Making sense of nightmares

[DonH]

I would say that I would never date someone and use them as practice.

Ya know I feel like I'm always busting your chops Joseph but dang man your words sometimes are just that - words. You without a doubt have been practicing dating. For crying out loud those were your own words to us - especially to me. You said straight out it was like me practicing my instrument or like Michael Jordan I think it was practicing to play in the NBA - THOSE WERE YOUR EXACT WORDS!!! now you say you'd never practice? HUH?

But I would say, I don't think any of us go into our dates thinking it's practice. It may end up that way but I think we are all sincere when we start out. We just are confident enough to admit we need practice and we don't know it all.

Anyway, there is a big part of me that is considering ending it.

I'm very much enjoying this conversation JuJu. I continue to learn a lot from many of you here and in this case from you JuJu as to what at least some women are thinking. I'm not there with you and your BF so it's really hard to know what's going on. Plus it's from your perspective - his might be greatly different. It does seem like both of you have lost the shine or the luster for the other. But after 18 months, should you not talk with him about that rather than just end it - or worse yet continue as you are? I can tell you that if a woman tells me what's bothering her or something I'm doing that is making things worse, I'll do all I can to change it. But I can't do that if she doesn't tell me. Have you thought about sitting down with him and telling him some of these things? Telling him things that are bothering you. Again in my own case, and I often tell women I'm dating this very thing, that 90% of the time if you'll just ask me or clarify, what I said or how you took it was not meant as it came out or was taken.

I also think you are giving us men in general far too much credit. We don't think all of this stuff out. We have no grand plan or master plan. We just bumble through and do it. We are not thinking we are gaming or practicing. We are not trying to set you up or shade the truth of who we are. We are not that sinister nor that deep. We just are not.

I'm the one holding back.

I feel a bit deceived though. When we first dated, he went all out. Now, not so much.

Do you think one may be effecting the other? I know it would be for me. It gets "old" to keep trying if you are not getting it in return. This is one of the concepts in the DB books. If you started reaching out more, do you think he might as well? Is he now holding back because you are? I don't know this to be a fact - I just question it.

I've also read over and over forever it seems that the new infatuation period lasts about 6 to maybe 12 months. After that there is a more "mature" love that forms as you just can't keep that level going forever. I've always believed that. I mean it seems like the majority of "experts" say it. Yet we have at least a few here saying oh no, that should go on forever. Really? Should it? I even read from Joseph and a few others that if they would have kept the honeymoon phase going (my words not theirs) that they would not have gotten D'd. Well, yeah, I guess, perhaps. But is that even possible? Now this is not to say there should not be date nights and interaction and all of the rest. I'm not saying that. But things change. Do you really expect to keep what went on in the first 6 months going forever? Is that really possible?

I pose many more questions than I have answers but that is in part why I'm so fascinated by this discussion. It's also why I think all of this dating and R stuff is soooooo dang hard - and always has been for me. Give me nearly everything else in life and I've got it down pretty solidly - relationships, hell to the no - I clearly don't have this figured out at all.

So let's maybe just take one point here and see if we can get to a bottom with it.

He says things like, he wants to cook dinner for me and my son this weekend but then never actually invites us, so I’m not sure if I’m supposed to initiate that? To me that feels rude.

So when he says this, what is your response? Do you kinda of say "Um yeah I guess that could be fun." or something like that? Or do you respond "Oh yes, I'd love that, thank you so much, what time do you want to get together?" I'm sure you can see the difference in the two. As a guy, if it's the first response, I'm thinking, okay she really doesn't want to do this and is just being nice in saying yes. Now if it's the second response and nothing happens, by all means you should be saying, "What happened with dinner this weekend, are we still on for that because I'm looking forward to it." I know you feel you have little if anything in common with Wild Girl and know you don't think much of her but since she is my most recent example and therefore the clearest in my head, I'll use her. We talked about going on an overnight train trip to Chicago. I asked her about it and her response seemed luke warm to me - at best. She finally gave me a weekend and said she's really busy but maybe that could work. Now there was more at play here and I already greatly sensed she was backing off but with that response I was like, why should I bother. She never said another word - unless we finally talked months later. Had she simply said ANYTHING positive about it afterwards I would have followed through. But I figured she's not even mentioned it, she doesn't want to go. Yet this was one of the things she later listed as why she thought that I lost interest - saying, "You talked about going to Chicago and then never said anything again." See the two perspectives? Again, with WG there is much more going on but I think you can still get a sense of what I'm saying. I'll bet if you just told your BF, that you are really looking forward to this dinner, he'd follow through. Why not try it? Now if you have and he still is all talk and no follow through, it's time to ask him about it. He should tell you why. The two of you really need to start communicating about this.

So I'll stop with that one example. I really think you should try to flush this out. If it's not meant to be it's just not meant to be. But sticking in limbo is no way to live either. I hope this helps in some manner.