I had so much hope and excitement for a new connection
I have been getting to know this girl during this semester, and things picked up with more conversation and my interest in her grew a lot. We are in the same club at school and one day she offered people to come visit her at work. She didn't specify who but pointed in my general area with 2 others nearby. After a day or two I took that to be serious so I decided not to waste anymore time. We have about an 8 year gap but at my age I know I would be very lucky if I could find someone even within 5 years my age since most people are married.
So I think I spent about 2 weeks getting to know her even more 1 on 1. She seemed like she could handle my focus and attention so I didn't worry. I know for a fact she is single as well.
One day she comes to the club meeting and just dodges me. She doesn't say hello and talks to other people and sat away from me, she only asked 1 question from me that whole day (all of this is not normal). So I am a bit upset about this, I went home and struggled to be relaxed because I just got rejected again. I decided that whatever happened can't happen again, so I went straight to wall and bunker building.
There's some signs indicating maybe she's messing with me, because after getting dodged she walks by my study area on another day and waves to the people in the room but no one noticed except me. So I looked up and hesitated but eventually waved back. When people do those kinds of things it usually means they want my attention but won't give me all of what i'm looking for. She also walked away looking as if she regretted waiting for someone to notice her.
Anyway this is the pattern, and now it's been a week or two since and yesterday she was in my study group/room and immediately started saying hi and stuff. But I am so defensive now at this point I respond with very little and turn the conversation off. She got the hint and turned back to her work, but I don't even know what to do now.
For me getting ignored like this is now a major flaw I see that I don't think is recoverable on her part (this also has a lot to do with not having the energy to accept this from a girl I like anymore). However, I still have to work with her in the club so I don't want to be petty and a cry baby but I felt a bit justified killing the conversation so far. Things aren't really awkward but I want to be able to stop thinking about her because it might be too stressful to continue trying to understand her.
I've been single for over 20 years and another event like this has me really burnt out on girls, or just trying in general.
@jetm0t0
Ah yes, rejection really hurts. It's OK to take a bit of time processing this. I'm sorry you are having to go thru this. It is sad that you feel the need to build walls. It's natural to want to try to protect yourself from hurt. But long term that defensiveness can prevent you achieving your goals. So it's great that you are looking into why you are doing this. Why do you think rejection is so painful for you?
I notice that quite a bit of what you write is ascribing motivations to the actions of other people. She did this, she has feelings for me. She did that, she's messing with me. Etc. This is a very normal common thing to do, and it's great that you are trying to understand what happened, but in my experience guessing motivations of other people is generally unhelpful. There are hundreds of reasons why a person might do a certain thing. Trying to guess the right reason is really risky. Simple probability suggests that on most occasions the guess will be wrong. Do you think this is helping you?
And something perhaps more challenging to consider. I'm curious about your choice of a particular word. You say you have been single 20 years. So I guess you are adult. And yet you refer to women as girls. Assuming you are male, are you a boy or a man? The info in your post does suggest you are adult. Do you maybe struggle with the concept of women as equals? Otherwise, why would you be diminishing them to the level of children? Of course, we all want to pretend that we are still 21. No one, including myself, wants to admit they are getting old, lol. But I wonder if developing more maturity in your approach might help you.
Best of wishes. Self reflection is really challenging. But the growth that comes from it is hugely rewarding. So it's great to see you taking steps to try to understand what is happening. I wish you all the best in your journey.
@Clio9876
Trying to take away something here. I do check myself on analyzing too much, but one reason I do it is that I am very good at it. Anyways, I understand where it becomes a problem when I'm wrong. I'm glad there's been some looking into about my posts, but the point of my post is literally saying I am venting but done trying to see if things will line up for us and work towards a relationship. I was hoping to hear an echo of "yes, this is kind of toxic to imagine you are not a real person in the same room and childish."
"And yet you refer to women as girls" This is a problem? Yes, I'm an adult. I also refer to women as girls because it's not deragatory. I don't mind being called a boy, the point is that I wasn't interested in debating about age. It's all synonymous and I'm not writing a love letter to someone where fine details are needed. It's not an MLA formatted paper where my speaking tone has to match my written tone.
Maybe you read my post as lazy but I was simplifying the message while not attacking women. All in all I am still the most confused person when it comes to why things keep falling apart when I try to date. It makes no sense and it hasn't gotten any easer when I've modified what I'm looking for. For instance, I am reducing my list of things I want like tons of kids, now I want very little 1 or 2 kids if that.
