Thanks whatsgoingon
I know, that's true. I was playing the rules at first though you know, and then when he wanted to be exclusive and take down dating profiles I said yes. I was not the one doing the chasing here.
In the first month he was just as "busy" but he was all over seeing me and talking. He was hassling me "oh come on, I'll drive over to your just for a quick drink" and the texts and calls were coming every day, every minute and nothing was too much trouble. I was thinking "wow this guy is really into me".
Being honest with myself the second month he stopped trying to see me as much, the texts were less and he stopped phoning. When we did talk it was less personal. I knew it, I noticed it, I asked him about it twice and he was pretty vehement that it was purely that his workload / stresses going on and I made the cardinal mistake of believing what I wanted to believe instead of judging only off the facts.
He gave me red flags before I went away for the weekend, I saw them, but he interespered them with green flags (taking his dating profile down, plannign dates a month in advance) and I was blinded with contradiction.
I think reality was...he wanted a relationship, he was lonely, but he was not ready to be in one and he certainly was not seeing me properly at all. More as someone who was the right age, right looks, right job and perfect for the job.
I told friends many times I felt businesslike around him in some ways. And maybe it was. He was emotionally unavailble. Yes he would talk to me if I had a bad day and help me and support me but it was like a colleague, not a lover.
He was never ready to give. He asked me so many questions about my life, dreams, son, family, past and he wanted to chat about that but it felt emotionally distant. He never "gave" properly and I felt that lack of intimacy which I have mentioned before.
Going on the date and spending the whole time showing me his things, telling me about his life, inviting me into his soul and spilling out every bit of his past pain and childhood was not him sharing with me - it was him taking from me.
He was more interested in himself and not me. He was self-absorbed, self centred, showing off to me trying to impress me in a lot of ways and get my approval to say I thought his house was nice. Nothing on that date was about me at all...any woman in the world could have taken my place and he miht not have noticed.
I am not sure he was evil or anything and I doubt he planned this in any way, shape or form but he's a pretty selfish person with little to offer and not capable of giving love.
An emotionally mature person would have listened a month ago to the fact that my needs were not being met and he would have seriously enquired about /listed to my needs and cared about my wellbeing. I don't think he did at all.
As his mother was bipolar and a narcissist (which he talked a lot about) I am actually wondring if maybe the apple does not fall far from the tree on the narc front. Maybe inespable but he seemed like a good man in some ways but definitely one with a big desire for admiration, approval and an almost bottomless pit of need.
There was definetly something missing from the very start in terms of emotional connection. But there was something attractive to me about this man who was nothing like all the others who were on my doorstep declaring wild love and passion for me only to let me down.
This one was reserved, serious, not hugely romantic but dynamic and positive and interested in me with no big emotional demands.
Unlike the others who would go on and on about wanting to shag me and all the diferrent ways they wanted to do it, this one wanted to go to the theatre or for a picnic in the countryside and he wnated to know everything about me.
He set himself up in my mind over a month as being honest, stable, reliable, tustworthy, completely interested in me, solid and a good bet. Then he changed suddenly and when I questioned it he threw me off with false clues.
I think I just went for the opposite sort of a man - seeing as he seemed to be so diferrent - but he was just the same in a diferrent guise. Emotionally unavailable.