Past experiences with girlfriends -

Post Reply New Topic

I haven't had good luck with women until recently, and there's a part of me that's cynical - not an active conscious part, I always override it with reason, but it's still an easily accessible pathway in my mind.

16 years old. A girl likes me. She also likes 2 other guys - she flirts with me, writes notes, lends me books (which I read)... I feel like we connect on a deep level. But then she dates everyone else except for me. I feel awful, full of resentment towards these other guys, and towards myself for not knowing how to proceed naturally. I experience jealousy for the first watching her in relationships with these 2 other guys. She moves away the next year, I'm not interested in anyone for another year.

17-18 years old. First real girlfriend. For the first time I like a girl who likes me back, someone I've known for a few years. After getting to know me personally about 4 months, she begins to withdraw and make excuses not to hang out. She "dumps" me after 6 months. She explains how she'd been deciding I'm not as interesting, that I'm not the quiet loner type she figured I was - that I'm really just awkward and weird. She decided she had an "infatuation." Right as I was beginning to really have feeling for her. We lose a friendship and do not speak since. I am greatly saddened even today when I think about this.

19-29 Years old. I meet the girl with whom I spend the next decade. We are generally happy for several years. In retrospect I overlook a lot - she's combatitive, irrational, manipulative, flirts with other people. I write it off as just part of her personality (as she tells me to). I let her be "her" and I trust her even around smarmy male friends she insists on making. We have rough spots, but move forward and get a house in 2007. Four years later she cheats on me with a co-worker after a serious medical problem I have. I find out also she cheated on me a few years back, too, before we moved. All while using my car, my stuff, everything of mine to run her life. I am immensely angered by this, and I cut communication completely despite her paradoxical desire to still "be friends."

I'm now compelled to look at all my past experiences to see what I've learned from all of this. I think it's is part of everyone's learning curve, to assimilate experiences and move forward. I'm coming to terms with the fact that generally I have not had good experiences with women - I've only gotten extreme forms of selfishness for some reason. It makes me standoffish and actually have to put effort into opening up to someone new - when a decade ago it happened so naturally. I wonder why I have attracted these types of people.

I don't know what other people's experiences are, but mine have been really bad. I've lost a lot.

Has anyone had at least a good mix of experiences?

I sympathise, at the end of the day the girl you spent 10 years with would make everyone except a psychopath feel terrible, because she was being selfish. I spent 8 years with a girl, but she was no cheat and no flirt either, and to be honest if she was I would not have stayed with her for a second. In my childhood I saw a lot of that behaviour around me, and grew up knowing that I would not be able to put up with anybody like that.

You're right, it is just a learning curve. Some people are just energy-vampires, playing games with themselves and everyone else who'll allow themselves to be sucked in. My philosophy is, only concern oneself the question "Is this person being real true and natural, or are they a secret walking chaotic ego?" and not to overlook signs of the latter in preference for any other desire one may have for that person. You say there's always a part of you that is cynical, but what was happening when your cynicism could have affected events? Is the cynicism always post-event? Post-rational cynicism is often better described as sour grapes, whereas a healthy cynicism functions at the point of contact - I can think of situations that I've gotten into where my immediate cynicism was overridden by a desire for something, that only served to get me sucked into someone else's game, conned basically by my own desires, not the other person (who may have lived their entire life like that and doesn't actually realise other people don't).

Let's see...

Some obsessive girl fancied me at 12, gave me sex letters and stuff...I didn;t even agree to going out...it lasted 4 days!

Pity dated a girl at 16....but she wasn't attractive in looks or personality (nice but dim), lied to me about not smoking or drinking (she tried to be cool)...she dumped me and I was devastated (no idea why now), then she gives me another chance (charming...) and then she dumps me again but I don't care at this point.

A girl pity dated me after she ripped up my Valentine Note....but she didn't take the relationship seriously at all! She wasn't good looking either now that I think about it....she acted distant so I ended up being neglective of her before she broke up with me....I don't know why I dated her to be honest.

Dated a childhood friend (a very bad idea), I used an old crush I had on her to get with her, but we don't really click...she's pretty boring and I was no longer physically attracted to her...but my parents tried to pressure me to liking her because "She is a nice girl". Nice....but we have nothing in common really. We are still friends.

So yeah...I haven't had any proper relationships really....just mutual courtships I guess...I think I only ever had 3 kisses from those three...one of them I never even got a hug from!

DAMN! I thought this was a "Share your experiences" thread.

Yeah, the 17-18 paragraph writes as if she's being a cynical cow who assumes she knows what she's seen.

I hate that crap with woman.

Last edited by CrazyStarlightRedux on 09 Dec 2012, 10:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

I sympathise too. I am not good at relationships, or I would still be in a good and happy place now. I either get cheated on, or I get told I am weird and not willing to make the effort to socialise, etc. I think this is because most of my life I knew I was different but just didn't know why. I thought I was a terrible human being, and didn't know there was an explanation for my anxiety and hyper sensitivities, social difficulties etc.

Even some aspies think I am weird

But a lot more are supportive and have been so helpful in this new journey of mine. It's been a long year. I hope I will become a better person in time.

And Abyssquick? Hang in there. I think there is someone out there for everyone else.

I'm in a new relationship now, this one is quite different. We both come from similar places, having been cheated on, ditched. I'm reviewing my past experiences with women lately. I often say and think things that sound cynical towards people in general, without even realizing it.

I've had a mixture of good and bad and think this is to be expected with all relationships as it's a learning curve.

I'd say a good friendship is far more reliable and less hassle than a relationship.

All my relationships only lasted between two week to a month. All of them were nuts, especially the one before my last. She had borderline personality disorder, but that didn't excuse the fact she sent me child porn. *shudders*

I can't tell you how many women have lost interest when they've realized that I'm a loner not because I'm the cool aloof above-it-all guy, but because I'm the weird-as-fuck guy.

Actually, I probably could tell you how many, but the number wouldn't sound that impressive. Still, it's been a noticeable pattern.

The experience made me very self-conscious, since I was only 18. I look back on it as an age of self-illiteracy.

I don't want to see it, but I WAS weird. I didn't know what "normal" relationship behavior was. I remember as conversation gradually became forced, her screaming into the phone once: "CAN'T WE HAVE A NORMAL CONVERSATION?! !" She got annoyed with me pretty fast once her illusions about me were displaced by actual data....

So look for women/girls who aren't so judgemental

Unfortunately they probably wont be as pretty/impressive to your friends but it's your choice...

^^^hard to know whether or not they're the judgemental type until you've been around them long enough to give them a chance be judgemental.

And it's not just them being judgemental that can cause reactions like that. Aspie relationship behavior can push even good patient partners to their breaking point.

And why the assumption that he's picking girls based on how much they'll impress his friends? Seems a little unfair.

Well I can suss out a judgemental idiot without them even havign to speak so it's not that hard
- it's all about how much respect they show you - how look at you, how they react expression-wise when you speak and how they respond to what you say

If they make you feel good after interacting with them they're ok if not they aren't - it's as basic as that

All the clues are there but typically if a person is attractive these are often overlooked

Judgemental types are more likely to be NT and more likely to have standard good looks

If you can figure people out that well without them even having to speak, you must be some kind of super-aspie. Most of us are worse at reading people than NTs are, not better at it like you seem to be.

No, I'd say because people are often really disrespectful and judgemental towards me, this is what I'm used to and hence I've been able to use my aspie systemising and analytical skills to classify what all the different permutations of looks mean in terms of what a person is like
ie I've developed a good system that equates facial expressions/behaviour/type of language used with character type.

I'd say that I do have very high expectations for the behaviour of other people but my bad experiences have made me develop a zero-tolerance approach to disrespectful people due to all the mental trauma they have caused me hence it's a self-defence thing to cut disrespect shown down to an unavoidable minimum.

It was my behavior in part. Though I'm not sure how much.

She was also quite selfish, the only child of wealthy parents - not the sort to stray from getting what she wanted. Her future was already given to her by privilege. She cried when she didn't get into Brown, and had to "settle" for BU (the college where my granddad was a professor - awkward). Her snobbishness was ridiculous.

I read her LiveJournal some years later (2006-ish) - she looked back at me as "a huge mistake." Because of a penchant for dramatic things which happened to her.

I don't have any friends to impress, so, that's OK

Last edited by abyssquick on 10 Dec 2012, 10:30 am, edited 3 times in total.

I can "read" people by complex behavior patterns. I make a point of being social so I can get better at it - it's really hard to see my oddness these days.