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Okay well in light of all this extra info I might have to agree that she could just be purposely keeping you in on her back burner as a backup or plan B. She obviously finds you appealing enough in some regard, so well done on whatever that is. (Handsome? Financially successful? It's something like that or perhaps a combination of factors.) Heck, she might not even have a real Plan A and is probably a fool for not taking you seriously enough, but you know how people are these days, especially hot chicks. Probably thinks there's something better around the corner...that Prince William will get tired of Kate and start blowin' up her spot or something (Exageration but the point stands). These are the kind of games women play with men bro. From your previous description of her, she doesn't sound like a winner for you anyway. Bummer.
For women, it's certainly true that when you're young and hot, you'll have no trouble attracting men. Whether those men want a relationship or just sex is another story. As you get older, you no longer have youth on your side. You can work out and eat healthy, but that'll only go so far. And now you have to compete with younger women. When I first got involved with this woman, she was in her late 20s. Now she's in her mid 30s. Maybe she's not happy with the kind of men she's able to attract now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
Most of the time, there's more to it. Typically, women don't look up old boyfriends out of the blue in order to catch up.
To me, the key isn't in what she has said but in how you replied. Given the fact that you gave her a brief -- And, sounds like, perfunctory -- response, then you really didn't give her much encouragement. So she moved on.
So are you actually interested in pursuing this? If so, write her back in less of a "just the facts" kind of note. If not, then forget it. And lose her e-mail address.
I agree that there's probably more to it. My response was neither encouraging nor discouraging. I didn't ignore her or tell her to jump off a cliff. But I didn't act like I was especially interested in talking to her. The truth is that I have no interest in her. So if she emails again, I'll be cordial at best, but nothing more. Hopefully she'll realize that you can't treat someone like a Plan B.
If she's in her mid 30's now, she knows what's up. She might be hot still, but the losers and players she's wasted too much time on probably ain't ever going to get her where she wants to be. Bummer for her.
The best revenge for you is to find somebody better and more worthy of your attention than she is and be happy. I'd have serious issues with someone who came crawling back at some point after doing me wrong. Why should I let you have what you want now when you wouldn't let me have what I wanted then? Call it a ego problem perhaps.
You thought she was out of your league and you hit it anyway. You won IMO.
From a female's perspective, here's what I think about her. By the way, I've never treated anyone this way & never will. I'm much nicer.
She seems like a real flake who doesn't know what she wants. I wouldn't contact her anymore, period, I don't care what she says. Even if she is finally up front & honest & says that she regrets her actions & really likes you & wants to start over & actually apologizes, then I'd honestly still be wary & probably still not pursue it.
Do you genuinely like this girl at all? Hopefully not because I think if you get involved with her, you're going to be hurt down the road. She seems to enjoy playing you like a violin & being able to toss you back & forth like a fish on a line whenever she wants & she thinks that just because a little time passes, that you should forget everything from the past. My BF's loser dad is like this...never apologizes, but thinks a passing of time solves everything, which it most definitely does not!
DO NOT CONTACT HER OR REPLY TO HER EVER AGAIN! I don't care if she's good in the sack or whatever. Don't you let yourself be sucked back into her trap! She's done way too much of the same lousy things & she won't stop. But you should show her that you're going to stop this BS & she can find another sucker. She also seems like she could have been marrried all this time & probably still is now. After all, all of your contact with her is long distane so she knows her husband will never know about you & you never see her for long to know anything deeper.
....Now I'm trying not to read too much into this. Maybe she was just curious and wanted to see what I was doing these days. Maybe she was hoping to patch things up. Maybe she was fishing to see if I was seeing anyone. I did mention that I was still single and didn't have any kids. The fact that I never heard back from her about her life makes me wonder if she just wanted to see if I was still single. Perhaps I could hear from the women on this. Suppose there was a guy who pursued you. But you treated him badly and he finally got fed up and told you off. Why would you email him years later? And if so, why would you do so, especially if that person made it clear he didn't want to talk to you ever again?
I have a middle-aged female friend, who is married and has two children in their late teens and early twenties. She has done this recently with three men from her past. I thought it was a bit strange, and we talked about it. She was rather uncomfortable looking at these out-of-the-blue-after-all-these-years contacts. In the end, she seems to have done it because she finds her present situation unsatisfying and is in a what-if frame of mind.
She rather huffily dismissed the two guys whose responses indicated that they had happy lives, but was even more dismissive of the one who declared himself to be unhappy with where he was at. I suggested that perhaps she was fishing for some contact who would magically remove her own unhappiness by rekindling a relationship, at least via email, as she clearly was angry that two of these guys had great lives, and contemptuous of the one whose life was as flat and unfulfilled as hers.
She burst into tears.
Maybe you should just be grateful, and let it go at that.
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Having now gone through the entire thread and read your more expanded story of what happened, I have to say that it sounds like the woman you are discussing is using you as her "what-if" guy. I think - if this is the case - that it makes you not very much of a real person, but more of an idea or mental fixation of hers. Sounds like poison to me.
Not only is she in her mid 30s, she's also a mother living in a small conservative city in the Midwest. So I'm sure that makes it a bit tougher as far as dating is concerned. But I'm not bitter or wishing for her to end up alone and miserable. I suppose I could've lied and told her I was seeing someone really terrific. But I don't believe in trying to make people jealous. Whether she regrets how she treated me, I'll never know.
Forever Blue,
By her own admission, she has a really hard time with relationships. I think that's why she reaches out to me. When things don't work out with whoever she's seeing or the holidays roll around and she's alone, she probably figures I'll be there for her to talk to. At this point, I'm neither expecting nor hoping for an apology. And it wouldn't make any difference anyway. She used up all her second chances. As far as how I feel about her, it's hard to like someone you don't respect. She's selfish and incapable of apologizing. A lot of people have that problem. They think apologizing makes you look weak, hence the reason we have people like Mitt Romney writing books entitled No Apologies.
kevxu,
I think a lot of people look back and ask "what if?" I do that a lot when it comes to my career. This woman might be doing the same thing with me. The truth is she and I have very little in common, certainly not enough to build a long-term relationship on. But maybe when you're alone or you've just had another relationship end, you start to wonder if that guy you passed on wasn't so bad after all. Sure you have nothing in common, but he treated you well and accepted you the way you are, flaws and all. Some people just have a hard time being alone. It doesn't help that we live in a culture that seems to think there's something wrong with you if you're still single. Personally, I would rather be alone than end up with someone who, however nice, just wasn't right for me.
If she wanted a FWB, she wouldn't need to fly to another city. She's a very attractive woman who'd have no trouble finding guys to sleep with in her own city. I suspect that's the problem. She can't make a relationship last. Maybe these guys get tired of her, leaving her feel unwanted and so she goes looking for an ego boost.
She doesn't just want a booty call but someone she feels she has "history" with. Look, you're never going to have a serious lasting conventional relationship with this woman. You have two choices. Forget her completely and move on, or let her unexpectedly blow into your life every now and then for some friendship and sex and then just as suddenly blow away for awhile.
She doesn't just want a booty call but someone she feels she has "history" with. Look, you're never going to have a serious lasting conventional relationship with this woman. You have two choices. Forget her completely and move on, or let her unexpectedly blow into your life every now and then for some friendship and sex and then just as suddenly blow away for awhile.
I moved on a long time ago. She's the one who contacted me. And if I wanted a FWB, I could find one here.
I moved on a long time ago. She's the one who contacted me. And if I wanted a FWB, I could find one here.
Keep telling yourself that. If you had really moved on you'd have ignored and deleted her email not answered it then publicly analyzed what it could all mean.
Keep telling yourself that. If you had really moved on you'd have ignored and deleted her email not answered it then publicly analyzed what it could all mean.
Wrong. Ignoring and deleting someone's email doesn't prove that you've moved on. It just means you know how to hit the DELETE key. As an earlier poster correctly pointed out, what matters isn't whether you replied or not, but rather HOW you replied. That conveys a lot more about your state of mind than simply saying nothing. In this case, my response to her was terse and perfunctory making it clear that I'm not angry at her, but nor am I interested in giving her a second chance. Given that she hasn't responded in 2 weeks, I'd say it's safe to say she finally got the message.
As for starting a thread to discuss it, that too isn't evidence of not having moved on. It's called trying to learn from someone's behavior and gain insight so you can apply it when meeting new people. The sad truth is that there are a lot of people out there who are selfish users just like this woman. This thread is about understanding such people and why they behave the way they do and learning to recognize them more easily. If you don't talk about such people and just ignore them, then guess what happens. You don't really learn from the experience and you're more likely to make the same mistake. BTW, did it ever occur to you that someone else might benefit from this thread? Maybe someone else is being treated the same way, but they don't fully recognize it. A lot of us don't see the things we're doing wrong until we notice someone else doing it too.
You know, DC, I've had a couple of those via Facebook. With one, it was great to catch up. I thought it was perfectly innocent until she started in with the "Why did we ever break up?" routine. Being a married man, I hit the Unfriend button just as fast as I possibly could.
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