What is expected of me anyway???

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Hi. This is Roman. I hope you remember me.

Either way I got over the situation w/ sarah. What had happened is that I found another girl, Megan. And it is basically a long distance relationship that doesn't worth it anyway.

Once I was gonna get some notes from a student at a previous institution I went into and Megan made a SILLY JOKE how she hopes it won't be female. For some STUPID reasons I took that joke too seriously and A MONTH LATER decided to win her trust back by giving her the password for my university account in order for her to look up my cell phone number because I never remember it. The key is that once she has a password for university account she can check my university E mail as well and be reassured how I am not cheating on her and AT THE SAME TIME I can look for other women all I want using hotmail which she has NO password for, so I basically have the best of both worlds.

However, what screwed me over is that A WEEK after that a girl named Anne from my math class approached me and started talking. Once we were done talking she told me she was gonna E mail me and she already had my E mail because it is in a university directory. I was too stupid to think of better reasons why she should E mail me on hotmail instead and I simply told her that my *EX* gifl friend (Sarah) with whom I broke up over half a year ago might still be checking my E mail. Yes it was transparent. Thats why I can't forgive myself for doing it. I could have just said that I messed up my password to fight my internet addiction and thus can't log on. I have no idea why I didn't.

Either way, in order to fully convince her it really is my ex as opposed to my current girl friend, I basically wrote two paragraph essay explaining my defense mechanism against both my ex and my mom treating me like a kid which forces me to hide htings even when my ex ISN"T THERE ANY MORE.

Well it turns out that she DID believe me that it was my EX. It was never even an issue! BUT THE THING ABOUT MY DEFENSE MECHANISM OR WHATEVER REALLY DID GET ME. Either way things between me and her progressed very fast within the first week that we knew each other to the point that she considered me one of her very bestest friends. So I wrote her an E mail asking for a relationship. Here was her response

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dear Roman,

Thank you so much for your email. It was so nice and open and honest. I know things like that are so hard to do... its totally putting yourself out there. I definitely know what you mean about us having a special bond and feeling like we have known one another for a long time. Even though you cannot always
express what you want to express, the things we do communicate to one another really hit home. Nothing you said in your email is silly or stupid. I know how you feel when you meet someone who you think finally gets you.

So here is my situation: 1.I am just recently recovering from a very horrible cycle of depression that lasted from last yr until probably last semester. There are still residual effects and may be for awhile, Bipolar is so unpredictable. Because of that, I feel like I really need to focus on myself and making myself feel good and not getting that from someone else. When I have boyfriends, I tend to let their opinions of me dictate how i feel about myself when, in order to be a strong person, you really need to feel good about yourself on your own. I havent reached that point yet, so i am staying out of relationships until I have. Otherwise, I couldnt give 100% to a relationship because of my problems.

2: Though i do feel like i have known you a long time i still feel like I dont know you maybe as well as you know me. B/c of your condition, it is very hard for me to understand how you are feeling or thinking in general. I dont ever know if you do things just b/c you think i want you to or if you do them because you really want to do them. I think it is going to take me a very long time to really get to understand you, and I plan to take as long as time it takes because from what I have seen thus far, you are a beautiful, intelligent, incredibly strong person.

3: I know you are used to women taking care of you. Your mom sounds like she shelters you and i have a feeling your ex-girlfriend did the same. If you would be expecting that from someone in a relationship, that would be an area where i just couldnt handle. When I am in a relationship with someone, i want that person to be independent and very confident in himself as an individual. I want to be able to help make him more confident and help him grow from challenging him with my ideas and knowledge. I expect the same from him. I would never want to be with a man who took care of me to the point where I
wasnt my own person. I want to be with someone who challenges me to be a better person. I think right now, you are in a stage where you are still struggling with issues of independence. I feel that if we were in a relationship I would run the show. I dont want that. I know how super intelligent you are and deep down very caring, but I think you are so used to hiding thinhgs from everyone that you havent yet learned that you are your own person now. If we were in a
relationship now, I would be so frustrated because I would want you to initiate conversation, challenge my ideas, push me to be the best person I can be. I dont think you have reached that point yet because you havent been able to do that for yourself in some areas of your life. I guess we are in the same boat on that one.

So you may be mad at that last paragraph, and i may be totally off- i guess thats just the impression I get. I would love to hear what you think. How do you view yourself and what do you expect out of a relationship?

Roman, you are so wonderful, such a suprise and a blessing to come into my life this year. I know we will be close for a long time. I cant promise anything further than friendship right now because of the three items listed above, but I know things change. Hopefully you and I will get strong this year and start seeing things more clearly. I think only then could we pursue something further.

ok, well write back or we can talk about it tomorrow. and dont feel stupid for writing it! I really respect that you put your feeling out there this time instead of hiding them. That really means alot to me.

Sleep well tonite and see you at 9, russian angel
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The problem was that I had to read it real fast since I read it right before we were gonna meet so somehow I neglected the independance issue completely and felt that it was all about my inability to innitiate conversation. So, having nothing to say on misinterpretted issue, I simply acted too NERVOUS and she WRONGLY misinterpretted it as anger and became angry at me for being angry at her. So this shut all our further communication.

LATER I did read E mail more closely and realized that the issue of independnace of Part 3 was misinterpretation on her part at least AT PART. I mean, I don't EXPECT from a relationship a woman to take care of me.

So this brings me to asking you, what is "independant" anyway? Like ok, if for instance my mom finds out that I believe in Jesus or that I have bad vision, or that I still look for girls after Sarah left me, yes it would make me feel devastated. So in THAT respect I am not very strong. But AT THE SAME TIME I don't need my mom's help in my life AT ALL. Like I am living in Michigan while my mom lives in California, and I am not calling her for weeks and I don't feel like I should -- she is the one upset about it. I get payed $1600 a month, I pay my own rent, I buy my own food, etc.

My mom doesn't get this point and I can't do anythign to stop HER from nosing into my business.

So you see this is what makes it unfair.

1)There is no way to change my mother's ASSUMPTIONS about me.

2)Other ppl judge me by ASSUMPTIONS my mom is making. That girl I met in my math class kept asking me how things were w/ my mom and w/ my ex.

So you see, it kind of enslaves me to the past. I mean, forget about her, if I am to meet other girls won't they ASK me about my mom the way this girl did? They mgiht as well once they are interested. So what SHOULD I tell them?

But okay back to the story. Even though she first said she won't talk to me about it, once she saw how upset I was she changed her mind. I seized an apportunity and brought up independance issue. Then on top of my mom, she mentioned that if I trully were independant she won't have to feed me. Well I never asked her to! Sure, I don't really eat 3 times a day but I am ok w/ it. Then, reluctantly she said it was her own mistake and I should forget about that E mail that she wrote because she was gonna send another one in April 19 when she won't be as busy.

Well she never wrote that E mail. But I suspect I probably blew it when I made her do taxes for me which made her angry and reassured her that I am not independant even when I tried to appologise to her and explain that it was SCHOOL that messed me over.

Anyway what do you suggest? Like with her and/or with other women? What is independance anyway?

One more thing that makes me worried is that given that I met her in class and not online there would be no reason for me to be embarassed to introduce her to my mom. So IF I were to ONLY find out a better reason for giving her hotmail, I would of NEVER had to bring my "psychological issues" (THAT IMPLIED INDEPENDANCE) anyway. ON THE OTHER HAND, w/ every single other girl the mom issue will be very much there UNLESS I meet them in class the way I met Anne which, given my Asperger, was pure luck. Plus, she was a graduate student in math which means we had things in common.

First of all, she sounds like a REALLY cool chick, I wish I had the luck to hit it off on that level with someone like her. I'd definitely take her up on that challenge just because you may not meet someone like her again but also because from what she's saying about her relationship desires she'd be perfect for a well-collected aspie guy.

As for what she means by independent I think that's probably on a lot of different levels. It probably doesn't mean financially as much as emotionally. I think a better way to put it is emotionally self-sufficient; where you can feel whole, intact, and stable with or without her.

To me it sounds like this girl thinks a lot like I do and is looking for the same thing I am in someone - she's looking for a guy where her personality compliments his, his personality complements hers, and where your energies kind of synergise and fortify eachother. As an aspie you want that kind of relationship because, at least in my own experience, when you find a girl who's real emotionally corrosive and wants to do all that identity-merging; that's bad for us because it destroys our defenses to the outside world as well as the times when they get back to business as usual and we still can't shake that feeling like we got hammered to mush by the emotional intensity of it all. I'm guessing with bipolar she probably feels as or more threatened by mush maybe in a manic phase and needs a relationship that has a rather dry and grounded dynamic too it - definitely a win-win.

I think she wants to see that when it comes to your emotions for her that you have your feet firmly planted on the ground, that your handling her as an equal (not bending over backwards too much, giving her a real dignified 50/50 type of emotional exchange), and that your seeing her in a very rational light as well as romantically.

My only thought on what she's saying, if you aren't clingy it might be that you've felt you needed to go above and beyond just to override the automatic AS-penalty. If that's the case just relax, ease up, and give a little bit of space back to her. If she feels you lack confidence directly because of eye-contact issues or something, it sounds like she already understands your AS and if anything you may wanna just play it off in a way where it doesn't have you comming off as having less of a firm personality (if that's what you think she might be seeing).

Well first of all I am not sure whether she only means emotional confidence because later when we talked about it she brought up the issue of her feeding me. Also when she was doing taxes for me she said "this is one reason I won't ever date you because you are like little kid..."

EVEN IF she means emotional independance, I don't htink it is a fair conclusion on her part. Lets look at where she got that idea. I told her I hide things from my ex because of htat E mail thing. Then I said the reason I hide htings is that MY EX treats me like a child. So her reasoning was like if my ex treats me like a child then I must BE a child and I must NEED (or EXPECT) this kind of treatment. Now this isn't fair for me. Because things are not as they appear!! ! If I am a child IN THE EYES OF MY EX, why should she take it for granted that my ex was right?

As a matter of fact, IF I trully was emotionally dependant, why would such a treatment cause me to hide things? Quite the opposite, I would of been really open w/ ppl who give me just what I want, wouldn't I?

And by the way this was the number one reason I neglected my ex ever since I left Minnesota to Michigan (which evenutally caused her to cheat on me) -- if I trully enjoyed this treatment why would I do it? And also why do I have all those fights with my mom?

Okay once again you might say it is different kind of dependance. But please read carefully what she wrote: "YOUR MOM SOUNDS LIKE SHE SHELTERS YOU, AND IT APPERARS YOUR EX DID THE SAME THING". So you see, she derived her idea ENTIRELY based on my mom/ my ex, EVEN WHEN I didn't like the way they treat me!

Right, right. Well, I guess the best thing you can do is give the situation time - usually mishapps like this have a way of correcting themselves so long as the other person has a chance to see where their logic went off course.