what do you think?

as many of you may remember i came here looking for advice on the Y/M i was seeing. he's 22, i'm 41. we started out seeing each other at least a couple times a week and he'd call, IM, text me and call me a few times a week as well. pretty frequent contact that moved into an intimate relationship pretty quickly, i think the second or third 'date'. just as quickly, things kind of tapered off. the contact became less frequent and we seemed to not get together in person as much. so, i started wondering if he was cooling off. everytime i'd think maybe i should just say adios....i'd hear from him and it kind of went on that way for a while.

eventually, i just got fed up with my own up and down feelings of elation when we'd connect, and depression when i'd not hear from him for a week or so. so what i did was basically cut him out of my world. i'm on myspace, so i deleted him and figured eventually he'd go to contact me and figure things out and that would be the end of things and i wouldn't hear from him again. i didn't want to, but i figured if it was going to end, i needed to end it before i invested any more of myself and REALLY got hurt. what happened is a week later he e-mailed me, quite surprised and asked me if i had dropped him. i was honest and told him i cared too much for him to be just a random friend he contacted only sporadically. i wanted more than to just find a comment from him now and then. i then told him not to contact me any more so i could get over him and move on. he seemed kind of upset and angry and asked why i hadn't talked about how i was feeling, and why i didn't ask him what he wanted out of the relationship and where he wanted it to go. all valid and i understood how childish that had been of me not to communicate and do something so drastic as delete him. in all this i understand how much he has going on in his life. so infrequent contact is to be expected, but it stung anyway. he is after all only 22, in college studying and working on 3 plays, has a job, has hobbies and a huge circle of friends and quite busy, all normal.

anyway, i had told him not to contact me anymore because i wouldn't respond....after he told me we should just be friends for now, because he couldn't give me what i wanted and he wouldn't be happy with me 'flipping out' on him. well, after nine days, i felt really bad because he seemed to really have been caught by surprise by my actions. along with feeling guilty and selfish, his question of not asking how he felt and where he might have wanted the relationship to go also bothered me a lot. so, i wrote him again and apologized for not asking how he felt, and explained that i had been overwhelmed by everything i had been feeling and everything that had been going on in my mind. i told him i'd understand if it was weird for him now, but if he had any thoughts on the matter, i wanted to hear them. i didn't hear from him and that was February 9th.

here's where it get's confusing. day before yesterday, he IM'ed me on AIM out of the blue. Just a nice little "how are you" kind of thing and we IM'ed back and forth for a while. when i hadn't heard from him for what, 2 weeks or so, i figured he'd just go on with his life and that would be that. too weird for him and the end of things. my problem is, i don't know what to think of this, or if i should just stop thinking since that was my problem all along, overthinking and analyzing the relationship to death.

i guess what i'm trying to say is it possible that he cares alot more than i realize, or is he simply just a nice well mannered guy who wants to be my friend even though things didn't work out? it's not like he doesn't have 200 friends, or can't find a lover if that's what he wanted to do. i've seen evidence of younger girls he knows that have asked him out. he's very outgoing, confident, sweet, friendly, intelligent, goodlooking, emotionally very mature. everything a girl could want. he could have just taken my cue and never looked back since i made it very easy to do just that and on more than one occasion. before all this took place, i had sent him a "the writing's on the wall, have a nice life, i'll never forget you" kind of e-mail a few weeks before. which we both kind of brushed off and got together after anyway.

my question is, why does he keep things going with me, especially knowing how much i care for him and my feelings are not exactly that of a casual nature, that it could be an intense situation and certainly not easy for either one of us. any thoughts?

Have you checked out the `if its not love, what is it?' thread yet. If not, heres the link:

http://www.agelesslove.com/boards/showthread.php?t=17182

Yes, its confusing when a guy behaves the way you described....but no, a guy who is good for you, who truly loves you, won't behave this way.

He's most likely an attention h*r, energy vampire type who wants to keep you in the wings because of the positive energy you give him... a lot of actors/gregarious types act this way because they are narcissistic at heart. Please don't let it confuse you! If you read through the thread above, you can easily see how people can be dragged along for years hoping that sucha guy will change...but they do not.

My first impression was that you were a novelty, a booty call, an experimentation.

My second impression was that you are a novelty, a booty call, an experimentation.

I'm sure you've not imagining the distancing after that intimate moment. He kind of manuver you to such an intimate situation by the 3rd date, he saw you coming. I wonder if ow realize that, I mean really realize, that just because you're older and wiser that you can be played. There are alot of Mrs. Robinsonlike ym who are, I'm sure, very nice and know how to play the game....eg text messages, the phone calls, IMs, doing whatever it takes to keep the ow interested. So much so, that we get flattered by the attention and forget to guard ourselves aganist the game of "dating antics" of our day. A bit different then when we were dating at 22.

Everyone now has an agenda quite different. He was surprise that you delete him, well, yeah...he would be, he thought he played the "game" really well. I find the "why i hadn't talked about how i was feeling, and why i didn't ask him what he wanted out of the relationship and where he wanted it to go" so well rehearsed...the time to have talked about that was before the sex, not after and if he was thinking about that so much after, why didn't he bring it up, why wait for you.

It did what it was suppose to do, put the guilt on you to be responsible for the standards by which this relationship is to be conducted. Except he has just as much responsiblity, after all he is an adult now. I wager he was hoping you wouldn't go there, and he could be a "drop by booty call to release tension" kind of relationship, but since you did, it would pay for him to offer the lesser of the two evils...that wonderful "friendship". Bella D suggested that you read a particular post on here. I suggest you do look at what potentially you would've sign up for proably unwillingly all base on emotional investing and then see if you're willing to make that kind of time investment with this ym, or anyone else for that matter. It doesn't sound like you are.

Paris

but as for the suggestion that he 'manuevered' me into an intimate situation...well, that's kind of baseless since he is the same 22 year old that was RELUCTANT to sleep with me on the the first and second date. i was the one that wanted it to go further, but HE held back. not too many 22 year old men i know turn down an offer like that unless they are a virgin and scared, which he is neither. i have a brother the same age and the input of his friends as well and none of them would pass on the opportunity unless they were completely and utterly repulsed by the girl.....and even then some don't even care about THAT little roadblock....because sex is sex any way they can get it. also this scenario implies that i am in some way naive and clueless when it comes to the games men play and i simply don't see any need on his part to play one since it didn't require one and that was obvious. i just didn't see any reason to play coy about something that was inevitable in the long run. to me, to hold out would have been pretending something that i'm not, naive and virtuous. while i don't sleep around, i don't feel it's necessary to hold back sex when we both know it's going to happen eventually and we are attracted to each other and especially since i hadn't had sex in THREE years, something he knew because i told him so. so to make a long story short, he didn't finesse me and didn't need to play games because i didn't present a challenge, which maybe i should have, but i don't like games either.

to be fair, i also know him in a way that nobody here does. what i haven't mentioned and also know by what my gut tells me....something i took for granted....is that he is very up front about things. he doesn't do or say anything that he doesn't want to say or do and i know this from conversations with him about things. i don't see him counting on me not getting into a heavy discussion about the status of the relationship. i think he truly thought everything was copacetic and if he knew i was feeling weird, he would have had no problem discussing it. i was the one who didn't communicate, not for any lack on his part, of this i'm sure....knowing him as i do. there were times, in hindsight that he did try to get in touch, but i didn't respond back for whatever reason, mainly supposition and insecurity on MY part. i simply thought he should have called more than the once a week thing, like a call every few days. but i realize that is a lot to expect from someone who wants to take things slowly and MY problem and expectation...not a bad idea, i might add. we also hadn't known each other very well, intimacy aside and he isn't exactly my boyfriend. i had no right to expect that much contact in such a short time. not from ANYBODY in the beginnings of a relationship, i now see. my last two relationships were extreme, unhealthy and volatile and went from beginning to end with no getting to no one another in between, like normal relationships progress. i didn't know any different, so i see my issues very clearly now and the fact that i was trying to rush things when i realized i liked him very much. i was trying to make a boyfriend out of someone i should have been getting to know better instead.

in coming to terms with all of this, i realize i had been pushy, expecting the actions of a boyfriend, when in fact we were only just getting to know one another. we both went in thinking it would be something fun, no strings....myself included. what i hadn't counted on was the fact that it's hard for me to have intimacy with a man without the complication of feelings. ie. casual sex. so i jumped the gun definitely when i realized i cared more than i should have so soon, but who can help how they feel.?

we also have a mutual friend, that's how we met. and when i spoke with her the other day, she told me he even went to her and mentioned that i had deleted him. i dont' think that he'd go around bragging about being 'dumped' so to speak, so my first thought is that maybe he was a little bummed and wanted to know if i had spoken to her about it. she told him she didn't want to get in the middle of it.

lastly, as i have said, he has a LOT of friends. it isn't like he's lonely needs to fill in his time with a friend my age if he has nothing else to do. not that there's anything wrong with me, but he isn't lonely or desperate for friendship and i know him well enough that if he didn't care to be my friend, he would simply have let it go and never looked back because he's just that way, and doesn't do things unless he wants to. he also has many younger girls he could probably sleep with if he nodded in their direction, i've seen the postings on his site from younger girls flirting and asking him out. what i do know is that he gets up at 7 am and has classes all day. then rehearsals for 3 plays until after 10 pm everyday. he works on the weekend so he can pay rent. he cycles for fitness and training. he also has to eat and sleep somewhere in there. so his time is very limited and it's not like he sits around all day with nothing to do but call me and chooses not to. i believe his time is filled very well, at least until sprink break or summer.

i guess what i'm asking is, is it possible that he actually cares more than he is willing to admit given the short time we have spent together and is simply holding his cards close to the vest so as not to rush things this second time around? i have heard the worst case scenario and it gives me pause and food for thought, believe me. if things are to move forward in any direction, i will surely keep things in perspective and keep your advice in mind...and do a lot of thinking before i move forward should we in fact proceed on an intimate level again.

i would just like some input, have heard the negative and would like some positive should things be actually on the better side of the situation. is it just possible that i am in fact good enough and have the luck to do things over only at a slower pace than i had originally pushed for? because maybe he actually cares at least a little for me the way i care for him?

as for me being a "novelty, a booty call, an experiment"...that could be true i suppose except for one thing....he told me he ended a relationship with a 42 year old in september. because he wanted it to become more serious and she didn't. i can see her reasoning, having breast cancer, not wanting to keep him from living his life uncomplicated from having an older, chronically ill partner, all valid reasons. i don't think this was a lie, because he has this thing about not being trusted, so i don't think being a liar is part of his makeup. so i am hardly an experiment or a novelty. a booty call, well, maybe. we both didn't expect any strings in the beginning so, who knows maybe it started out that way. i asked him once if i was and he said i was more, because if i had been only that he would have kicked me out of bed right after and he's never done that. he doesn't lie, that much i believe about him and so do our mutual friends. in fact, he always wanted me to stay, even fed me and we hung out until i had to leave. he never made me feel rushed or like a booty call. he was always sweet and affectionate, before, during and after sex. he's definitely not the type to linger unless he wanted to.

i hope this makes sense and gives a little more insight as to who and what type of person he is. he is reaching out to me again, knowing i have the complication of having feelings for him. most guys his age run the other direction when given the opportunity of ridding themselves of complication. but he keeps coming back to me and keeping the 'complication' going when he could easily walk in the other direction, ending his headache so to speak.