Ask the 2+2 Ladies Your Questions

[SoloAJ]

Good post VR. Wish I could have read it a couple months ago. Before or after the breakup. Bleh. It wouldn't have changed the outcome, but it certainly would have helped me understand what was going to happen/happening.

I find it particularly strange that all of those questions you asked, I answered yes to. Which seems to have deemed my relationship as something very rare and special. Yet once she dumped me for wanting to wait a couple years to get married, she probably wouldn't have answered yes to any of those.

I guess I deeply wounded her by telling her, honestly, that I wanted to wait until we were out of college to get married. That deep gaping pain was apparently enough for her to hate me forever.

Standard response by her? Seems so possible according to your post....

[Anacardo]

No, that's not the same thing at all, I don't think. As I understand it, you just told her you wanted to wait on tying the knot, not 'I wanna go off into the wild world, [censored] a few different broads, then maybe come back to you and settle down if I don't find anything that grabs me,' right? One's standard, just different timetables; the other's deeply disrespectful to the other person's dignity and feelings. I get the feeling you may not be telling the whole story, but some girls have a remarkable hidden shallow streak to them. My best friend dated the same girl all through college; they were on the rocks, things got better, most assumed marriage was an inevitability. Then he spent a semester in law school and decided he didn't want to be a lawyer; he didn't know what he wanted to do, and within a month she dumped him. She said all kinds of stuff about how it was because 'she couldn't trust him b/c he didn't consult her on their future,' and suchlike eyebrow-raisers, but in reality, she thought she was going to be married to a Man of Means, with a highfalutin' profession, and when it wasn't going to happen, it pissed her off.

I think nearly all early relationships are like that - fundamentally codependent and selfish. My experiences with my first 'girlfriend' were way different - we had nothing in common but sex and no passion; we were just people who amused each other and screwed. I used to feel kinda left out by that, but now I'm starting to think I was pretty lucky.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
Katy,

You need to stop being quite so easily baffled and/or taken aback. It makes for slow going and needless sidetracking, halts, cumbersome explanations, etc.

If you can't manage that, then I suggest you simply move on when you don't understand something.

Cheers,

'Cardo.

[/ QUOTE ]


wtf... Sounds like you need some of your own advice Cardo...

[ QUOTE ]
deeply disrespectful to the other person's dignity and feelings.

[/ QUOTE ]

[katyseagull]

[ QUOTE ]
She said all kinds of stuff about how it was because 'she couldn't trust him b/c he didn't consult her on their future,' and suchlike eyebrow-raisers, but in reality, she thought she was going to be married to a Man of Means, with a highfalutin' profession, and when it wasn't going to happen, it pissed her off.



[/ QUOTE ]

Geez, when you put it like that it makes her sound kinda shallow [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] I'm sure she had some solid reasons. I want to hear her side of the story.

The fact is that most people want to hook up with someone who's attractive to them. And attractive doesn't only mean physical characteristics but also how confident, composed, and motivated that other person is. Someone who is not motivated or not employed (or perhaps even living in their mom's basement) doesn't seem attractive to a lot of girls. Not saying your best friend was living in his mom's basement but if he was actually a college dropout with no gameplan and no employment perhaps he looked less attractive in her eyes? I don't know, just throwing that out there.

If in fact she was just in it for the prestige and money then he's better off without her. It was a bad fit and she did him a favor.


edited to say: oops, read that as your brother not your best friend.

[Anacardo]

One, he might as well be my brother. Two, I'm not sure he was the greatest boyfriend. Three, that seems like a pretty sketchy answer on your part, so I'm not sure you appreciate the full dimensions of the situation. They dated for like four years - lived together for a while - been through stuff - were planning a life together. Then (well, my bias is obvious and unapologetical) he comes to a crossroads in his life, decides he's not doing what he wants to do (super-standard), cuts his losses and needs some time to think. She plays this up into something it's absolutely not, and takes a hike. He's not 'unmotivated.' I'm unmotivated, or at least have never encountered that Orwellian sense of life-purpose. This guy's one of the highest-achieving people I know, obsessed with the idea of goals and making them happen. He didn't turn into a slacker, he just dead-ended on a bad idea. I feel fairly sure that you do not seriously mean to suggest that a reverse and readjustment of one's career is a good reason to stop loving someone, although obviously worse reasons are acted on every day.

Yours is a puzzling standard of manhood. Your beau ideal almost seems to be some dude with a three-piece suit glued to his back, who doesn't have time to come back from the office for dinner and a roll in the hay. Actually, from a Keirseyan perspective, that might be spot on; google "ENTJ."
As a footnote, of all the people (all men) I have known who fit this description, I have either loathed them instantly or come to loathe them in due time. Maybe that's why your conception of 'what women want' consistently irks me.

For the curious, he is in fact way better off. That whole affair [censored] with his head pretty good, but he's in grad school now, doing what he wants to do, and his new GF might be the hottest girl I've ever met in the flesh; I don't even like being in the same room with her. [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[Anacardo]

Blarg,

Tidy your box. TY.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
Katy,

You need to stop being quite so easily baffled and/or taken aback. It makes for slow going and needless sidetracking, halts, cumbersome explanations, etc.

If you can't manage that, then I suggest you simply move on when you don't understand something.

Cheers,

'Cardo.

[/ QUOTE ]


Cardo,

Okay, any more of this condescending stuff, I'll give you a 1 day break to cool it. If anything, it's more distracting the whole thread than anything else you mention.

We demand a certain respectfulness arund here, and we're easy going, but you've been given more than enough warnings now, even if you think you're being playful or whatever about it.

You are most welcome here, but no more of this please.

[plusEVdg]

Thanks for the thoughts, absolutely everything you said hit the nail exactly on the head. I still don't know what my best plan is here. I think that I may be considering breaking up too eary. Frankly, a lot could change in the next 6 months, year or two years. I think that since the relationship has no problems now, there really isn't any reason to end it. I am happy to let the relationship run its course. Maybe I will want to marry her in another 3 years. Maybe breaking up will happen more naturally down the road. I really don't know whats going to happen, but I guess thats the spice of life.

[Anacardo]

EV,

Whom are you addressing?

[plusEVdg]

VoraciousReader, you are a gem [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]