Finding myself

[SteveLW]

This stuff is close, but it doesn't add up. He gets it close, but not all the way there, so that he has an out, an "AHA, but I didn't actually say that I said XYZ not XY". You know this in your heart of hearts. Healthy R's don't make it to this board.

SO TRUE!! My "friend" did the same thing to me. She'd say things that could be taken two ways. If I took it meaning there was a chance for us, she'd claim "no that's not what I meant". If I took it the other way, she'd down the line claim "well I hinted to you that I wanted more but when I said X, but you never acted on it". Lies, manipulations, and half truths litter her communications with me over the years.

I remember one time (30 years ago) her showing up at my house one night. There was a female get together my mom was hosting, and since she was friends with my cousin she was invited. I was leaving to go stay at a buddy's and go fishing the next morning. She showed up at the house early and wanted to talk. This was in the period where I had really started to move on from her. We sat down to talk privately and she kept saying she wanted to know what I wanted. I struggled with wanting to move on at that point, so I just kept to myself. Finally she leaned over and kissed me very deeply and passionately.

The next week I was at function, and she was their.......with her BF. When she confronted me weeks later about avoiding her, I told her, "You keep sending mixed messages! You kiss me like I've never been kissed before....and then the next week you show up at X with -redacted-!".

Ready for what she told me. You are going to love this.

"Oh, when I kissed you that night that, I thought was a kiss goodbye............."

Yeah right. That's why when I said to her as we were parting, "I'll call you." And she said, "Good."

Reliving that hurts, and makes me angry at myself.

I could give other examples. Like after the EA, during one of her tries to restart it, I asked her how after the EA we could go back to being friends. She said: "We don't have to."

I never reacted to it. If I took that mean she wanted to resume the EA, then she would claim she didn't mean it that way. If I brought it up later that she was saying she agreed we shouldn't be friends any more, she'd claim "when I said that I meant we could go back to the EA."

Double-faced...................