Anonymous Member

I have been engaged in a conflict in my life, actually several but this one matter is truly flipping me upside-down.

I have had this friendship with a man that developed in a rather strange way over the last several months. We exchanged a lot of the typical male-female flirtatious banter over months. Our conversations have varied a great deal over some shared experiences and common interests. We have essentially become a two-person support group with each of us having some major issues that we had been dealing with. In the very beginning our conversations were very suggestive towards one another, we discussed meeting and how we would spend our time. The conversations were quite suggestive of of a possibility of entering a sexual relationship together. While we had these conversations our relationship was amiable, a friendship and nothing more. We were not dating, we had not communicated to eachother any exclusive relationship with one another. Simply put, we both enjoyed the conversations that we shared which we had nearly every night via chat, we shared multiple emails, we spoke on the phone, we were excellent friends.

As the months passed by, I noticed a real change in our discussions. He would frequently make comments about how I "wasn't obligated in any way to speak with him" he also commented that he became a "terrible person in romantic relationship." Those comments would come rather out of the blue without any indication that there was reason to mention. I don't know if he felt that I was committing too much to our friendship or that he was afraid that he was, or if he was concerned that one of us was feeling that this was something more than a friendship. Over time he developed an illness and he became rather apologetic that he wasn't speaking to me as often. I reassured him that I understood and also had tossed back the reminders that he had given to me, that he wasn't obligated to speak with me. We had sort of a running date each night where we would talk after 10pm. He assured me that he enjoyed our conversations and that often times I was the only person that he spoke with throughout the day, he seemed lonely.

Fast forward to more recent days. He had done a lot of reflecting over this long-term relationship that he had. Part of this I believe is due to the illness he had and I believe the realization that the relationship with this woman had ended permanently may have caused some of his illness as well. During our discussions this woman came up many times, he was trying to sort out the many things that went wrong. Eventually, he came to realize that this woman he had spent many months vilifying to me, may have not been so bad after all. He admitted that many of her faults he had contrived based upon rather circumstantial evidence. He began instead to blame himself for all that went amiss and felt horrible guilt about it. In the end, he realized that he still loved her and that he intends to wait several years and make another attempt at the relationship. I suggested to him that he not wait, it had already been some time since the relationship ended and that if he truly loved her that he should try to gain her back. He felt there was too much negative emotion between them and that it would be better to wait 5-10 years.

After several hours of discussion on this subject with my friend I made a decision. I felt that it would be best if we end any of our flirtatious discussion between each other and maintain a more platonic relationship. He was my friend, one I desired not to lose. I didn't want to infect our relationship with sexual banter especially in lieu of his revelation that he still loved this woman. I felt this was a respectful thing to do and rather simple to accomplish as he and I had plenty of other things to speak about. I tried to explain this via email and felt very positive about it. I thought it would reach him in a pleasant manner and he would respect my wishes and see that I was merely respecting him and his love. Wrong. He took great offense to my request, suggested that I was basically obsessed with him, suggested that many of the things that had gone wrong in my life were because of some delusion that I had that we had entered a romantic relationship together. I was quite frankly stunned that he could twist all of what he knew of my personal life and pin it on me in such a manner. (anyone who would know the full details of this would know this conclusion was blatantly false) He sent me this email in response and promptly ended all communication with me. I was positively bereaved, over those several months he had become truly my closest friend. I was left hurt that he could believe such blatantly false things about me, it seemed obvious that the email was intended to hurt me.

Several days later I ended up in the hospital and had to have an emergency procedure. My life was upended and this medical issue was life-threatening. I had been speaking with another close friend of mine and he contacted my recent ex-friend and told him what happened. He called immediately out of what I thought was genuine concern for my well-being. We reunited our friendship and I thought all was well. I tried further to explain what the intent was of ending our flirtatious discussion and he seemed to understand. I thought.

Later on, he reverted to old behaviors, I let it pass. He had been fairly clear that any hopes of getting together with his ex were almost fairy-tale, that he didn't expect anything to come from him approaching her again. I didn't want to go through the misery that I felt of losing his friendship so I didn't make much of it. He grew more aggressive in his suggestive comments and eventually made this elaborate fake screenshot of a chat window that basically had me begging for sexual favors and to have his child. It was so offensive to myself, it truly made me up to be a whore. I let him know that I was upset. He apologized to me for upsetting me and had suggested that perhaps I wanted to take a break from speaking to him. I wanted to talk, to work it out. Unfortunately during our conversation I lost my chat connection with him. I returned a couple minutes later and found that he blocked me. I thought to myself, perhaps he thought I ran off angry. So, I sent him a brief email telling him what happened, he lied stating that he had not blocked me that he thought I logged off and so he logged off himself. Unfortunately there is a way to check Google chat to see if a party has blocked you, I had done so and replied with the link explaining how to do so. Two weeks later, he still had me blocked.

I have been running this whole scenario through my head over the last couple of weeks. Simply not understanding why someone who was so obviously at fault would treat me as though I had done something wrong. I began to think of what he had done with his ex-girlfriend, he had basically confabulated multiple things about her as far as cheating. He admits doing so now, after having been split up for over a year. I have now considered the manner he did so in his letter to me about how he unwittingly destroyed my life. He had absolutely nothing to base that on, the issues that he is "taking responsibility for" were issues in my life prior to our friendship. I honestly have begun to consider that he may have a psychiatric issue which he has been able to disguise with his intelligence. A little background on him. He also has difficulty maintaining long-term relationships, think "girl-of-the-week" though he has changed a bit on that issue. He is fairly insistent that everyone cheats in relationships, but him. His mother is bipolar. He now suffers from serious anxiety which had him in the hospital for extensive testing. He has been diagnosed as a perfectionist. He talks about himself in the past as being exceptional beautiful and presently about his superior intelligence. Am I way off in my judgment?

I have been left feeling that one of a few things may be going on here. The possibility I mentioned above, that he really did believe what he had accused me of in that email and had contacted me again because I was ill and had to find a way to "get rid of me" again and chose to humiliate me. Another being he cares for me more than I thought and is simply petrified of the possibility of beginning a relationship, or him simply being petrified that I want more from our relationship than the friendship that we had. Lastly, one that doesn't make sense to me at all. That he knew he upset me and blocked me because he thought I needed to cool off. It doesn't make sense to me as I was the one harmed, I would think that should be on my terms, not his.

Sorry this is so long. Good friends are hard to come by, and aside from this last month we had been the best of friends. I swear, it is harder to lose a friend than a lover.

drag0nmanes

Yea I feel for you anon. From your description this guy sounds like a really troubled man, almost like his mentality is that of a juvenile and not an adult. I mean hell I've had similar thoughts back in my younger days, but have moved forward past them towards personal growth. The sad thing is I think not talking to this guy would be the best thing for you mentally, seeing as you being there in any form will just further his own mental delusions and keep both of you from getting any better. I know it sucks to lose a friend especially when you've seemingly gotten so close, but it's hard to even try and understand the true workings of someone-elses mind. The closeness you feel might not even be there at all.

Anonymous Member

That is the hardest part really. Letting go of a friendship without understanding why things happened the way they have. It is quite unlike me to give up without an attempt to make things work out. Closure is a real bitch. You are right though, how could we have been close when he doesn't seem to know who I am but has manufactured me into.. someone else?

Amaras

Acceptance of what is, rather than worrying about what may be, is my suggestion. Friendships evolve over time, waxing and waning. You cannot
be sure what this person thinks or feels. You can only judge them on their
actions.
Hope that helps.

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Anonymous Member

Unfortunately this isn't so much a waxing and waning as it is a sudden suicide off a cliff. We went from two who spoke every day nearly without fail, to him insulting me, apologizing and blocking me all in the span of a few minutes. He had offered to me the suggestion of us not speaking for a while. I am a bit concerned that he may be waiting for me to make that move, but why block me if that were the case? This matter really troubles me as I cannot see where he is coming from and have absolutely no idea what to do.

Lindy

I don't think you really want to understand why. What you want is for things to return to the status quo ante bellum. You don't have to understand why. You do have to ACCEPT that things DID HAPPEN the way that they did. Helpful also to not blame yourself for someone else's choice.
Let go!

Lindy

telekinetic

Take some responsibility. You were the one who altered the terms of the relationship ("I felt that it would be best if we end any of our flirtatious discussion between each other and maintain a more platonic relationship"), and he responded by deciding that a relationship without the flirtation wasn't one he wanted to be in.

Reading between the lines here, I'm sure you probably phrased it a bit differently in your email, and his photoshop of a chat conversation satirizing what you were implying about your averages chat content doesn't seem like an out-of-line response.

His accusations of you being romantically attached make sense in that context, as well.

He may have been less serious about your chats than you, and for you to take them seriously, by seriously addressing the content (even if you were suggesting it end) might have been a bit of a shock--enough for him to want to disconnect.

Besides all of that...not to put too fine of a point on it, but if you're not dating, who fucking cares? He doesn't want to be chat buddies with you anymore. Move on. If you were so wrapped up in it that this is hard, then his accusations of you having more feelings than just casual chat friends should is probably accurate.

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twisted no more

Anonymous Member

What responsibility? Are you stating that I deserved to receive a faked chat screenshot that depicted me as a cocksucking whore who was begging for his love child? Seriously, that was undeserved. He apologized for going too far in making his "joke." He seemed quite sincere in his apology. He thought that I had logged off when my firefox crashed. I returned and found I was blocked, he denied doing so and wished me a good night. He has not spoken to me since.

I understand where you are coming from, seriously I do. However the issue of the email request in regards to the flirting had been solved. After digging to the bottom of it, he thought I was accusing him in some way of cheating on her with me. I explained that wasn't what was meant at all, he stated that he understood and we moved on. We resumed chatting as we had previously. The scenario that he had written in his original response however was something that no sane person would have concluded with all information available.

Listen, I don't know how you are with your friends, but I see a loss of a friendship as a big deal. It need not be a romantic relationship for there to be a sense of loss. Sure, it is a break-up of some sort. Not a romantic break-up but a platonic one counts as well. I am sure that many of us here have found that our relationships with friends can be just as (if not more) open and sharing as with our lovers. Obviously, I fucking care or I wouldn't have written a novel over the ordeal asking for insight.

genuinegirly

It's sad that it ended this way. Time to move on, get away from the frustration caused by this person.

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MrFriendly

It sucks when you form a strong connection with someone, and for reasons you can't figure out that connection gets severed.

The internet can be a harsh mistress with forming connections like these, especially if it's your only medium of getting to know that person. I've been down this path before. Text, no matter how great someones written communication skills are, can only give you a small aspect of a person. You need to see a persons face, know their mannerisms, get to know how they act, how they are in the moment, and not just how they think.

The trap a lot of people fall into, because it comes so naturally, is that when you form these connections with people over the net, you start filling in the blanks without realising it. You start making this people into what you want them to be based of what you actually know. When your expectations aren't realised, it's also very easy to just sever that connection.

I know for some people forming friendships with perfect strangers in the non-virtual world can be very hard. But you seem like a caring person who wants to form close bonds with people. The internet can help you do that, but I think you should bring those friendships into the real world, to really get to know them, before you get too emotionally invested in the friendship.

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Plan9

Yeah, kick this shit to the curb.

This Jerry Spring-style dramabomb doesn't need to be defused... these kinda things have tamper resistant triggers. Keep messing with it and it'll blow.

Just leave it.

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