Well this particular guy is sending you mixed signals because you're letting him. You are waiting for him to decide he wants to be with you...and you're hoping you can just "be a presence" enough where he'll realize that he should be with you.
Bad plan.
Here's some hard truth. If he wanted to be with you in a relationship sense, you'd know. He'd have told you or at the very least attempted to woo you in some way. That's how men are. When we truly want something, we attempt to make it ours. We claim it. We piss on its leg. We do stuff. We don't just hang with you and only show affection when sex is involved. You're sleeping with him and taking that to mean he is interested. That's wrong. He is interested in sleeping with you.
Get it right, he likes you as a person and genuinely enjoys your company. He thinks of you as a great friend and somebody he can spend time with and do fun things. But in terms of romantic interest it ends there. There is a physical interest he has in you because you've allowed it to exist. He sleeps with you because he can.
So he's not really sending you mixed signals per se...he's telling you all that you need to know. If you told him that you wanted to stop sleeping with him, he would say okay. And then you all would just be best buds with no physical interaction.
I learned this the hard way. Fell hard and fast for a wonderful man who was very passionate in bed but gave me little to no affection outside of it. I thought it might be because his father had to live with him temporarily but no... He broke up with me because he didn't think he could fall in love with me. But I was apparently the most amazing woman he'd ever met and his best friend since high school. Small consolation, but better than nothing...
Get out now, honey. If he isn't gunning to touch you all the time, kiss you and hold your hand, you're wasting your time in a loveless relationship.
well said, ma'am.
Well said, indeed! You just described my last relationship PERFECTLY. We're currently still friends, but sometimes I want to end the friendship the way he ended the relationship. I wasn't enough for him to love, but the fact that he thought sex was worth ripping my heart out makes me question whether he knows the value of true friends...
Regardless, Girls' BFF's advice for the OP is spot on. He will never love you the way you want him to. But all the advice in the world isn't going to tell you that until you experience the relationship through to the end. Here's hoping, like me, you just make sure you never let it happen again. We're all worth more than that!
Agreed! I was in the same boat, just waiting for him to come around. When suddenly he drops the bomb "so I started seeing someone else and think I'm going to be committed to her soon" out of nowhere. That hurt bad, that I wasn't good enough to be in a relationship with him, but someone else was. On the one hand I want him to know how bad he hurt me, but on the other, he's not worth my time anymore.
PJ is right, he's giving you all the right signals, you just have to recognize them. Wish I had back then, but not sure I would have done anything different. Now, that I've been through it, I know better for next time. Hopefully we all will! Thanks for being there for us BFF!
Mine does exactly all of this (minus the puppy) except he is affectionate even without sex being involved. The problem is, he says he's "not happy where he is in life (job, living arrangement, etc) and doesn't "want to hurt me if he ends up moving away, so he won't give me the gf "title". I think it's a bullshit excuse :(
I'm in the same situation and it sucks!!. He says he wants to be in a relationship with me sometime but not NOW because he is not ready. We are exclusively together but i dont have the title of "gf".
meeeee too! wow, we're all in the same sitch, and we (probably) all felt like we were the only ones going through something "just like this"....
I've been dating my "non-boyfriend" for a year. Our "year anniversary" was Tuesday, and I said "happy anniversary" and he was all sketchy about me "trying to get my hooks into him"...so I said "fine, happy one year from the time we had our first meeting and started our non relationship". He laughed.
I should have really taken to heart what I said....Its like PJ says that we are ALLOWING THIS to keep happening if we don't put a stop to it.
Good lookin out BFF. And good luck my sistahs.
I've been with my ´´nonboyfriend´´ for about a year and 4moths now. He's super sweet to me, tell me that he loves me and that its just temporary until he gets his life settled (job, living situation,etc). It's been 8 months since I first told him I was tired of the situation, but always something happens to him and he says he just doesn't want to be in a relationship were he can't be a good boyfriend to me because it's not fair. We have talked about it several times but its always the same answer. It's still the same. I love him and want a serious relationship with him, I even asked him again on this bday, but the same answer. I don't know how long I will have to wait for him to get this life in order.
I always kid around telling him that (since he made this decision) that we are friends. And have told him that if he gets involved with someone else (kinda cheating), we won't be together.
To me if you love someone, no matter the way or what going on with you, if its real you would do anything to be with that person.
So since he is not giving me my gf title, and chance i get (or i make lol), I tell him that ''since we are friends'' i can do whatever i want........ (I've noticed sometimes you gotta be a bitch for the guy to start caring for you)
speechless
Me too. I can't believe you girls LET a guy get away this crap. I can't believe there are guys out there doing this, pulling the wool over your eyes! There is zero respect in this scenario. Come on you're worth more than that! I'm sure there plenty of guys out there who would be ecstatic to call you his girlfriend. If a friend came and told me any of the above stories was happening to her, it would seem to me like the guy was using her until something better came along, or just using her because she's there for him whilst giving him the appropriate space to scope out other girls because he's not "exactly" in a relationship, so it's not cheating, or some other lame excuse like that.
All you girls who are sleeping with guys who "can't be your boyfriend right now" who "need space" and thus won't give you the girlfriend title etc. need a kick in the butt because you are being used. You are giving away sex and companionship and not getting what you want in return. Drop kick these flakes to the curb and find men who truly appreciate you and want to be with you!
I am the original poster of this question and have since had 'the talk" with this guy; telling him that I'm not getting any kind of emotional connection from this relationship and that I need to see other people...and be strictly friends with him, without benefits.
He, bascially, told me that I am an amazing woman and he loves me as a person and spending time with me and that he wants me to be happy, that I am "the perfect package" but he just doesn't know what he wants... blah blah....basically a bullshit response so he can string me along until something better comes along.
Thanks for your advice Girl's BFF...
Are there really any good guys out there anymore? This dating thing is getting SO ridiculous!!
I am the original poster of this question and have since had 'the talk" with this guy; telling him that I'm not getting any kind of emotional connection from this relationship and that I need to see other people...and be strictly friends with him, without benefits.
He is out of town for work for 4 weeks and I will be dating around while he is gone.
He, bascially, told me that I am an amazing woman and he loves me as a person and spending time with me and that he wants me to be happy, that I am "the perfect package" blah blah....basically a bullshit response so he can string me along until something better comes along.
Thanks for your advice Girl's BFF...
Are there really any good guys out there anymore? This dating thing is getting SO ridiculous!!
I'm in a similar situation to this, but I'm happy to say that I think I caught it early enough to prevent it from becoming a huge problem. I was seeing a guy for less than a month. The guy definitely treated me as though I was someone he wanted to date--took me out to dinner and movies (and PAID--that's a biggie for me), bought me a rose and candy for Vday, didn't even try to get into my pants for several weeks, etc (it ended up being me who initiated our first sleepover.) And then, he continued to see me after that, so I figured it wasn't all about sex.
Even though everything SEEMED hunky-dory, I could sense that something just wasn't right. I asked him nicely to text/see me more than once or twice a week, and he started pulling away ever-so-slightly. Fed up, I decided to confront him about it, and he told me he was really happy with "the way things had been going" and wanted to keep them that way. I.e., he probably wouldn't want a relationship anytime soon. Because he's busy (the classic excuse). So I subtely kicked him to the curb, but sort of left things open for us to keep casually hanging out.
Even if I do decide to see him again, the point is this: I'm determined to not end up with a year-long "Non-Boyfriend" like some of the above posters. It's just not worth it! If a guy is already devoting time to you, sleeping with you, and romancing you, what difference in time commitment would it make for him to just go ahead and call you his girlfriend? Zero, that's what. I want to possibly keep this one around because he's truly a great and reasonable guy. But I'm not gonna let him use me--if he hasn't had a change of heart by the end of this semester, I'm outtie. I believe that people's minds and circumstances change, so I'm willing to give it more than just a month. But the trick is, you have to be strong about it and not compromise on what you want and deserve. I finally understand that now.
Mixed signals are a killer and dating these days is ridiculous. My recent situation is similar but complicated by a long distance factore. Met a great guy, he chased me a while took me out on dates, pad for everything, told me I was gorgeous and fun and didn't want to sleep with me right away. Well a few weeks later we both went back to where we are living...Me in Arizona and him in Virginia. He kept texting me, almost every day, somtimes every few days because he's busy with work (which I understand), and he calls me babe and we would skype (something he said he's never done with a girl)...so then I took a trip out to visit him. He was super happy about it, introduced me to his friends, was PDA in front of them and everything...and then we had the talk...he said he didn't want us to be BG and GF because he's done long distance before and it crushed the relationship and he doens't want us to end up not getting along and not talking anymore. he moves out to the West coast in a year and a half. so until then we were gonna keep it casual and continue with how it'd been...did I mention we finally slept together on this trip...well ever since I left things changed. Slow at first..texting less becuase he was busy with work.. but he'd still say babe and tell me goodnight and want to skype. then it was weeks of no talking. I'd call him out on it and just ask if it was him legit being busy or if he was disinterested now.. I just wanted the truth. he told me it wasn't disinterest. Just him being very busy. More weeks passed and no talking. then we skyped last week. He said he was "sorry for being a jerk lately, I've just been in my own world" and that it was great talking and seeing me and that he wanted to skype again later that week. I was so excited.. he said he'd text me to figure out what day...suprise suprise he never got back to me about it. It's been a week and a half. I just want him to be honest. Half the time I feel like he's giving me the hint to take a hike but whenever I bring it up and ask for the honesty he says its not that at all. Whats the deal with these men!! you can't blow me off and ignore me and do a total 160 of how you used to be and then wonder why im upset!