manslations

A reader named Emm is feeling burned. Or burnt. Whichever it is, she’s pretty pissed. Seemed like all was well, but whenever she wanted to have The Talk about The Relationship…he flaked a little. He pulled back quite a bit. And now? Well, now she’s pretty mad. She can’t quite put it together. How could he have BEEN so dishonest!?

Or WAS he dishonest? I’m not so sure. Let’s find out what this is all about.

I dated a guy for 5 months, (this was a bigger deal for me as I hadnt dated in some time) and wanted to have a healthy relationship. At first, I played non-chalant, I wanted to make sure he was a good man and he did make himself seem like an awesome guy. I eventually fell for him  after the first month. He told me “I dont do short term relationships.” and gushed about him to my friends. He showed me wear he works, called me regularly, watched movies together, held hands in public, hed always pick me up, we laughed about everything, he waited for me to be “ready”, I never gave him a date LOL.

Never gave him a date? Do you mean…you never gave him a date when you were going to be “ready”? If so, I think that’s wise. I don’t know, for me, I think there’s something weird in saying, “Listen, pal, I’m not sure about you. No sex until February 7th. After that, you get on in there, guns blazing.” Seems almost silly…

ANYHOO!!! At around 4 months I started feeling nervous, I wanted to move forward in our relationship and communicated this. He said “yeah i think thats a good idea.” we talked about this ONLY when i brought it up, we werent EMOTIONALLY moving any closer…

Honestly, I’m already lost. I mean, I’ve heard this kind of thing before, of course. But I have literally no idea what it means. What exactly would it look like if a relationship were to be moved closer, emotionally? I’m being totally serious. I have no idea what this means, other than in some vague, non-specific way. My guess? Neither did he.

I said “I’d like to know what you think, so I understand where you’re coming from”. “everything is good.”

Heh. Yeah, that would be your standard male response. When you say, “What do you think about how things are with us?” What he hears is, “Any major specific complaints, or problems to report, or trouble you’d like to resolve?” Most men aren’t very fantastic in this conversation because, as I said above, in many ways we literally have no idea what you’re talking about.

From months 3-4 he became increasingly “tired” and “sick”…and I started asking questions. I said “I dont feel like our lives are coming together in any way and you’re not talking to me, I need you to tell me what’s going on, Can you please think about this and get back to me?” He got back to me allright, a week later….saying he had been emotionally detaching himself for a while and that hes so confused and he needs to get his stuff sorted out, he wants to move cities maybe in the new year….blah blah blah, before he could finish, I put on my jacket, and got up and left. I couldn’t handle any more excuses. He didn’t have one straight answer….after 2 weeks of grieving, I decided to check out the old dating site we had met on. He’s back on.

Ok, there we go. Sounds like with this guy, that’s as clear an answer as you’re going to get. Remember the manslator’s golden rule — between what he SAYS and what he DOES, pay attention to DOES. And you did. He didn’t have a straight answer for you. He really didn’t have an answer. Just that hummina-hummina-hummina thing we do. His actions? Pulling back. You felt it, you broke it off. Done deal.

I’m still hurt over all of this. The man I believed to be decent had no shred of decency and I’ve been doing all the right healthy things to move on, but my anger’s still consuming me. Why would someone lead me on and lie to my face about being with me (it didnt feel like it was for the sex) for months and be in this fake relationship and not expect to contribute ANYTHING emotionally? He would always call me whenever I had a problem or  whatever, so long as we didn’t focus on “us” I guess….

Can ya help me? It’s been a month and I feel so angry and hurt still.

Dear Emm,

Well, I think I can help you understand what was going on, though I don’t know if it will make you any less angry. Here’s the deal:

MEN AND “THE TALK.”

As I’ve said on here many times, men aren’t great at The Talk. And when you start talking about where the relationship is “headed,” well, we barely know what you’re talking about. You can get mad about it. You can wonder why men can’t be more like you. You can do anything you want. But the one thing you’re not going to do is change the fact that The Talk is way harder for him than it is for you.

Now, does that mean that no guy will ever have The Talk with you? Not at all. But it MIGHT mean that he doesn’t understand what he’s supposed to be having The Talk about.

THINGS MEN OFTEN DON’T UNDERSTAND

(MANSLATOR’S NOTE: Don’t worry, this is an abridged version. To write the whole list of things men don’t understand would crash the internets.)

You talked about:

• move forward in our relationship- You think I must know what this means, but I swear, I really don’t. What does it mean? Flossing more? Better posture? Formal dinners on Sundays? Marriage? 10 minutes of additional spooning per month? I’m literally asking — how would you “do” this? Isn’t this one of those things that either is happening or it isn’t?
  
• we werent EMOTIONALLY moving any closer-Again, I’m not sure how you would “accomplish” this without it just sort of happening as a natural result of…you know…actually moving closer emotionally. Put another way, if this weren’t happening…what could either of you do about it?
  
• I dont feel like our lives are coming together in any way-Is this something specific? What does it mean? Again — moving in together? Marriage? Meeting the parents? Just something between the two of you? What IS this?
  

Now, I could guess what you mean by those things…but that’d be about it. I’d be guessing. And I suspect that it was similar for him.

But all of that is just to say that he didn’t understand what you were SAYING. That’s one thing. But what happened doesn’t sound like it was the result of a simple misunderstanding. It sounds like it was a divergence in your paths.

BOTTOM LINING IT FOR YA

You came to a crossroads, you said, “Let’s do XYZ.” He said (remember — SAID) “sure, why not?” Why? He evidently had enjoyed being with you up to that point.

But then, once you pressed him on all this “moving forward” stuff…it allowed him to ask the questions. “Hm. I wonder…ARE we moving forward? Why aren’t we? Do I want to?”

Sounds like he came to the realization that no, he didn’t. I wouldn’t automatically jump to the conclusion that he was LYING to you. I really don’t read that in his behavior. I see a guy who liked being with you. Then, when you realized you wanted something more — something different — he came to realize that he did not.

And that, as they say, was that.

I’m sorry this didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, Emm. All I can tell you is, don’t focus on this idea that this man was “lying to you.” Doesn’t sound that way to me. Sounds like you wanted different things, and it took a few months to figure that out. It happens.

What’s your take, ladies? This guy having Talk troubles? Is he a big, fat, liar?