance and he
suddenly picks something I just said and tries to turn it into an argument which makes no sense
to me. No way could someone like that feel like my other half or partner.
Yet I do not look forward to living totally alone and isolated.
Life is uncertain. Maybe I won't have to or maybe I'll surprise myself and like it.