Ending things....and not well.

In the past week, I've been accused not once but twice of being mean.

That's difficult to take becuase I honestly don't think I was being all the mean.

One of them was by a woman I'd seen a few times but who wanted a lot more serious a relationship than I did at this point. We were kind of doomed by being at not the same place at the same time and so I tried to end it. Again, this was like George from Seinfeld with the woman who didn't accept the break-up and kept trying to work at it. She'd still call and I'd still respond, but I didn't initiate any conversation with her. I felt it was too cruel to do so, almost as if giving her false hope somehow. The thing was--I was still interested if we could slow things down a bit and move at a more reasonable pace. She said that was fine but her actions didn't follow suit and I've since lost all interest in her beyond just being friends.

Anyway, I was accused of being mean because she IMed to see if I could get together that night. I apolgoize that I couldn't because I'd made plans already and had plans just about every other night this week. I asked if next week would be good and was told I was mean. Not sure the correlation there...

Oh yeah, and I'm emotionally unavailable...

Her words.

Next up is the woman whose constant needs for reassurance started to drive me batty. I don't mind positive reinforcement but when it becomes the sole basis of every conversation you have, it can be a bit perplexing. It's almost like she doesnt' believe it when I tell her that I like her and like to spend time with her.

Though I think that one was heading toward doom anyway. She had a habit of asking very pointed questions about what I liked sexually and while I can understand her logic, I don't think we were at that bridge yet. I can see wanting to be on the same page when it comes to that and I respect it, but when it got into seeming like it was the Dr Ruth show, I tried to have us pull back a bit. It kept coming up (no pun intended) and it just seemed out of place to me in terms of the level of graphic detail she wanted about what I wanted and my past.

So, finally she comes at me with this huge question of where do I think this whole thing is going. At this point, I'm not sure. I like her as a person, but yet some of her habits are making her less attractive romantically. I'm not quite sure how to broach this, so being a guy I go for the honest approach. I tell her I think we've got a great friendship and it could be more but at this point I am not sure.

At this point you can cut the silence with a knife.

She keeps asking the question, as if coming at it from another angle will somehow make the answer different. Finally, she gets disguisted, tells I am mean for not thinking about her feelings and she felt we had potential (I agreed with her on this on several points....but couldn't get her to hear that) and she told me to have a nice life. I've got a text message from her since that wanted to know the same thing--what did she do wrong that made me change my mind and what can she do?

I've not responded. Honestly, I think asking a person to make wholesale changes is not fair to either party.

I keep being reminded of something that Helen, the woman I saw a few times over the summer kept telling me. She would constantly give me status updates on us and where she was and where we stood. Her reasoning was that at least it was fair to both be honest and know where we were. She was afraid of me falling for her and her being on a different page, thus leading to awkwardness and hurt feelings. (But yet going silent and not returning my calls..that was OK). She kept saying "It's better to know now and not be hurt later."

I admire what she was trying to do and yes it sucked at the time when I needed her friendship and got nothing (was having some personal issues). But in the long run it was better that we both not waste our time, as it were.

Relationships and dating are hard work....

Maybe I should take a break for a while....