am i acting like a sychophant?

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antique_toy
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11 May 2010, 1:01 pm

(i know i have made several posts about this current "love interest" of mine and i apologize if it's getting a bit annoying at this point)
but yesterday something happened that made me second-guess everything between us.
we were chit chatting in emails and he asked me what band's works i would bring to live alone on an island with and i told him what i'd bring and a long explanation of why... along with a youtube link to one of my favorite songs. then i asked him what he would choose.

well when he replied (a day and a half later even though i saw him online for hours before that) he didn't even acknowledge what i was trying to share with him. and he typed way less in his message than i did for him. all he did was talk about his choice with a brief explanation.
i had no clue what to say to that... i was shocked that he couldn't even acknowledge my attempt to share one of my favorite songs with him. he's not an aspie and even if he was it wouldn't be a cause for showing that little interest in the other person's thoughts.

so i just replied with "....wooow".
it took him a while to figure out that it was a lethargic/sarcastic wow and he asked me why. i told him that i was trying to share something with him and i was looking forward to what he might have thought about it.
was i being too emotional? ...or was i right to point out his nonchalance toward what i say to him? i'm so confused... and i think he's not interested.



Willard
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11 May 2010, 1:45 pm

You're being too emotional.

I find it difficult to generate a lot of enthusiasm for other people's aesthetic choices - there are only a few people I've known over the years whose tastes were similar enough to mine that I paid attention when they talked about art, literature or music. And it irritates me no end when people email me links to videos of any kind - if I actually watched all the stupid videos people send me links to, I'd never get dressed, for sitting at the monitor all day and night watching music videos (I hate music videos - I can create my own mental images of what the song is about, thank you very much) and phone cam footage of monkeys in the zoo peeing in their own mouths. :roll: Puh-leeez. If I see a video link or an MPG attachment, I delete it immediately. Besides, that's a very good way to get suckered into picking up a Wyrm or a Trojan.

But then again, I've always thought the types who ask "What books or music would you take if you had to be stranded...?" could find better things to do with their time than making pointless lists. I'd need a giant cargo ship full of books because I read insatiably, and the same was true for music until they started making iPods with 160 gig drives. My playlist is currently over thirty thousand songs and I'll be damned if I'm going to compose an email to explain to anybody what each one of those choices means.

But I digress...my point is, people are always more interested in sharing their own list than in reading someone else's - especially if there isn't a wide cross section of commonality between the two. That has very little to do with whether or not he likes you, so I don't think you should over analyze that. That said, it does sound to me like you are investing way too much in this relationship that isn't really a relationship. Your preoccupation with his interest in your list shows that you're trying way too hard to share yourself too much too soon, and it's going to become cloying and toxic to him when he realizes you're expecting a lot more than he's looking to give at the moment. You need to cool your engines a bit before you run this guy off.



Lene
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11 May 2010, 2:30 pm

Quote:
antique_toy wrote:
(i know i have made several posts about this current "love interest" of mine and i apologize if it's getting a bit annoying at this point)


It's not. I'm really sorry if you got this impression from a previous post of mine :( ; I honestly was just pointing out that you seem to be a bit stressed out over him. Post as often as you like- that's what this site is for!

Quote:
so i just replied with "....wooow".
it took him a while to figure out that it was a lethargic/sarcastic wow and he asked me why. i told him that i was trying to share something with him and i was looking forward to what he might have thought about it.
was i being too emotional? ...or was i right to point out his nonchalance toward what i say to him? i'm so confused... and i think he's not interested.


I don't think you were being too emotional, or that he is necessarily uninterested in you. It looks like you both had different perceptions on what the question meant. You took it as a serious and deeply probing question, and he took it as a throw away remark. If he had brilliant empathy, he may have picked up on that you were sharing something significant, but a lot of people (even NTs) can miss these things so it's not that ominous a sign.

I actually think telling him why you were upset was a good idea. A lot of girls seem to just sulk about it instead of explaining to their partners why it matters, so at least if you feel able to talk about it, and he listens, there's a chance he won't make the same mistake as often, or will feel bad if he does.

I think 'wooow' might be a little too vague (especially online) unless you clarify it. Something like "Jeez, I spill my heart to you, and all I get is some crummy little one liner... :P " may work better next time; you still sound friendly, but you are giving him a pretty unsubtle hint (though if he still doesn't pick up on it, you can get more serious).

I found the main difference between my boyfriend and my ex is all down to that I can communicate with the former and feel as if my feelings are being listened to. They both mess/ed up occasionally (as do I) but I can talk to my current bf about it and he tries to act differently in future or at least explain what happened from his point of view. With my ex, I usually got silence or sarcasm so I eventually gave up trying to talk to him and the resentment just grew and my self esteem withered.

Seriously, communication is so important. How did your boyfriend react when you told him you were upset?



hale_bopp
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11 May 2010, 7:31 pm

antique_toy wrote:
(i know i have made several posts about this current "love interest" of mine and i apologize if it's getting a bit annoying at this point)
but yesterday something happened that made me second-guess everything between us.
we were chit chatting in emails and he asked me what band's works i would bring to live alone on an island with and i told him what i'd bring and a long explanation of why... along with a youtube link to one of my favorite songs. then i asked him what he would choose.

well when he replied (a day and a half later even though i saw him online for hours before that) he didn't even acknowledge what i was trying to share with him. and he typed way less in his message than i did for him. all he did was talk about his choice with a brief explanation.
i had no clue what to say to that... i was shocked that he couldn't even acknowledge my attempt to share one of my favorite songs with him. he's not an aspie and even if he was it wouldn't be a cause for showing that little interest in the other person's thoughts.

so i just replied with "....wooow".
it took him a while to figure out that it was a lethargic/sarcastic wow and he asked me why. i told him that i was trying to share something with him and i was looking forward to what he might have thought about it.
was i being too emotional? ...or was i right to point out his nonchalance toward what i say to him? i'm so confused... and i think he's not interested.


You aren't being too emotional, but you're expecting far too much from people. You should expect no reply, because you can never rely on others. To him, his reply was probably fine, thats why he was confused when you got pissed off.

Be careful how you react to things too, making a sarcastic reply like that because you expected something from them you din't recieve will only put them off, i've blocked men on dating sites for doing that.

Some people always make short replies because they're not so intense with their interests and it has no reflection on lack of interest of you.