Do people always mean what they say?

[Peasofmind]

I met someone at university. We are studying together on our doctorates and he's here for a couple of years from his home country. We became really close friends which led to sex. I'm not even sure what it is, but we spend a lot of time together and I stay at his most nights so in my eyes that meant something and I thought we were a couple really.

What's lacking is the romance bit. We have never been on a date and we don't kiss (he pulls away) and he doesn't say anything romantic which I've found upsetting. I tried to stop seeing him a few times, but he'd text and ask what I was up to and I'd end up going over because I thought this was his way of admitting he felt romantically too. I asked outright and he said he really just wanted to be friends without the physical stuff, but he is happy to let me sleep over and the physical stuff continues.

He mentioned quite early that he had a girlfriend at home but they broke it off when he left as she wasn't keen on long distance and he didn't feel quite ready to fully commit and miss out on his placement. I thought if he really loved her, he surely wouldn't have made the choice to leave her behind and he's said quite often that he prefers living here. So I thought honestly that he'd stay and we'd end up a couple.

After a couple of months of sleeping together, I said I'd fallen for him and to just tell me where I stand. He said that he's only here for a couple of years and is going back home next year. I asked him why he was going back because he has said countless times he loves it here and he's been offered an amazing research job, and he said he realised he loved this other woman and wanted to go back for her.

We've been seperated all summer and I'll be seeing him for the first time again tomorrow and I'm just trying to understand why he'd spend every day and night with me, have sex, live a happy life with a fantastic job opportunity and then go home next year to be with this woman. If he loved her wouldn't he have just stayed with her to begin with? Why did he spend so much time with me if he didn't have feelings?

It could be a cultural or work ambition thing. Some cultures seem to emigrate more often than others so having a LDR until you gain a qualification/save £x etc is pretty normal. If you are attending a course which is prestigious and therefore increasing the chances of a lucrative career then being apart for a couple of years isn't a biggie.

He doesn't know many people in this country so he will miss your company if you withdraw. From your post it sounds like he doesn't love you but likes spending time with you and possibly sleeps with you so that you don't abandon him. I'd imagine that he feels guilty because of his ex gf. (Is she really an ex or have they paused things for 2 years)

He may have ended it with Hometown Woman, so he was free to hook-up in your country for a couple of years without it being cheating. Two years of celibacy for him? Not likely.

So, he found you to hang out with while he took his course, which he probably genuinely enjoyed. Less lonely.

Sounds more like a situationship maybe? I mean, so much of hanging out, sex, etc, is really about logistics and it is not a zero-sum game.

youre a booty call to him.
get rid and pay yourself more respect.

Because being with you while he was studying away from home/her made it easier to be away from her. You were a distraction from missing her too much.

Being with you made it easy for him. Being with you frequently made it even easier.

Stop looking at him through the lens of what you WANT him to feel and be.

You made a lot of assumptions and created your own story in your head and then tried to apply that to him.

Seems he has been pretty straightforward in how he feels and his plans. You are just refusing to hear it and instead subsituting what you want to hear or what you think you would feel or think if you were him.

He hasn't led you on. He has told you where he is at and what this is for him and what his plans are.

Op I think you need to learn from this experience. You can spend time with someone, enjoy their company but not have the same feelings for them as they have for you. You clearly really liked him so tried to attribute more feelings to his behaviour than were actually there despite clear signs they weren't. In answer to your question 'Why would he give all this up' because he loves someone in his home country, his family are there, it's his home....could be one or all of those. Next time you form a bond with someone pay attention to the signs, if they don't want to go on dates, kiss you and tell you they don't want anything serious then listen to them. It sounds like you were a friend with benefits type of situation for him. Why were you initiating sex with someone who said they didn't want a relationship with you? Offering yourself up for sex is not the way to get a man to like you.

I think I ruled out friends with benefits because that is more like no time together and sex. Thus is more opposite as he wants all the time together, like to go out for the day and eat meals together but the sex he wasn't up for (or said he wasn't but if I instigate he does).

I told him a few times it was all or nothing and he'd say nothing but then text to see how I was. I felt like him struggling to let me go was a signal of more that's all.

How about asking yourself why you're so determined to make something happen with a man who doesn't want to kiss you, doesn't want sex with you, doesn't say loving things to you?

Why do you deserve so little from a relationship?

OP, you need to understand this man just doesn’t feel about you the way you want him to.

You seem to want us all to agree that he is wrong in his own interpretation of his own feelings. And then what? Do you think he can be forced to stay here and make a life with you, never kissing, never going on a date, having sex only ever at your instigation? Does that sound like your fantasy of true love?

Let go and give yourself the chance to find someone who genuinely recriprocates your feelings.

“I think I ruled out friends with benefits because that is more like no time together and sex. ”

No. That’s fuck buddies.

Friends – with “benefits” is what you have. Think of it as friends with “extras”. It isn’t a romantic relationship.

Friends hang out with each other but don’t behave romantically outside of the bedroom. Which is exactly what he’s doing. He’s talking about his future life with his future wife. If he was romantically involved with you he’d be talking about his future life with you. He'd be kissing you, not pushing you away. He'd be instigating sex, not telling you he'd prefer to be friends without the sex. He's a healthy young man and I don't know any healthy young man who would refuse sex if it's laid out on a plate for him.

If you had never initiated sex, then you all would have just had a normal platonic friendship.

I don't see him using you for sex. I see you as using him for sex and trying to push this friendship into romance.

I've been on MN long enough to know just how often men can have two relationships going at the same time. Usually it is wife/dp at home with the kids, and an affair/bit on the side. In your case, it is even more convenient for him because he doesn't have to go home to her every night. He doesn't have to worry about her finding out that he's cheating. He may have told you about her (and have a good think about why that would be), but he certainly won't have told her about you.

*“I think I ruled out friends with benefits because that is more like no time together and sex. ”

Booty call or fuck buddy would be if you only met up to have sex.
FWB do friends stuff together (say go to the cinema) but have sex too. Unlike a fuck buddy, a FWB would know personal stuff about you like your favourite movie and what kind of drink you order in a coffee shop.

I think that he sleeps with you because he likes having you around rather than a romantic attachment. He might think you'd leave if he didn't have sex with you.

Or alternatively, he is now finally done with this miserable, lonely time away from the love of his life, and can go back to her without a backwards glance at this girl who kept trying to fuck him even though he’d told her multiple times that he wasn’t interested?

He told you he didn’t love you. He told you he didn’t want to have sex with you. He told you he loved his girlfriend back home. He wouldn’t kiss you or go on dates. But you have still created a narrative that he is secretly madly in love with you, but for some unknown reason is pretending otherwise….

@Peasofmind
He has been quite honest with you and you continue to make yourself available. He has told you how he feels and you continue to engage in sex with him In fact, you go to his place . He doesn't even have to bother coming to you

This sounds like a FWB arrangement without any deep friendship component. What you have with this man is all that you are ever likely to have. You cannot will of force him to love or want you regardless of how you may feel about him.

Ouch. Well sorry if I found it confusing, I felt it was very mixed messages.

I'm sorry it's painful and you feel confused.

I think you should take a big step back and really think about why you've been OK with accepting quite little from this man, instead of having a full relationship with someone? Why don't you think you're worth proper dates or romance?

No. Some people can lie with remarkable ease.

Because it felt like a full of relationship because I slept there most nights and we had brekkie and walked to the campus together. I kept some clothes at his even and we did everything together. So I felt it was a mixed message and I just hoped he'd come around. I can't see if you love someone so much why you'd leave them behind or why you'd do all that with someone else.

I still think he just loves the fantasy of her or else he wouldn't have been happy with me here would he?

And yet... he never even kissed you. Does that not scream alarm bells at you OP? No amount of "coming round" can force someone into loving you who clearly doesn't. He's away from his home country and clearly somewhat lonely. You provide comfort and that's why he's fallen into a relationship-like routine with you and has said he misses you when you're not there. But fundamentally, you're not enough for him to give up his old life for. Grab what's left of your self respect and leave him be.

OP, in the kindest way you are a friend with benefits.

You don’t go out on dates, he doesn’t kiss you. He might like you, he certainly doesn’t feel romantic towards you.

The romance is all in your head.

This is a hard lesson to learn, but please stop pouring over everything and trying to see evidence of things that aren’t there. He isn’t, and never has been, that interested in you. Whether he loves his ex or not is neither here nor there, that might just be an excuse, but either way, he doesn’t have any serious feelings for you.

You need to remove yourself from this situation, recover yourself.

Sorry this has happened but it’s a learning experience and it will pass.

@Peasofmind

On any university campus, many of the graduate students are from abroad. Many of the men have left partners or spouses at home because of the cost or visa related problems in bringing the partners or more likely spouses with them. It is not a question of love, but an issue of cost and or cost and government restrictions.

These men may leave their partners at home, but they do not leave their libidos at home. Many will compartmentalize their lives and have relationships while abroad studying.

This man is probably more honest than most. He has made it abundantly clear that he is not available or interested in a relationship. You have made it abundantly clear that you are willing and available to be a sexual convenience You want more than he is capable or willing to give but at the same time you are eagerly accepting the little that he is bringing to the table.
As the song goes" Whats love Got to Do With It?"

Love plays no part in your arrangement with this man.

To be very blunt, because you were spending every night at his flat offering sex, and he was satisfying a physical need in a convenient way.
He did say what he meant to be fair to him. He told you he wanted a friendship and could take or leave the sex. You chose to still sleep with him on those terms, so he probably shrugged and thought, why not?
No doubt he does love back home girl. But she wasn't there. He probably told himself he wasn't betraying her because you didn't kiss or date, and he kept sex to the most basic and mechanical he could.
I'm sorry this has happened to you OP. But truly there is no sugar coating and there's nothing you can do but put him out of your head and move on. I'd strongly advise against any contact or friendship. When one has feelings and the other doesn't there's nothing but misery ahead.

Well he's used me then. He knew I was in love with him and he gave me false hope