Dating Advice Thread

[Superman's Dead]

Nah, I had pants on too. He told her the next day he was impressed with how cool I played it. Points: Supes

[Krispy]

I have one rule on set and that's assume every woman has a boyfriend. This chick made me break that rule. I've never been on a 5 week shoot where you see the same people every day for 27 days before. Fuck. I don't know how to explain how much I don't want this.

She is the worst kind of woman. Pretty and doesn't care. Intelligent and cheery. Laughs a lot. Curious and motivated. She is our set decorator now and never worked a set before her first day. Just some artist the PD brought on. I taught her how to use power tools. Now she runs the set while the PD is out building other stuff.

I was doing fine for a while since she stays on set and I mostly stay off set, but I caved in today and did something nice for her and then she thanked me for it later and then I stalled myself leaving to say goodbye to her because I felt bad giving her the cold shoulder. I hope she doesn't try to eat lunch with me, but I don't think she will. I normally make a point to eat by myself so no one has to think I am their friend. I get that the unconscious mechanics of my mind make certain images more interesting and provocative than others, like shiny crystalline structures, but I hate that it attaches somatic reactions and emotions to such images as well. I really begrudge my holistic systems.

Reasons this is a bad idea: She could actually have a boyfriend. I am fucked up. I am not the only person who has flirted with her and at least one of them I would really, really like to get work from after this. So, this shit is political too. He really likes her.

And this is on top of the stupid amount of advances I have been getting from other women. I've had someone in a Supergirl costume be as bold as to attempt footsie with me and ask if I thought she was pretty while we were being stand-ins. What the fuck? Who does that? And the half Japanese girl who the production coordinator is sweet on keeps asking me to join them on their movie nights out. Why would I want to be the cock block for my fucking boss? It's true. Sets turn into big orgies.

[Purple Santa]

So this is inner dialog, we are listening to. You aren't looking for advice yet, just looking for someone to listen? Just asking before you get advice/observations that you may not want.

[civil_dead]

I think he was just sharing the synopsis for the film he's working on.

And Kris, you should move to NYC/the east coast. It's more your kind of people/life IMO.

[MagGnome]

Krispy you are so damn melodramatic.

I love you, bro.

[J Arcane]

And the half Japanese girl who the production coordinator is sweet on keeps asking me to join them on their movie nights out.

[rifter]

Damn Krispy, you sound like you have problems most guys would LIKE to have. :-) I dated a woman a bit that was like that. She traveled a lot, and there was a lot of sleeping around of people in her line of work, and she never did.

Good job holding it together. :-)

[resikel]

Krispy,

1 in 4 girls have cooties. Just sayin'

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by rifter

Damn Krispy, you sound like you have problems most guys would LIKE to have.

He's handsome and charming. Sounds rough, doesn't it?

[Krispy]

I know, I know. It was stupid of me to share. I'm sorry.

[Joshkdmw]

Fuck that noise. Your problems are just as bad for you as mine are for me. Hell, mine are preferable in a way. Ain't nobody clamoring for my attention. I'm just alone. Simple... Preferable...

Brb, candy binge

[Purple Santa]

Originally Posted by Krispy

I know, I know. It was stupid of me to share. I'm sorry.

Stupid? Perhaps. Could be you enjoy being stoned by your peers. I think you are insightful enough to know if you tell that inner dialog, the reaction will be "that's a problem"?

I'm going to say something similar I suggested to Supe's: You are externalizing your problems. I re-read your post. You use your academic knowledge to analyze your world of it's surrounding, never putting yourself in any of the problems. I see you do this with philosophy and psychology quite a bit. Using your intelligence to define your world, explain how events unfold, behaviors happen all due to some philosophical/psychological ways our bodies follow.

I'm not beating you up. I think you may actually like that. Instead, i'm giving you a bro hug and telling you to go find a talk professional who will not fall in love with your debating style of content. I know you've mentioned you have tried talk therapy. You need to find someone who is not going to follow you down the rabbit hole of your own mind's intelligent resistance.

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by Krispy

I know, I know. It was stupid of me to share. I'm sorry.

I was just giving you a gentle ribbing.



Giggity.

[SilentScreams]

This is going to be slightly long winded I think, and also please forgive any rambling or spelling/grammar mistakes. I have a cold and I'm not entirely "with it" right now.
I'm not even sure this post will have a point...it's just the only thing on my mind right now and I need to write it down. Indulge me.

Anyway, anyone remember the girl I spoke about a while back? The one who I'd been friends with for years and we finally got together only to have it end after a couple of months (her issues).
If you do, you may recall that we'd maintained our friendship, and to this day it's still going strong. If anything we're closer than ever, and in these last few weeks we've really been spending a lot of time together.

Anyway, we met up for lunch yesterday. I met her at work after her morning shift, waited while she got changed, and then we walked into town. At lunch, the conversation somehow shifted towards the long term relationship (10 years) that she had before me, and the one she was having a hard time moving on from, which played a sizeable role in our break up. She started telling me a lot of the stuff that went wrong with it. Sex was a major point of contention evidentially. She wanted it, he didn't. She also made a lot of comments like "we were just on completely different wavelengths, it's not like me and you, where we think alike and want the same things". That in itself isn't a major deal. She's always said that I can read her better than anybody else. I don't usually read too much into comments like that. I put it down to me being hopeful and wanting them to mean something, when in truth they probably don't.

At this point let me make it perfectly clear that I still want her. I've never stopped wanting her. I've had a couple of half hearted relationships since our split, but they both ended quickly and both ended because of me. I basically spent the whole time wishing these other girls were her, and that wasn't fair on anyone.
I have however mostly resigned myself to the fact that we're just friends. I'm not really bitter about that, she's an amazing girl and a great friend and given that the alternative is pushing each other away, I consider myself relatively lucky.
Since our split, she's always been very careful about not saying anything too "risky" that could give me the wrong idea, and for that reason I pretty much assumed the chances of anything more happening between us were minimal at best. It's a pretty strong sign, after all.

Anyway, back onto the story (I warned you about rambling).

Last night we were exchanging texts. Nothing extraordinary, just asking how each others days were, stuff like that. Then out of nowhere on the end of a text she put "I know this is random and I probably shouldn't say this, but talking with you about sex earlier made me really horny."

It caught me out completely. Recall my earlier comment about her not saying anything "risky". So much for that! My natural reaction when I'm unsure what to do is to make a dumb joke. This one was only half-joking though. I put "I'll be right over then! Talking about sex usually makes you want it...it worked on me too!"

A little more forward than I would usually be, and I admit I was trying to draw some more similar comments out of her, knowing that I could laugh my comment off as a joke if she didn't respond well.

Anyway, I won't quote her response directly, but she basically said that when I met her at work and she was alone in the coat room getting her jacket and I walked in behind her, part of her was really hoping that I would just put my arms around her waist and hold her. She also said that she knows for a fact that I wanted to kiss her. She isn't wrong, she looked beautiful.
I admitted to being tempted and said that if I had my way, I'd kiss her every time I see her, and she replied that she's been really tempted to kiss me a few times recently, but that some part of her always stops her from doing it.

At that point I decided that I had to know if she was actually getting at something by telling me this stuff. I asked her why, if we both obviously still have an attraction to each other, not to mention some serious chemistry, did we break up. I asked her what it is that's holding us back, and questioned whether we were just depriving ourselves for no real reason.

And I haven't had a response since then. I think that final text may have been a mistake, but to be honest there was a lot that wasn't explained about our break up and in the months since, those questions have plagued my mind more than they should. I just saw a chance to finally ask them and took it. The more I think about it and the longer it goes without reply, the more I'm regretting sending it, hence my need to put the whole thing down here, because just sitting and waiting for a reply is driving me crazy.

[Ink Asylum]

It's only a mistake if you were hoping to sleep with her again and nothing else. You were probably on track to having some ex-sex, which can be absolutely awesome in isolation, but isn't likely to lead to what you actually want, which is to date her again, and have it work this time.

Asking her why you broke up, in an honest and non-aggressive way, is the right move. If you're going to risk getting involved with her again as anything other than friends, you should know what went wrong the first time, so you can work to fix the problems with the relationship.

It does sound like she either doesn't know herself what went wrong, or isn't comfortable sharing it with you. Either way, until she can you did the right thing by cutting off the fun flirtatious talk with a dose of reality.

[Bone]

She is playing with fire and you are standing in the fire pit covered in gasoline.

[Ox]

Ink's right. As a general rule, two (or more) people shouldn't have sex with each other unless they both know what it means. It doesn't necessarily have to mean anything, but know that beforehand.

You had no idea what the meaning of your imminent sexing was, and I'll bet she didn't, either. That calls for clarification.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by Krispy

I know, I know. It was stupid of me to share. I'm sorry.

No dude, it's never stupid to share. It can be stupid to insult a person for sharing, but I don't believe good friends insult each other for their feelings.

Take that as you will.

I read your post and I read the other you deleted in the despise thread, and I've been meaning to respond to them, but the trouble is I couldn't really think of a lot to say. Not because I don't understand them, but because I do, and I have gone through at least some of the same things, even if the external events were different.

More I was reluctant because I feel like the "solve everything with my brain" voice that I have too doesn't have an answer, and I hate that, but the "experience" part does, and it's so trite that it bothers me to say.

The truth is, I have a lot of the same internal dialogue about how awful I am, and the only thing that really helped was talk therapy, and finding love. The latter of which isn't exactly helpful advice in a dating thread.

For me, talk therapy and the right medication combined to eventually lead me to a place where I could at least be open to the idea that I was not in fact an awful human being who deserved to die miserable and alone.

After that, it was just a matter of finding proof, and I did, far sooner and more serendipitously than I expected.

But the truth is, even that wasn't really a "cure" or a "solution." Finding love, even that real love where someone finally looks at all of you and doesn't recoil in horror, doesn't ever quiet that voice in your head that says you suck.

It just gives you another piece of evidence to argue against it when it comes up again. Some days, my girl says things to me about how I am, compliments, especially anything with a moral bent to it, and it just sounds wrong in my ears. My brain still can't believe the idea that I am actually a decent person. But at least I can point to that and say "Well, you can't be all bad, look."

I'm trying real hard not to come off the smug not-single guy here, especially because I suspect there's still some out there in the audience here who aren't going to think much of my present relationship as "real," but that's their problem.

My point here is not to rub it in that love helped me conquer all or some shit, believe me, it doesn't, not for me, not for her, and it won't for you either. Those internal voices, that self-talk, will probably always be there.

What I think you may need, is to find the right therapist who will be able to help you work on that, work on addressing those internal conversations fairly (because no matter how fair you think you're being when you're depressed, it's a lie). And perhaps, if it works for you, finding a medication that will help you see what being "happy" feels like, so that you can also see the end goal of letting the "I don't have to be miserable" side win those arguments more often.

This is all a bit muddled, and of course, I am not a therapist myself, just someone who's been through and still struggles with a lot of the same stuff you seem to go through. This is what helped for me, and I think it might help for you, but I also know how hard it was to convince myself that it would help, and it finally took some outside voices being honest about what helped them for me to reconsider my options on how to handle things. I hope I can be that voice for you.

[Bone]

Originally Posted by J Arcane

I'm trying real hard not to come off the smug not-single guy here, especially because I suspect there's still some out there in the audience here who aren't going to think much of my present relationship as "real," but that's their problem.

If anyone has implied that, it's only because there is a mountain of experience that suggests extreme caution when falling in love over a long distance without first meeting someone face to face. I'm sure others like myself hope the best for you, and I hope you get to make your trip to finally meet and confirm or disconfirm those very real feelings you have.

Your story is not unique, and there ARE many happy endings that come from situations like these... but far more disappointments. Keep talking to her and hopefully you guys will have a fantastic chemistry in person.

[rifter]

Originally Posted by SilentScreams

And I haven't had a response since then. I think that final text may have been a mistake, but to be honest there was a lot that wasn't explained about our break up and in the months since, those questions have plagued my mind more than they should. I just saw a chance to finally ask them and took it. The more I think about it and the longer it goes without reply, the more I'm regretting sending it, hence my need to put the whole thing down here, because just sitting and waiting for a reply is driving me crazy.

It sounds like you asked a question that really needed answered, at least by you. I think you did the right thing. If your friendship relationship is as good as you say it is, then this is a minor bump and it will be fine. If you are still having questions and this is nagging at you, you really needed to clarify. I hope it works out well.

Originally Posted by Krispy

I know, I know. It was stupid of me to share. I'm sorry.

I wasn't bashing you, if you think I was. It wasn't stupid, and if you thought I was giving you crap, I am sorry. I was saying it in jest.

Well, the part about having a problem most guys would like to have... the part about holding it together in that situation wasn't in jest. That would not be easy, given the temptation.