Category Archives: No

Not Ghosted, Just a Classic Case of Gaslighting

Dating, Honesty, Learning, Napping, No, Old Patterns, Taking Charge

Remember how I figured I was ghosted by the most recent guy I’d started dating? And I accepted and it moved on? Welp, I guess it was not the end…

Apparently, I was being given the silent treatment. For 2 1/2 days to be exact. My last form of communication with the guy was on a Thursday morning. I figured by Friday evening, with no response from him, that we were pretty much over. Because who does that? He was an insta-texter, so I knew a long period of silence meant he was either sleeping, or not happy about something. He often texted me all day long while he was working, so he didn’t let daily business stop him. And why didn’t we talk on the phone? Well because the few times I asked him to, he didn’t feel like talking. Yes, a red flag, but I’m an idiot sometimes. So we mostly texted and made plans to see each other on the weekends.

My brain already started to decompress by Friday night. I even hopped back on my paused dating site profile. After all, it had only been about 3 weeks of “dating”. We hadn’t had the commitment conversation, didn’t make it that far. I wasn’t feeling bad because I already did that for two whole days — I am done with confusing relationships. If I’m confused, even after attempting clarification, then there’s something not working. Boy was I right.

So I went to bed on Thursday and Friday nights feeling sad, just because I don’t like the dating world in general and thought maybe I’d found a nice one. But I was also relieved because I felt like a dodged a bad boyfriend bullet way sooner than later. So I did a little sulking and by Saturday morning I was in acceptance mode. I did some yoga and had some nice quiet time by myself until it was time to go pick up my kids from their dad.

On the way home Saturday evening, I heard a text notification on my phone. I didn’t check it right away because I was driving. When I got to a red light, I glanced at my phone. It was him.

He texted, “So…how was your week?”

How was my week? Well well well, we have a man here who wants to interact but not confront the actual situation. I believe when someone is trying to get a big reaction out of you and causes you to question your own reality, that’s called gaslighting. I decided this was an unacceptable response after 2 1/2 days of silence. He was trying to get a reaction out of me, and I didn’t have one to give because I no longer cared. I didn’t respond, spent a nice evening with my kids, drank some wine, and went to bed. Silent treatment right back at ya buddy. (I never do the silent treatment by the way, I think it’s awful and you owe someone direct communication, but I knew this was no longer a viable relationship).

On Sunday morning, I made a big breakfast, took a long shower, took the kids shopping a little bit, and then we came home and chilled out. I took a nice mid-afternoon nap on my couch. It was glorious. I woke up from my great nap and glanced at my phone. Oh for crying out loud, he sent a long rambling defensive text. Come on dude!

I was equal parts annoyed and happy. Annoyed, because I’ve seen this behavior before (aka ex husband behavior) and it is exhausting. But happy, because I didn’t do anything wrong, it was doomed from the start. It wouldn’t have mattered how much I tiptoed around this guy with my replies, he was going to find a way to be pissed about something. He needs endless ego-stroking, and his ego will forever act like he is the victim and blame someone else for what he is feeling. He even stated at one point “People think I’m a dick, but I’m really just confident.” No, no no.

I took a deep breath and (against my better judgement) responded to his long rambling text with my own lengthy text (for my own closure) that was full of my very constructive observations on what happened with our miscommunication and then bid him farewell told him good luck. I got an instant response from him telling me I made so many assumptions and that I only cared about my own feelings. I responded one last time “Then we’re not compatible, move on.” …. and he kept responding and I had to block him.

I shed a few tears out of pure frustration. And then instantly felt better and made dinner for my kids.

Dating is stupid. I don’t recommend it.

Stifle Me Not

Moving Forward… Stalled

home buying, Hope, Moving, New and Unknown, No, Taking Charge

Argh. I’m trying to initiate some life changes and it’s not working. Try, try again.

Before I talk about that, let me first stay that my Crush Attack from my previous post has been my own personal roller coaster ride that has gone something like this:

He’s cute. I wonder if he likes me. I bet he thinks I’m cute. He’s never been married. He doesn’t have kids. He must be immature. He sucks. I’m stupid for even thinking about him like that. We work together. He called me today and sounded cute. Maybe we’ll live together some day. How stupid is that? I wonder if he’s selfish? Maybe he’s actually a nice guy? I wonder if his family is nice. This is never gonna work.

Am I 15 again or what?

Jeezuz, make the thoughts just stop. This has been going on for a month now and I haven’t seen him since the company Christmas party. How stupid.

Anyhow, onto other life developments… I put an offer on a house today. There was another offer. I lost. I countered. I lost that one too.

Frustration at its finest.

This house was great. It was move-in ready. I am move-in ready. We’d go great together.

My real estate agent sucks. I know this. I went to see 4 houses with him today and I wanted to ditch him at each one. He is not the proactive variety and he moves at the pace of a snail. The offer process on this house went something like this:

Initial Offer

Him: The original offer was a “strong” offer. Let’s offer $XX, which amounted to $100 over asking.

Me: No, let’s offer at least $1,000 to $2,000 over asking.

Him (after submitting offer): They took the other offer.

Me thinking: No shit.

Counter Offer

Me: I’ll go up $4,000 plus pay half of the closing costs.

Him: Okay

Him (after submitting offer): It’s not high enough. Do you want to go up by $5K more?

Me: NO!

_______________

Then he came back and wanted to know if I wanted to put an offer on a previous house that I looked at earlier in the day. I told him to get me the one I wanted.

No, he’s not getting guaranteed commission today by defaulting me to second best. He failed. I need a new realtor. I’ve had him since September and not once has he proactively sent me any properties. He’ll send me properties after I’ve sent him some that I like. Then he’ll say “what about this one too?”

Bare minimum effort. I’m done with that.

If something falls through with this house that I put an offer on, I’ll have to use him if I want it.

Otherwise, I need to think through my next move. The current state of my real estate situation is not working. I am not doing this.

Stifle Me Not

May 9th Lesson: I Can Say No and It’s Okay

Learning, No

Today I was supposed to go to an event. I agreed to go because 1) A friend invited me, 2) I am genuinely interested in the event and 3) I thought it may be a good networking opportunity – since I’m unemployed and all.

As it got closer to the date of the event, I quite simply didn’t want to go. I couldn’t pinpoint why it was bugging me. Was it because I couldn’t afford it? No, that wasn’t it. Was it because I was afraid of the unknown and wasn’t sure who I would meet?  Sometimes I can be shy about meeting new people and being in crowds, but that wasn’t it either.

I finally realized that, although I convinced myself of all these great reasons for going, I didn’t want to go for me. I was going to go because I said I would and I didn’t want to disappoint my friend. Today I did have family obligations and a bunch of yard work to finish, but the biggest thing was that I just didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to go. It didn’t feel right. And here I was overthinking my feelings as usual. Why do I do that??? It’s okay to not want to do something, right?

I was about to send an email to my friend to apologize for missing the event, and oddly enough, I had an email from her saying she wouldn’t be attending. I was so relieved, and it was in that moment that her email confirmed my feelings were spot on – I was going to do something that I didn’t want to do and all for someone else, not for myself. Yes, there are plenty of reasons  why it would have been good for me to go, but I needed to listen to my feelings today.

Today I learned that I can listen to my feelings. I can say no and it’s okay.

Stifle Me Not