I struggle to be single.

[Tarantula]

There. I said it.

Wrote a thread about a boy recently in the other section; suffice to say, the story continued back and forth until eventually it turned out he'd been messing around with another girl behind my back; I found out from her, text proof, they're both eliminated from my life. Seriously. I even unfollowed him on Twitter.

So here I am two days later: burned by someone I cared about, completely out on my ear, no male leads whatsoever. It is blemin' difficult.

See that guy had been around since my big breakup out of a longterm relationship a few months back. We were 'friends' then. Now I have one other male friend, and we can all see where that's going, so no. It won't go that way. But boy is it tempteding. Just because he's there.

I feel uncomfortable when I don't have male options/when I'm not being validated by blokes. It is seriously like an addiction; or like what I imagine an addiction feels like. I worry that there's something wrong with me or I'm running out of time to meet men. I'm 23. I struggle to enjoy my life if I don't have a boy to fixate on. Consequently, boys are pretty much all I've had, you know what I mean? So I gotta sort this or I'll never have a healthy relationship.

I try to focus on other things, but there is simply no replacement that's as fun as a date. Nothing feels as good as feeling wanted by someone. I do other stuff, I have friends and all that, but it just isn't the same.

Time seems to go by so slowly; life is just so boring without someone to focus on romantically. The excitement I get from being around blokes/a bloke can be dizzying. And the drama when it goes wrong? Oh so compelling. I don't feel complete without it.

So there, that's my problem. I've set a target to go a month without a date and it feels difficult to stick to.

On the other hand, am I being too hard on myself? Doesn't everyone have a constant ongoing drama with the opposite sex? Whenever I ask a new person 'how's your love life', there's always something to say, it's almost never 'uhh, I'm not really involved with anyone right now/I'm really into other stuff'. Everyone's texting someone or seeing someone or trying to get with someone. Am I just a product of a codependent society which enforces the belief that we - especially wimmin - are incomplete without a partner/partners to prove how much of a 'somebody' we are?

Nah I'm not gonna let myself off that easily. This is a consistent problem in my life. I go from one t'other t'other, I always have the intention of taking some time off between relationships but then before I know it, some new guy has shown up and I tell myself I'm just being foot loose and fancy free.

How can I genuinely feel happy by myself when I'm so used to having someone to fixate on?

[Bel Bel]

You have identified the problem yourself and you have already come up with the solution. Having a month off is a great idea. Ween yourself off the drug of choice, MEN.

I think you will never be able to have a great relationship until you don't NEED to be with someone else but you WANT to be with someone.

Whilst you need someone you will act a different way and bring dynamics to relationship that aren't healthy.

Learning to be on your own will allow you to make better choices as you won't just be with a guy because they are the latest man showing you attention.

[Tarantula]

Yes Bel Bel, thanks.

Day four of No Contact and boy, is time going slowly. I keep wanting to reach out even though I know it would lead only to bad things. Temporary relief, followed by another dose of rubbish more hefty than the one before.

I'm trying to focus on other things. I've joined two relevant 12-step programmes to try and sort myself out. Keep thinking about him, keep scanning the street for other attractive guys, keep comparing, keep fantasising about my next big thing.

It's exhausting.

[snail]

Well I think you are being too hard on yourself. Reproduction is after all the first thought of all living creatures after survival. It isn't a part time interest; it's an essential function of existence. That doesn't mean you have to be in a relationship all the time, because you can decide not to go there for a while, but it does mean it's normal to yearn for it. I've spent long periods single because it was the best choice but that doesn't mean it was easy.

[rufio89]

I agree with Snail. I think if YOU think staying single is going to be good for you, then by all means stay single, but dont feel like there's anything wrong with wanting someone in your life. Obviously at the moment you're still caught up on 'the boy' so you dont want to drag someone else into that (and while it's still so up and down then that's probably for the best), but I think so long as you're not trying to fill the hole HE left in your life then I dont think there's any issue with wanting to connect with other people.

It's normal to fantasise about other guys, it's one of the JOYS of being single, that you can look around at all the hot/nice/interesting single guys you see and everyone's fair game and they're all real possibilities! Again as Snail said, humans are programmed to want to reproduce (even if we've decided not to) and sexual attraction is inevitable. We're also highly sociable people and both men and women have a near-constant yearning for human contact. I dont think there's anything wrong with wanting to find someone new and I dont think you need to set yourself arbitrary limits as to when you're allowed to start up with someone else - your only guidepost needs to be that you're ready to move on and you're not going to hurt someone else if 'the boy' somehow ends up back in the picture.

I think the month away from dating will probably be good for you (because you want it), but dont try to force yourself to be happy about it. Lots of people do this dry-January thing and think of nothing else but drinking throughout, but they still do it and it's done them a bit of good.

As you say, you have lots of interests, friends etc, you're a well rounded and sociable person so there's nothing wrong with wanting someone by your side to enjoy all that. If you didnt have much of a social life and you spent all your time sitting at home waiting for Mr Right to come along and rescue you it'd be a different matter, but heck - you DESERVE a nice guy! Your only problem is that you sell yourself short on the ones you go for!! xxx

[Tarantula]

Thanks guys.

Yeah, I suppose the brutal truth which I've identified within myself is that every guy has simply been a distraction from the last. Well, almost. Go back through history far enough and I realise that it all goes back to the First Boy, and how I relied on him 100% emotionally as the flipside to an otherwise awful and abusive home life. So I cemented the boy = escape concept in pretty early, at 13. Now there's nothing to escape FROM but my motor is still running, looking for that way out anyway. Waiting for some buy to sweep me out of my life so I don't have to face the things which are holding me back.

And if there hasn't been a guy, then darn, has there been a yearning for one. I tell myself I'm happy being by myself, but only if I'm planning three nights out that week 'with the girls' to 'unintentionally' meet new prospects. It just goes on and on.

I know it's the default setting to want a partner, but when that wanting consumes your attention to the point where other parts of your life are taking a back seat, then it's a problem.

On another note, it's been a week of NC now - prayze tha lawd - and I realise I was dealing with someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I mean it immediately fit into place. I know all about that. I'm pretty sure my abusive father was NPD too. So if you've ever been messed around by someone who's behaviour seemed to defy all rationality and logic, consider that they may have actually been mental/had a personality disorder.

I feel in a much better place now than a week ago but there's still much to do before I can think about letting someone new into my life.

[Bel Bel]

One week and you are already starting to feel better, imagine what you'll be like in a month.
It's a work in progress

[Tarantula]

Last night I went to a meetup event and ex was there. Not gonna lie, I knew he would be 'cause I checked the RSVP list a few hours before. When I found out, instead of running the opposite way, I took the opportunity to dress up and try to make a point.

When that didn't work, I got drunk and confronted him. He said he was sorry, lamely. You know, in a totally non-convincing way. He said I couldn't expect him to approach me 'in that environment'. This after I spent the whole night monitoring his movements across the bar and boring one poor chap senseless filling him in on all the details of the Epic Drama. He tried to get me to stop caring what the ex was doing, and we all know what he would've wanted, but I didn't care. Just made the whole night about ex and drunk too much, whilst ex hovered about talking to everyone except me. Oh, and texting me idle things throughout. Yes, that.

I told him I'll always want him to be happy but I think he's a narcissist and he lied to me and let's just get along because we're gonna keep running into each other and he's a narcissist and he lied to me. There's a gig in September I got us tickets to go to, he asked if I'm still gonna go and I said I am. Meanwhile other people picked up on dramas because I had a few guys coming back to me saying 'are you REALLY that guy's ex??' in apparent disbelief.

Can't sleep when I've drunk too much. Wake up too soon. Feel like utter poo. I've got a support meeting soon and then a fighting class, then I plan to light candles and pray and write letters and burn them. Yes.

Really struggling. I don't want to do anything right now. I wish I hadn't gone, I wish I hadn't spoken to him or if I did, that I didn't confront. He denied nothing, not that it matters to my reasoning. He really is a narc, I'm sure of it, intellectually. So all I achieved by having so much to prove was I fed his ego, presented myself as still being an option, and generally proved once again that I have weak boundaries. I wish I didn't drink so much.

I wish I could stop secretly believing that this could go any other way. I need to eject him from my life 100%. I can't let him in no matter how restricted because it's so easy, once he's in my life at all, for him to become the focal point of it. I'm so desperate for him to feel remorse.

I want him to flipping well get down and beg for forgiveness after what he did. Then I want to reject him. That would be some justice, some redemption. Instead, there he was, flitting around, not caring, whilst I'm picking up the tab for all the hopes for us I was dumb enough to entertain. I feel rinsed. He sold me out, man. The temptation to get back in the ring, just to try and influence him to get some kind of outcome like that, is what's really driving me to keep going back again and again. Can't seem to accept that I've been mugged and have no control over this situation, and I can't understand how someone can do that and NOT be sorry.

Basically this dynamic of chasing remorse is painfully familiar to me. There's the connection, the brass tracks of the matter. He reminds me of my (abusive) father. He'll never be sorry, either. They're both kookoo.

Yeah I'm in a lot of pain right now.

[Bel Bel]

How are you today?
Has reflection bought any peace?

[Tarantula]

Actually, reflection has been offset by me hearing from another ex - the big one, the 3 year one that I left in march.

Basically he went on at length about how much he wants me back and loves me and is scheming up all sorts of plans. I told him he needs to move on, but he's not having it. I even told him about my involvements since - because I'd rather he take that bullet than hold a light. But that still didn't put him off and he was telling me all the changes he's made/is making, and saying that he won't ever give up on me and although 'this meal's not ready yet', it will be, and when it is, he's coming for me.

Right, so I can't tell anyone I know this, but I felt pretty shook and suddenly unsure of how closed that door really is. Of course I miss the security, and the house I used to live in, and my cats, and how I genuinely thought that was it for me. I miss all that, but I don't think of it much. I just assumed he'd moved on like I sorta have. You know it's an ongoing process.

But if he HAS/IS changing, as a result of me disappearing for real, for months, and if he really does love me and want me back, then well... much to my astonishment, I found myself actually considering it.

Then the more recent ex messaged me, still wanting me to go to this convention we were gonna go to before I found out he was lying to me, and that shook me up as well.

I don't even know who I'm supposed to be getting over right now, so I've spent today feeling quite love sick and confused. I thought I was over the first one, so why do I feel so lost? And the second's trying to worm his way back, and oh, it's just confusing, I feel sad about BOTH of them, and want to be with NIETHER of them.

It's all been very flattering but a bit like eating too much chocolate cake, I feel sick now.

[Bel Bel]

Good old chocolate cake

I agree have none or at least for now.

Maybe ex of three years could be worth considering if he proves these changes for a long while not just a few weeks to tempt you back in. Meantime try getting on with life without them and hopefully a knight in shining armour will appear

When you're not looking the best ones always come along and usually two of them because nothing can ever be simply can it

[rufio89]

I agree with BelBel that if the long term ex has made a genuine effort over an extended period of time (and is also aware that he's not done yet), then if you still have feelings for him, dont write him off completely. That's not to say you SHOULD give him another chance, but dont completely erase that avenue as an option, if you decided you wanted to take it. You were happy with him for a long time, after all - but there's also nothing wrong with remembering that as a happy memory that just didnt work out.