So I don’t know why i’m posting this because maybe 2 people will actually pass it along, but you should read it if the above conversation made you feel uneasy, because it should have. This is an actual conversation I had with a guy I used to work with. Notice how he’s insisting on doing these nice things for me, even when I’ve made it perfectly clear that i’d prefer if he didn’t. He doesn’t want to do those things for me, he wants to do those things to display his generosity and so that I feel like I owe him.
Also, the fact that he felt the need to congratulate me for not thinking too highly of valentine’s day was really difficult for me to process. I don’t even know how to explain how condescending that is. Like I should be proud of myself for breaking the feminine mold. Ugh.
And then, that “you may have nothing to do with me” bullshit. He’s trying to make me feel guilty for not liking him. He’s being melodramatic to make me feel bad for him, like I’ve done something wrong. This is perhaps the most common form of manipulation and it’s infuriating.
Everything i’ve pointed out in this post is just a fraction of some of the common warning signs of an abusive partner that I got right off of a Women’s Shelter’s website. Basically though, if at any point in talking to a guy you feel manipulated or sort of skeevy, don’t be afraid to shut him right down. If you feel weird about it, it’s for a reason. You’re not being overly-picky, and you’re standards are certainly not too high; listen to your instincts, don’t respond! Walk away!
Now, I have no feelings at all for this guy, so it was fairly easy for me to discover all that was wrong with this interaction. But it’s a lot harder to recognize and then accept these behaviors as wrong when you actually like the guy, so do yourself a favor and learn the signs of an abusive parter to give yourself a predisposition that’ll help you detect common manipulations like these.
Signal Boost! If I would have noticed the signals in my experience, I would have not wasted a year.