Irreverentad's Relationship Advice Thread

[El Zen]

27 minutes ago, AndyClarke said:

You don't need to go dating

I’ve slightly paraphrased Dr. Seuss:

I do not like to be alone

I do not like it on my own

I do not like to masturbate

I do not like the bachelor’s meal I ate

I do not like it by myself

I do not like the empty shelf

I do not like green eggs and ham

I do not like it, but I am

[theboyangel]

19 minutes ago, El Zen said:

I’ve slightly paraphrased Dr. Seuss:

I do not like to be alone

I do not like it on my own

I do not like to masturbate

I do not like the bachelor’s meal I ate

I do not like it by myself

I do not like the empty shelf

I do not like green eggs and ham

I do not like it, but I am

Please tell me that’s your dating app profile

[El Zen]

11 minutes ago, theboyangel said:

Please tell me that’s your dating app profile

I might actually try that for a laugh when I venture into that realm again eventually.

[Rugeley Villa]

I think prostitutes are great for taking the emotional aspect out of things. There are worse ways to spend 30, 40 quid etc 

[El Zen]

23 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I think prostitutes are great for taking the emotional aspect out of things. There are worse ways to spend 30, 40 quid etc 

I would not like to pay for love

I would rather shag a glove

I wouldn’t ever see a whore

I would find it quite a bore

I wouldn’t go with prostitutes

I’d hate the shame it constitutes

I wouldn’t trade your sex for cash

I would rather my own bishop bash

[mjmooney]

16 minutes ago, El Zen said:

I would not like to pay for love

I would rather shag a glove

I wouldn’t ever see a whore

I would find it quite a bore

I wouldn’t go with prostitutes

I’d hate the shame it constitutes

I wouldn’t trade your sex for cash

I would rather my own bishop bash

UK appoints its first Norwegian Poet Laureate. 

[Hughes]

23 hours ago, El Zen said:

Many of you will be aware from this thread what I’ve been through in 2022. I haven’t really updated you on the situation, mostly because I know *she* used to read/still reads what I post on her, and on several occassions has used this against me. 

But, f*** it, venting on here is therapeutic and I’m not in a very good place right now, so here it goes. 

I’m kind of getting used to the practical side of things. I’m doing okay on that front, even if money is far tighter than I’d like with the mortgage and the general rising cost of living. For a while, I sort of enjoyed the freedom and the benefits of being alone and being single. I’ve done things I enjoy doing but didn’t do when I was still married, like doing away days and all day sessions in the pub with my mates. I’ve met and hung out with people I wouldn’t otherwise have met. For a while, I thought I was doing fine, ready to embrace my new life. 

Then something happened a little over a month ago. I don’t know what it was, but suddenly I was back full of grief, full of anger, desperately missing my old life, desperately missing my wife. I felt guilty about not staying with her for the sake of my son, who’s been struggling a bit to come to terms with his new situation as well. 

I’ve tried to rationalise the situation, and I realise that these feelings are perfectly normal, probably even inevitable. Still, I find myself in a dark place. I’m an attractive young guy, there is no shortage of options, but I’m struggling to motivate myself for the whole dating scene at the moment. I’m certainly not over what happened to me. I am full of anger and rage, completely unable to accept and come to terms with ending up here. I want to scream my anger to her face, I want to see her beg for forgiveness, I want her to feel my pain. I know that won’t happen. She’s too weak, too selfish. 

I have such a strong sense of justice, such a strong moral compass. I have a hard enough time accepting injustice as it is. I’m kind of worried I’ll never be able to fully put this behind me. Both on behalf of myself, but also on behalf of my son, who is an even more innocent victim of her selfish stupidity than myself. Part of me actively hates her, part of me desperately misses her. 

I want to scream. 

Boring answer my friend, but this is true: What you are experiencing now is 100% normal and to be expected. It fits the "profile" perfectly. It just takes time, but it WILL be fine in the end. Just hang in there and keep turning up for the all day sessions in the pub with your mates  ! You are in fact correct; you are an attractive young guy (sort of...) so I predict within the next 12 months your pub sessions will become more "restricted" due to some foxy and intelligent woman (although I would also expect you to never completely disappear again)...  

[El Zen]

1 hour ago, Hughes said:

Boring answer my friend, but this is true: What you are experiencing now is 100% normal and to be expected. It fits the "profile" perfectly. It just takes time, but it WILL be fine in the end. Just hang in there and keep turning up for the all day sessions in the pub with your mates  ! You are in fact correct; you are an attractive young guy (sort of...) so I predict within the next 12 months your pub sessions will become more "restricted" due to some foxy and intelligent woman (although I would also expect you to never completely disappear again)...  

Lots of love, buddy. I keep forgetting I have IRL friends who can read this and call me out on my outlandish claims to attractiveness and youth

(And I wouldn’t dream of it. Not be too sappy, but it really means too much to me.) 

[rjw63]

10 hours ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I think prostitutes are great for taking the emotional aspect out of things. There are worse ways to spend 30, 40 quid etc 

Forty quid? 

When did you last use one, 1978???

[Xela]

1 minute ago, rjw63 said:

Forty quid? 

When did you last use one, 1978???

Bargain 'cost of living crisis' deals in Rugeley by the sounds of it. Brings a whole new meaning to "Eat out to Help out"

[Demitri_C]

16 minutes ago, rjw63 said:

Forty quid? 

When did you last use one, 1978???

Thats what £40 would get you these days

[Rugeley Villa]

11 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

Thats what £40 would get you these days

Nah, she’d be about 60 quid in Wolvo 

[El Zen]

6 minutes ago, Genie said:

Can you deny the twitter account is yours? 

Nah. And I’ve not done anything wrong anyway.

[El Zen]

I’ve been asked to delete the previous couple of posts. If anyone who’s quoted me could do the same, that would be great. Ta.

[lapal_fan]

6 hours ago, El Zen said:

I’ve been asked to delete the previous couple of posts. If anyone who’s quoted me could do the same, that would be great. Ta.

tell the lady ull only do that if she sends nudes lol

- ???

- profit 

[Xela]

Keep your spirits up @El Zen

Don't let people dictate what you can and can't do now you are a single man. 

[villaajax]

I've spoken to a few female friends and family about this to get their take, from a female perspective, but I've not actually spoken to any men about this so for no good reason I thought I'd open myself up to VT. I didn't mention this to anyone until it kind of blew up, then recounted the timeline of events so I'll do the same here.

I really like this professional snowboarder, I mean, this girl at work... She joined at the end of September and maybe a week or two in, somebody mentioned to her that I'm half Dutch, as she is Dutch herself. So she came over and introduced herself and we kind of hit it off. We'd speak a little Dutch, relate about Dutch food and cultural things and just generally chat about whatever. She'd come and stop by at my desk just about every day for a chat and have a stroopwafel, it was great. One day she asks me if I have Instagram, I said I do and she asked if she could follow me, I said of course, so we connected on there and started chatting outside of work too, just as before, maybe a little more personally that office chat but nothing at all, you know, like that... in the office, I noticed more that she'd be a little shy around me, sometimes hiding her smile. When we'd talk she'd sometimes throw in a compliment and when we'd chat outside of work, sometimes she'd be a bit more, I wouldn't say flirty but maybe playful.
Now, I am terrible at picking up signs, on more than one occasion when I've been out with friends I've had girls come over and talk to me and when they'd go away again, my friend would say "I think she was flirting with you, mate..." and I'd say "What, with me?!" but at this point I was starting to think "maybe she likes me a little?" but as she's 22 and I'm 32, I thought, I do like her and enjoy her company but this age gap is a little big...
So things continued and coming up to the office Christmas party, she was asking me to come along so we could hang out but I'd already decided not to go and it was all booked by then anyway, plus the World Cup was on . So I was at home, wathcing the football and I start to get notifications on my phone then I've received a message from her, then another and another. I look at the short preview and see she's making a few attempts at spelling my name so I know she'd probably had a few at the party and I think to myself "I'm not sure I should get into this conversation right now...". In the end I think I had 6 or more messages but when I went in to read them, they'd been deleted. So that got my mind going.
The next day at work she seemed to avoid me and then eventually came over and said a very awkward Hello and rushed off again. That evening I sent her a message just to say I know she had sent me messages but I hadn't seen them and not to feel awkward of embarassed about it, it's absolutely fine. She then explained her got drunk and her friends had to take her phone off her and delete the messages.
On her last day in the office before Christmas she left me a card with a lovely message in there, just to say she was plased to have met me and helping her settle in, but she'd also given it a good spray with her perfume. Now at this point everyone I've told this to has said "She really likes you then?!". Well, as I go on to say... apparently not...

She deactivates her IG account over Christmas so we don't get to speak but in the new year, she just seems a little different with me, not coming over to speak so often, still friendly but it doesn't feel the same. Previously I had mentioned to her a great Sushi restaurant as we both like Sushi and she was really up for going, so I asked her if she wanted to go for her birthday. She was up for it, arranged a time and day that suited her, got it all booked, she seemed excited for it. Then 2am the morning of, she messages me to say she feels unwell and has to cancel and that was that. No more said. So okay, no worries.
I notice that in the office she's still got that shyness around me, still hiding her smile and that. Then one afternoon I jokingly said to her that she was only friends with me for my stroopwafels. She took that bad. I had to apologise to her...

So by this point I'm thinking, I really do like this girl, I actually look forward to work as I'll see her and spending any amount of time with her brings me happiness that I've not felt in many years. She seems to like me. That age gap is a little big but forget it. So I messaged her to say I'd been thinking about how things were and about the time she sent me those deleted messages, the card with the perfume, amongst other things, and said that if I was adding these things up right, I want her to know I feel kind of the same way.
I got a pretty snappy response around 1am telling me we're colleagues and I'm older and she has no feelings and didn't know what I was getting at. I apologised but she didn't read it until the morning, then deactivated her account.
That week at work, I WFH on the Monday, Tuesday I don't see her, Wednesday I see her down her end of the office but I don't think she came up my end all day. Thursday, I had to go down her end, twice. First time she's at the copier and sees me and turns her back on me. Later on I have to go even closer to her, she just looks through me like I'm not there. On the Friday morning, I'm sat there thinking "She hates me, she doesn't want to talk to me anymore, I don't know how to fix this... maybe I give it time?" with that I see she's heading my way and I catch her eye. I'm about to look away but notice that shes giving me a big smile... She comes and sits down next to me and says she wants to apologise for what she said and it was just anxiety and she took it out on me. Then then asked me if what I said was true? I was a bit taken aback at this sudden change and being put on the spot I just kind of grinned and said "Well... you know..." indicating YES! and she gave me such a big smile. I then asked if everything wa good? and continuing to smile she gave me two thumbs up, then said she needed to go back to her work. Got up, gave me another smile and went off. For the rest of the day, whenever she'd pass, she'd give me a big smile. I was confused as hell about where I now stood but I thought "I've not slept at all this week, I'm just going to leave this as it for now".

I attempted to speak to her the following Friday and she didn't have time, then went home early. So the following Friday I asked if she had a minute to speak and she did. So for clarity I asked "You asked me if what I said was true... is it true what you said?" "Yes, it's not reciprocal. I don't think office relationships are a good idea" and that was kind of that... feeling a little awkward we both went back about our business.

Since then we speak, we're friendly, I had to go to Holland and I brought her some stuff back (some that she'd asked for and some bits I knew she'd like) and other times it's like I don't exist to her.

What the hell? She's got a real hold over me and I wish she'd just give me a chance because I know it would be great. Most people I've spoken to say "I think she does like you but... she seems confused" and some say "She sounds like a nightmare, you've dodged that one". What does VT say?

[Genie]

7 hours ago, villaajax said:

What does VT say?

I think you know the answer to that… DHUTWU.

On a serious note, sounds like she has something going on in her personal life. Maybe she has an on/off partner lurking behind the scenes?

[rjw63]

8 hours ago, villaajax said:

What does VT say?

Tl;dr

 

 

Seriously, she sounds like a bit of a game player who likes messing you about. 

Ask her out on a proper date. If she says no, just blank her from then on. 

If she says yes, as in the above reply, DHUTWU. 

[Davkaus]

Never thought I'd say this in this thread, but I agree with Rob

If things are as presented in that post, and we always get a slightly skewed perspective and who knows what she's really thinking, you've been strung along for months.

Time to take the "shit or get off the pot" mindset. Ask her out, with no ambiguity or games. If she says yes, happy days, check back in for your next mission. If she says no or shies away, move on, cut out this Instagram chats and the "will she won't she" games, and keep it to a professional relationship.