Sunday, 04 January 2009

• I Felt Abandoned - Was I A Needy GF?

  This is a guest blog submitted by bike_for_life.
  
  My last relationship lasted roughly two months. My longest has been three months long, but I am usually single because I don't pursue something unless I think it could lead to marriage, and it is very difficult finding your lifetime mate in a small, rural college town.  It's been almost three years since I've had a bona fide boyfriend (I've dated in between, but nothing substantial). 

  This last one had the potential to get serious, but he began distancing himself.  We said we were going to make out at his workplace on a Thursday.  We planned it all out and I came to visit him, but he hardly touched me. I emailed him with possible plans for our next date, which we agreed would be Saturday.  He never responded to these plans because he said he didn't think they were immediate; apparently I had put "Saturday" only in the title of the message and he didn't read the title. I didn't receive a call all Friday or Saturday, so I went home to my parents' place because I didn't want to be alone.
  

  I didn't call him because I figured that I had already made contact, so the ball was in his court and I didn't want to annoy him or appear needy. He called on Sunday as if nothing was wrong and wanted to make plans for the week.  I confronted him on this distancing a few days later, but he told me that he would never be passive-aggressive with me and he would let me know, in no uncertain terms, if he needed space.

  He then told me that one of his friends would be visiting the next weekend, so he would be booked. He also mentioned that they would probably take shrooms together (he smoked pot multiple times during the week, which really bothered me because I don't use.We had a few talks about this, but, "ultimately, it's the user's decision.")  The following weekend mimicked the first.  I didn't hear from him until Sunday, and I didn't call him because (1) I was afraid of calling when he was tripping (2) I didn't want to appear needy because he told me he would be busy (3) I was studying for my final exams.  All the same, it would have been nice to receive a call from him to check up on my studying.

  We got together on Tuesday, cooked supper together at his place and played Risk with his friends until 1 a.m.  Interestingly, he did not ask me to stay over, which was something that I had done before - in fact, we had not had alone time in two weeks. We made tentative plans for the following day, but when he called me later, he told me that he was going to go on a midnight nature walk with his friends. 
  

  I asked if they would be smoking pot; he told me "probably," but I was welcome to come with them. I was somewhat astounded because he knew his habit bothered me - part of our agreement is that he wouldn't be high around me - and we hadn't made out in so long. Plus, we wouldn't be seeing each other for a month or so because break was coming up. In the end, I told him that our time with his friends was not the same as just our time together and that I couldn't come out so late because I hadn't started studying for my last final at 8:30 a.m. the next day. I told him that I was upset because I had been looking forward to seeing him before we left for break.

  The next day, we ended up breaking up because I felt that he wasn't present in the relationship. I felt alone while seeing him, especially towards the end, because he'd always had time for his friends. We stopped going on dates (which he made a point of scheduling in the beginning); stopped making out; stopped spending the night at each other's places; email correspondence declined; texting declined; phone calls became sparse.
  

  He didn't seem to understand why I felt alone and said he was content with things. He said things got hectic around finals, but I told him that he always seemed to have time for his friends. I told him I liked his friends, but that I wanted to date him, not them. And, lastly, I said that I couldn't grow with him if we never spent time together. We're technically on a break, but I haven't heard from him since and I'm considering myself single.

  These are my questions:

  1) Was I wrong to feel as alone as I did in that relationship?
  2) Was I too needy in expecting alone time even though we had made only tentative plans?
  3) Should I have called on those weekends?
  4) Was I wrong to object to his drug use? 

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