Why did he treat me like a gf but never made it official?

[Tcbay52]

What does it mean when a man says I'm not his gf & we're not officially together yet after texting, calling, regularly seeing me, introducing me to his friends & close circle, buying me stuff and having sex for 4 months? Basically acting like a bf. We're both 20. During an argument about a trip he was going on I referred to myself as his gf and he corrected me. Sex happened only 2 times because I was a virgin & was cautious. He knew I was a virgin. Immediately after he was like 'even if you were my wife there'll be trips where I go just with my friends'. Umm.. I wasn't even his gf.. Mixed signals much? What the? He also called me wifey in the beginning but then said he'd be open to a threesome.. He apologized and never brought it up again after I got mad. He said in the beginning 'we will be in a relationship' & that he deleted the dating app. I took it as us being exclusive. He said he'd been with many women but that with me it was his 1st time having sex.. Sounds like bs. I doubt he was a virgin. He was also like 'I never felt so good with anyone before'.

We had some disagreements, I suspected him of being gay but he said he was straight. I also didn't want him to go on a 2 week trip with his friends to the seaside as he mentioned there'd be a club and drinking involved. They'd been doing this trip for years but still I found it hard to trust him, especially if he mentioned a threesome once. I said someone who loves his gf would take her on the trip with him. He disagreed & called me controlling. He said I was not his gf & that we haven't had that discussion. His reasons for not calling me his gf were that I didn't trust him, that we didn't have the official talk & that we weren't close enough to be official, weren't texting enough or talking on the phone, were seeing each other once a week or less (this is untrue though.. we were seeing each other usually 2-3 times a week). We were actually texting quite often & he was mostly texting first. I was usually the one arriving to him.. He also said a gf wouldn't make pretences & would ask if he was ok instead. He said it was too soon to say he loved me & that he needed time for love after I said if he loved me he'd take me on that holiday. I got hurt & unfriended him on one social media platform. I ignored him for 2 weeks but then came back with an ultimatum. He said 'after all of this I don't see the prospect of a serious relationship'.

I still don't understand why this happened. Did he change his mind about a relationship with me or did he never want me in that way? How can you turn someone off just because you were upset he was travelling without you all the time? Is that a reason not to call me his gf after everything we've been through together? I don't think he was multi-dating. We saw each other so often that I doubt he'd have time for that. I saw there were no other women he was entertaining on messenger. Now he's seeing someone else.

Did he want something serious but I ran him off or did he just want sex with no commitment the whole time? It really felt like we were heading towards something serious but he never took me off the market. Was he not that interested?

So you're saying he only wanted sex. It happened only 2 times and he didn't end it. All of it just doesn't make much sense, idk anymore.

Don't be fucking ridiculous.

OP is 20 years old, it's the first time she's actually dealt with this kind of bullshit and she frankly doesn't need people like you making ridiculous comments like that. Who do you think you are making that kind of comment? You need some lessons in the way you support women online, especially young ones. Please don't tell me you have daughters. God help them if you do! Jesus.

OP:

I know you're upset, but there are a few things you need to learn that even I (at nearly 40) find hard to remember when dealing with men.

Sex doesn't mean the same to them as it does to us. They are ultimately looking to get their leg over, and they are not so concerned about the emotional security that women clearly want afterwards. We assume they think like that, but quite a lot of them (especially young guys) don't.

You need to remember that you are the prize in this situation, not him. Men will say all kinds of things to get you into bed, and then once they have, suddenly they aren't so concerned about a committed relationship. I'm not talking about all men, but i'm talking about immature men and men who only want one thing.

You chasing him around isn't going to make a dime of difference, he knows he's getting what he wants from you, and he knows you are chasing him around begging him for some sort of commitment, it is going to make him feel very good about himself to have a girl chasing after him.

What you need to do sweetheart, regardless of how upset you are, is turn on your heel, shrug and walk the other way. He won't expect it and he won't know how to react to it. You've got his answer, so you don't give him anymore sex, you don't give him anymore of your attention, and you don't chase after him anymore. Men should be chasing you, not the other way around.

Be super careful who you sleep with and when in the future, it is important to ensure that a man is fully into you as a person before you let him go to bed with you. Having been single for a while I have just recently re-learned this lesson at my expense, so I understand how upset you are.

As for you not trusting him, well relationships don't thrive without trust. My advice is not to embroil yourself in things like this that stress you out and make you doubt your worth as a human being. Leave him to his holiday, and when he comes back and wonders where you are, you'll most likely be dating someone else!!

He said 'after all of this I don't see the prospect of a serious relationship'.
I still don't understand why this happened.

Okay, let me break it down for you. After only four months in a casual relationship and sleeping together just twice, he tells you he's going on a trip with his friends and you give him a hard time over it because there will be drinking and nightclubbing, and you don't trust him. You then tell him that if he really loved his girlfriend he'd take her on the trip. So trying to disrupt his plans by using emotional blackmail.

And you accused him of being gay.

Which bit of all of this being controlling and unreasonable on your part do you not understand?

Whilst I don't disagree with your breakdown, as a forum of primarily women, do we have to be such bitches to young women? Genuine question. I mean really... is it fucking necessary?

I would not continue to spend any time with someone who claimed not to be in a relationship with me despite sleeping with me for four months. It’s highly disrespectful and implies that I’m somehow not worthy in my opinion. Why waste time analysing someone who puts you down like that?

THIS

Yes, he only wanted sex. It wasn’t a relationship so the number of times didn’t matter as he was able to fuck anyone else and anytime else that he wanted in that time and, as it wasn't a relationship, there was nothing to end.

You are both very young and a 20 year old guy is less mature than a girl of the same age.

You're not on the same page. You want commitment, he is not ready for that.

There are plenty more fish in the sea.

This, bluntly, sums it up.

I think you wanted a relationship and treated it as one, perhaps thinking it was also what he wanted or could be convinced to have.

In future, find someone you trust and that you are on the same page at the same time with about whether you are or aren’t in a relationship.

I don't know or care about him specifically. You were wasting your time from the start with the sex talk on early dates. Not sure why the sex didn't materialise on this occasion, not important. Point is it was a clear sign it wasn't going to turn into something worthwhile

I don't get this going on dates until the man decides whether he wants to be exclusive or not which can take months. You might as well be in an open relationship as it just means he can see anyone else that he likes. I prefer the good old days when someone would ask you out and then you not see other people unless you broke up.

That's the point. You don't.

It sounds as if he was considering the relationship as your boyfriend but is probably now back pedalling because of your completely unreasonable reaction to his holiday.

20 year olds early in relationships go in mates’ holiday. If they are all young men it would be cringe to bring his gf along. Your reaction WAS jealous and controlling.

However he also sounds an untrustworthy twat. He was an idiot to bring up the idea of a threesome (although was it idle sharing of fantasies, rather than a suggestion?) with someone he knew to be sexually inexperienced / early in a relationship. And I bet you are not the first person he has had sex with.

Live and learn, OP, all good experience. Let him throw himself back in the sea on his holiday.

Erm dont?

You answered your own question in your first sentence. A man says that to you because you are:

”not his gf & we're not officially together”

You’re his FWB, his booty call, his fuck buddy, his shag piece. He’s been throwing you just enough breadcrumbs to keep you sweet but it sounds like he’s a bit bored now. Move on.

Someone that mentions a threesome is not someone I would be dating at all as clearly their morals and relationship expectations do not align with mine.

He doesn't want to put a label on it because he isn't committed. If he sleeps with someone else he'll be able to say he told you you weren't exclusive/not bf/gf.

Throw this one back.

Honey you’re only 20. Please listen to the older wiser more experienced ladies on this site who are pretty much unanimously telling you this isn’t how a relationship should make you feel.

Im old enough to be your mother and I’ve never had a man tell me he’s up for a threesome after a couple of dates.

And just another tip, don’t try and tell a man he can’t do stuff with his mates. It’s never going to go down well. Throughout my 23 year marriage, we did lots of stuff separately including going on holidays. It’s healthy to have your own lives outside of your partner.

I recently dated a guy who told me he didn’t want me going on a pre booked holiday with my mate - that’s trying to control someone imo and it’s a deal breaker for many people, me included.

You’ve got many years left, don’t rush into having a man just for sake of it if he doesn’t act right.

It's strange to me that someone's feelings can flip so fast just because I wanted to go on holiday together, to the point of telling me he doesn't love me yet. Seems like he's the brutally honest type but I think the 'honesty' should stop somewhere.. Does he not consider how what he says may impact someone else?

When a man you want to be your boyfriend says you are not his girlfriend that’s exactly what he means. Doesn’t matter how he behaved towards you even a few minutes before. Believe him when he says this, leave, head high, move on, don’t look back.

Men who want to be with you don’t risk losing you by saying this. It may have serious in your mind. It wasn’t in his.

OP this was only a few weeks of seeing someone. In that time he talked about threesomes which was an indication that he wasn’t after anything serious with you. You demanded you should be allowed to go on holiday with his friends which quite frankly will definitely have put him off. Also you asked if he was gay. Not something that will have endeared you to him.

Then you blocked him on socials and ignored him for two weeks then sent some kind of ultimatum which again is rather odd since he already said you weren’t in a relationship. That kind of behaviour was not likely to change his mind.

I’ll probably get some comments for this, but I recommend reading a book called ‘The Rules’. It has an interesting perspective and might save you wasting time on men who don’t deserve you.

You will know when you have met someone who wants to be with you exclusively. They will tell you. They will phone when they say they will. They will call your their gf. They won’t mention threesomes. They will say that they love you.

Take the lessons learned here, don’t repeat the mistakes, go out and have fun with your friends.

💐

Oh OP. Really just stop trying to figure it out. Don't try and work out what he was thinking or what he was doing or how he was feeling. When a guy likes you, respects you and values you in his life he lets you know. In the meantime if they say or do things that you don't like, call it out or walk away. But don't waste your time trying to work it out. Just release this one back into the sea and move on.

His feelings didn't flip so fast. He doesn't "love you".

Listen, I used to think this way, and it has taken some hellishly bad treatment from men to get me to change my mind, I wish I had listened to more experienced women earlier instead of thinking that I knew better. I have 20 years on you so take it from me.

When someone loves you, you see it in their actions. Words are cheap. They don't cost anything, and they certainly work very well at getting a girl into bed. Actions generally cost effort, and if a guy is giving words but no actions then you know which side your bread is buttered.

The guy is telling you about threesomes (to be honest he fucking wishes), he's doing this to make you insecure and get you to react emotionally.
You have fallen straight into this trap by... reacting emotionally. He now has a young, pretty, 20 year old girl chasing him around begging him to please let her go on holiday and saying "don't you love me??". How do you think he feels about that? He feels like Brad Pitt fighting women off with sticks. He's all like "nah i'm gonna go with my friends, and have a threesome".

Imagine for a second that you heard him say this, genuinely believed that you were exceptionally worthy and that you could have any other guy you wanted, and thought "yuck, that's gross, he's not really who I thought he was" and you just stopped texting him back. Whenever he asked after you, you were busy, far too busy for him. You were out having fun with you friends, you were planning your own holiday, or you were busy studying or doing things that benefited you.

How do you think that would go down with him? He'd think "shit, she doesn't care - nothing I am doing to upset her is working!!!".

This is how men work. This is the kind of behaviour a lot of them engage in because women are emotional, we talk to each other, we will sit for hours over a glass of wine chit chatting about our feelings and how sad we are or what colour lipstick we should buy. Men don't do any of that. But they do know that if they can TELL us things that make us feel amazing, we're likely to want to be around them and we'll sleep with them.

I used to think like you "how could he do that??" "doesn't he care how I feel??" - change your thinking my dear. The films are inaccurate, disney has lied to us, and men are not the same as we are. Treat them accordingly, flirt back, reward the positive things they do but for the love of God, ignore them when they start to try and create insecurities. You dont' need to say anything, you observe, and you walk away like a queen.

I wish i had adopted these principles far sooner in my life, because it comes across as someone who doesn't involve themselves in drama and is FAR too self assured to get involved in the games of petty men. It's a hard thing to do because we do get emotionally attached, that is how we are wired, but we have to resist that sometimes with men who are not making the effort for us.

How he treats you is how he feels about you, and the opposite of love isn't hate, it is indifference. Learn to be indifferent.