How the fuck do I explain myself to this guy? So tired of being a complete oddity

[ChopsticksWithToys]

I'm 29 and I've never kissed anyone. As a teenager I was overweight, had acne and hair I didn't know what to do. I was horribly bullied. They used to pretend to put their arms around me and then shriek and pretend they were infected.

It's taken me a long time to lose weight, sort my skin, work out who I am and dating has never happened along the way :( I have had some therapy too but the therapist eventually said that I just had to give dating a go.

I was on a walk with a guy I've been seeing today. He put his arm around me and I physically recoiled. I couldn't help it. He looked really, really hurt and we ended up going up going home quite soon after.

Do I just call it quits? How do I even begin to apologise for this? I'm just so tired and upset. I hate being such a freak.

Really don't tell him the backstory here -

• it's too much and too heavy for a fledgling relationship
• you don't know him well enough, a certain type of person will exploit your vulnerabilities

Just say you were caught by surprise and felt silly afterwards.

And yes, as pp says, hypnotherapy or/and EMDR might be worth a go to stop this being a trigger.

This is different from your situation, but I was terrible with physical contact when DH and I first started dating. He was my first proper date after coming out of a long term relationship and I was totally overwhelmed! I am tactile but only with my partner and (now) our children. As a general rule I hate any form of social touching.

I explained (badly!) that I felt overwhelmed but did actually really like him, just felt I needed more time. He said he didn’t really understand but it didn’t matter because he liked me and he’d give me as much time as I needed and just follow my lead. Let’s just say he didn’t have to wait long

Still no idea why I got like that (although there’s a lot of ASD in our family, so I wonder if it’s a rogue trait) but all worked out well in the end.

Do you have to even mention it. Just say you had a lovely time and would love to see him again. Up to him if he mentions it or not. Then if you want you can explain in person when you see him next or you can just move on and see what happens.

I can relate. I went through something similar in my late 20s. the first few guys/ dates, I shared everything very early on. then slowly after dating different guys, I did still share some info, the key main bits at a high level but I did wait until later on in the relationship to share this info. looking back, it was like the first few guys/dates, I was getting comfortable with saying this information out loud with someone I potentially would spend my life with.

hard to give advice as to what to do. to me it felt like both over sharing but also not sharing enough...

all the best

I definitely would go with the social distancing explanation. It’s too early to talk about being damaged in any way. Leave those deep chats until he loves you and it’s safe. Otherwise, any rejection after this conversation might make you feel 10x worse. We are all carrying some damage, trauma or issues but it is too early to share these. It’s not lying it’s just best to wait to share so much information. The early dates are supposed to be fun and light.

Thank you everyone. I feel calmer this morning. I went with the social distancing line and he did reply, but you’re all right, if he’s scared this easily, he’s definitely wrong for me

Take care OP, things will change. 🌷

Try to remember he almost certainly wasn't thinking "she's a freak", he was thinking "oh God, she's physically repulsed by me!" Everyone has their insecurities and on a date he was probably worrying that you liked him.

I agree with saying apologise, give him a very light-touch explanation and give it another go.

Do you have friends you have physical contact with? If so, how does that feel? If not, it might help to find ways of getting comfortable with touch in platonic relationships first/too.

No. I’ve never been touchy feely, my family aren’t that way inclined. To tell the truth, I think it’s been years since I touched someone Certainly not since March 2019. Possibly Christmas 2018?