I just want to be friends...Pt3

[scaredsilly]

yc, i respect your decisions. it sounds as if you've made up your mind to carry on without him.

however, if there's still a chance, i wanted to ask you about your conversation with him.

in the above example, it seems that when he spoke about his fears, your response was to invalidate them. he spoke, you pushed back and advised him, to an extent, his fears were made not valid and not justified. it's frustrating when someone does this.

Everything I said, he had a counter for it. In the end, I said "I feel I can't win. No matter what I say or what I explain in terms of how I felt, my own insecurities and fears - it makes no difference to you. You seem to be set in your mind in which case I'm not sure why you came here. I feel deceived."

you felt it, too. the back and forth of justification gets people nowhere. there is no "winning" by justifying or invalidating, only by listening and empathizing and being "open" to his feelings and he to yours.