Interest or lonliness?

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We're not together and I do feel interested in him.

I don't like PUA kind of dating, from what I hear about it, and wouldn't want to get involved in it.

Maybe I am overanalyzing, but I was trying to say that there have been times where I thought a guys might be interested and seemed committed. Then later I found out that they would just be using me to fill a void and didn't seem to really care about me because they would suddenly become distant. I just want to be aware of the signs because I want to be with someone I can trust.

I would disagree - for me this would be one of the #1 reasons not to meet someone. 100 miles is a long ways, and that can make it tough to see each other regularly, even on the weekends.

With that said, if you're fine with the distance and you like him, I'd say give it a shot. Everyone on those sites talks to multiple people at once, which can be overwhelming. If you only focus on one person at a time, you will spend an eternity waiting for replies that may or may not come, and getting emotionally invested in people who may stop responding at the drop of a hat. At least he admits it! You're right that he could be lonely and "filling a void", but you'll never know unless you get to know him. You have to go through a lot of duds to find someone special.

I think he self-disclosed a little much. A simple "I'm seeing someone at the moment, but let's not burn any bridges right away" is really enough. When you talk about it later, all he has to say, "well, things weren't really working out in that way, but it would have been rude to just drop her like that."

And, too, nobody needs to know if you're dating multiple people if it's not serious. It's kinda understood, anyway, that everyone is doing it. There's no shame in that. But we don't like to think about it, either, and that's what you're dealing with right now. You are allowed to casually date or "hang out" with people. We just get hung up in the language. All you need to know is whether your partner is cheating in a committed relationship. Anything else, who cares?

Breaking the illusion if being "the only one," or having to picture someone with other people is a turn-off. If you aren't in a serious relationship, keep your dating/hangout habits to yourself.

Even if you're about to end the relationship, keep that and the details to yourself, too. Relationships disintegrate for a reason. If you gossip about a current mate, you'll likely gossip about the next one. If you trash your current bf in front of your friends, you'll trash me, too, and I don't need that in my life.

That said, he sounds like an ok guy to me, just a tiny bit clueless and inarticulate. We don't need to know everything, but honesty is always a positive trait. I think he meant well.

I met with him again and he seemed to act really different. His mannerisms and his speech changed and I felt like he came off as arrogant and shallow. It makes me cringe when people act that way. I'm hoping he's not really like that. He seemed so much more genuine and down to earth the other time that we met and the times we talked on the phone. I actually was starting to become attracted to him and felt like I could relate to him and now I don't know. I feel really confused.

I don't know what attracted you to this guy initially, but I suspect he has less than sterling social skills with which you should be able to sympathize. Not knowing the full history of your interaction with him so far, I would say that, given that he was willing to meet up with you again, with no expectation of physical interaction of any sort, he must be attracted to you. He probably has no idea how attracted you are to him (maybe you don't know either) but I suspect you didn't give any clear signals the last time, so he probably tried a different approach from before.

So my theory is that, what came across as arrogance and shallowness might have been an attempt at showing self confidence and assertiveness. It would seem he failed miserably, but thought he had to try something to make himself more attractive. Possibly his friends (who are probably all in LTRs) counselled him to do that.

You are probably not such an easy person to get close to yourself - you must certainly understand that by now. If he's wiling, you should probably try to have a somewhat frank discussion with him, by phone or preferably Skype, as to whether you and he are interested in each other. Admittedly not cool, but then Aspies don't do cool. From my own experience, when I was in my 20s, oftentimes the only relationships I had that went anywhere happened because the girl made an unambiguous move to show her interest - like unexpectedly kissing me on the mouth. Because I wasn't picking up on the subtle signals. I suspect you are incapable of such a move - but you should get my point.

Just one other thing that I wonder about, having read a few of your posts. I will assume that, because you are active on a church choir, that you are a Christian (hopefully you can forgive me if I'm wrong about that). I don't understand why you don't use a Christian dating site. I would think you would want a Christian partner, who you could safely expect to share more of your personal values. Just a thought (I am not a Christian BTW so my perspective on that topic might be flawed).

I'm kind of hoping that's why. I've never changed the way I felt about someone so fast. When we met last time I really liked him and was happy for days. I really liked talking to him on the phone too. He told me a few times that for a while he thought that he was on the spectrum and I noticed some autistic traits in him. The last time we talked on the phone I was mentioning some of the traits I saw in him. Maybe it caused him to feel like he had to act like a different person. When he did this I almost felt like I was meeting with someone else and those feeling for him just went away. He didn't seem genuine and as open-minded as before. I just felt kind of shocked and confused. I even mentioned this to him I a text because I was so confused.

I go to church, but I'm not religious.

Humans have something called moods.

It can be that.

And yeah, unsolicited theorizing/attempting to diagnose people of some psychiatric condition is bad, it never goes well.

He brought it up that he thought that he might have been on the spectrum. He mentioned it several times when I talked to him. I didn't mean to offend him if I did, but I thought it was something interesting to talk about.

I think it was more than a mood because his mannerisms and speech all just seemed to change.

Last edited by slw1990 on 12 Mar 2017, 12:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well you two need to date more to know him for sure, there's no other way to tell otherwise. We can't tell you he has major character flaws with given info, only you can find this out.

Side off topic question: married men / men in LTRs, often give me advice that are scarily similar to the PUA materials I come across sometimes; like acting all assertive and confident and all the little things about acting strong, not-over caring and all. Did you often get such advice from male acquaintances in LTRs too?

In my 20s I really didn't have much in the way of close male friends or a posse that I hung out with. I was pretty much a loner, as I suspect most of us here are. When I say something like that, I am imagining how NTs live their lives i.e. getting dating advice from their friends. BTW my closest male friend when I was @slw1990's age was gay, and his input to my dating life was to express disapproval of one girlfriend in particular I had then (I've mentioned her previously in this forum) wanting to know when I planned to dump her (which is how my parents felt about her as well).

I just heard back from him and he told me that he doesn't feel attracted to me. He said that it didn't feel like we had an emotional connection. It's just really confusing because it seemed like he was really interested before and even seemed to want to be in a relationship because he was planning ahead. This happens to me a lot, but it usually happens right away when they first meet me. It seems to always happen eventually though. It feels like maybe I'm just not meant to be with anyone.

Maybe he was acting this way to try to get me to not like him either like him either.

Then the few times I ask it seems like they just give me a patronizing pep talk and don't really give me a brutally honest answer. I feel like I need to ask sometimes though because it happens so much and I want to try and do something about it. It's like there's something about me that just drives them away. I don't think I come off as desperate or anything like that. I try not to get too emotionally invested with them, but I feel like I did with him because he seemed to really want a relationship.

He told me it was physical, but said that he thought I was pretty before. I think it may have been because I wore glasses when I met him this time. I usually wear contacts and wore contacts the when we met before so maybe I looked really different to him. It's superficial though.

I guess in a way I'm kind of relieved because maybe he was acting so differently so that I wouldn't like him either so he's not actually so arrogant.

Eh....it's crazy how some women reacted when they learned i wear glasses.

It's often negative.

I'm not surprised. Everyone deep down is superficial.

He's not consistent tho, and if it's because of glasses then it's too
much.