DW Community Catch-up Thread
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Well – what credentials do the authors of these fad books, or even your life coach, have to be giving relationship advice? This is why I recommend Mira Kirshenbaum’s books. She’s been in practice for decades, and all her books are based on a large sample of client cases. She’s at least in her 60s and she’s seen it all. I’ve read all the same books you have, and there were some decent ideas in each, but only in “Is He Mr. Right?” did I feel like, oh, there’s a system here and she’s got it figured out. Don’t even go on a second date unless you feel strongly positive about it or at least could see yourself at some point introducing this guy as your boyfriend, making out with him, going on a weekend trip. “Dump the duds,” the ones with red flags like, uh, they lied to you and you don’t trust them. Or you don’t feel completely safe with them. Or it doesn’t feel easy to get close and stay close. Or you’re not really attracted, or you don’t really have fun. Keep going as long as all of those things are there. If you haven’t read it yet, I strongly suggest it, as you know. It totally reset my thinking.
I have it. I’ll have to read it again. Maybe it’ll help me figure out how I’m feeling right now.
I get that, and Mira would probably say something like, if you’re not sure how you feel about him, and he’s not acting like he’d like to be your boyfriend, move on. If you felt all 5 dimensions of chemistry with this guy, maybe it’d be worth asking him what he’d think about going on a date. But if you don’t really know, and he’s not asking, and if he’s doing stuff like talking to you about other women… he’s not worth spending time on. Unless you truly value his friendship and can keep him in that box.
Oh, he already likes me. I’m the one that put him in the friend zone when we first met. I’ve always loved his company. I’m just confused right now because I had the overwhelming desire to kiss him when we were hanging out the other day.
@annonymousse Well, my plan after that was to spend more time together. We usually just meet up for coffee every few weeks. The other day we’d been having coffee, talking as usual. When I got up to go, he hugged be goodbye as usual, and I suddenly didn’t want to let him go. I just wanted to keep my arms around him and bury my face in his neck and kiss him. And then I got home and I couldn’t stop thinking about how I wanted to kiss him!!
After that, my plan was to just spend time together more often so that I could figure out my feelings. I asked him Friday night if he wanted to come over and watch a movie (something we’ve done before but not recently). His reply was weird so I pushed him to explain. And then he told me that he has a hard time being alone with me so it’s best if we just stick to our coffee meet ups. So I asked him, is that why we haven’t been hanging out as much lately? And he said pretty much, yes.
Now I don’t know what to do. I’d like to explore this feeling but not sure what to say to him now without making a big deal out of it.
It sounds like he is keeping his distance and trying to maintain boundaries because he is trying to protect himself because he has feelings for you and [he thinks] you don’t reciprocate those feelings. It might be a great time to tell him what you’ve been feeling and ask if he would be interested in exploring the possibility of dating…if you want to.
Ummm… I’m not 100% sure, to be honest. We met on Tinder over a year ago. I remember being turned off by how shy and nervous he was to kiss me. I was thinking, “I want a confident manly man!” But I genuinely enjoyed his company and wanted him in my life, so I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to date because we’re at different places in our lives. Which is true, he’s an academic and is now planning to go to law school, however long that will take I have no clue. So for the past year we’ve just been meeting up for coffee now and then, we chat, we laugh, etc. He’s not the most masculine guy around, but I always enjoy my time with him.
I have no idea what brought on the sudden desire to kiss him. And just to be clear, I’m not trying to dive into anything with him. I would just like to figure out how I feel without making a big deal out of it.
