[mkinder98]

I have a gentleman I share a driveway with between our two homes. When I first moved in just over 4 years ago he would always try to talk with me and I tried avoiding him. He seemed very blunt and forward. He’s single… I’m single. At the time I was in an on again off again relationship and that guy was suspicious of my neighbor. The neighbor always wanted to know personal stuff and would text to see if it was my ex over or not. Yet the neighbor would always do things for me, little things to help out and was always very nice. He even drove through a blizzard to be at my Grandmother’s funeral service for me when no one else out of my friends could. After that we began talking more and I realized we had a lot in common. This was as the on again off again relationship ended. We started to spend time together and he admitted let’s give it a try as he’d wanted to but didn’t want to risk losing the newfound friendship. So for 3-4 months we were very happy together and things were great. (He works 16 days on at an oil/gas drilling operation 4 hours away and then comes home where he’s off for 13 days) He texted me nonstop and everything. His best friend’s wife (the best friend himself is often gone for work too) and I started to hang out and she was really pressuring me about how my neighbor and I should just be married and are perfect. Suddenly the neighbor said he had to pull away, he was too busy, my ex would not stop trying to talk to me, and we can’t risk ruining us being neighbors. I also learned the one woman he almost married was caught in bed with her ex the day before he proposed saying that with him gone to work all the time she was bored and had to go back to the ex.

Needless to say I was hurt and realized I cared. We still talked a lot and texted a lot because we’re neighbors. He would go to dinners with my friends and I, family BBQs, and the best friend’s wife and I still hung out. He always continued doing things for me and everyone would comment that it was obvious he still had feelings for me. However back in November he suddenly went off at me and said that I was strictly his neighbor and that’s all I ever was. About 2 months ago again I felt things change once more. He became very affectionate and flirty again. He admitted he was still thinking about us and wanted to see what could be. He asked what I thought and I shared I had too, but I also didn’t want to get hurt. He knew my past experiences and promised to never ever hurt me and said he was not using me. We both really opened up and shared things with each other that we both admitted we never had before. He was texting me nonstop too from his night shifts at work and I was up until 3am during my work week too talking. He said he was stunned I liked him and always had thought it was because only of my ex that I liked him, like he was a rebound. I shared it wasn’t and that I liked him. We got very close and we talked a lot. We started being romantic when he was home and a little intimate. One night I admitted I felt like grabbing him and kissing him and he moved closer to me. However, when I said why doesn’t he just kiss me already he just smiled at me and didn’t do anything except snuggle closer. He made nonstop eye contact and was very sweet and gentle. When he asked if I was indeed happy with him I said yes and he said he hoped so and that he was surprised I would be. I teased him and said we’d have to be sure.

Suddenly the next day he became very quiet with me and rather distant. That entire week he was home he was very distant. He’d say hi when we saw each other and would be nice, but always seemed in a hurry. He said he was just busy and told me that June is a bad month as it reminds him of when his father died when he was 19 (He’s 47 now) on Father’s Day. When he continued being weird and was coming over to help me move my A/C I finally asked what was going on. He said he was done with us being more “for now” and that to him it seemed wrong because we are neighbors. I said I heard no complaints while we were being together. He said no, he enjoyed it and had no complaints, but that “it’s easier if we just stay neighbors.” I asked him point blank then why he started us up both times now knowing that. It was the one time in the conversation he stopped and kept watching me and smiled too and said “I don’t know. I keep asking myself that over and over too. Why do I want to go to you so much?” He came over and helped me with a few things and then left but kept texting me again. I finally asked him too if he did care about me at all (I was starting to feel used for his fun) and he wrote back “Did I come over and move your a/c?” I said yes and he goes “That’s your answer.” So I explained he does that for our other neighbor and his best friend’s wife (whom he’s always with with her daughters saying he’s helping his best friend of 30 years who is gone working so much) too so that doesn’t mean much. He said that I know it’s different with me and it’s a lot more. He went to go work a week on his rental property and yet would text me here and there. About a week ago he texted to ask how I was. I shared how I was and he sent another one but I didn’t get to answer until about bedtime. When I did he sent back a text of “Go to bed!” on a Saturday at 9pm. That bothered me, but I just wrote “Already am” and he goes “Quit texting!”

He ended up coming home the next day and I was in our driveway. I decided I would be distant and quiet and let him come to me. He was overly nice and “Hi, beautiful, how are you?” while unloading his trailer. He kept wanting to talk. I was pleasant but also just kinda busy. I basically acted how he had before he left. Even the next day I was home at lunch and he had me blocked (he knows my lunch schedule and that I come home) and I saw him keep watching over here as I made lunch and went to check my mail. He finally stopped me to ask how I was and told me he was heading back to work the next day. I told him that things were ok. He asked if I were mad. I said no, just busy. He asked if I’ve thought about him at all and said he’d missed me. I didn’t say anything. I just said I had thought of him too. I asked how long he’d be gone and he said he didn’t know. I told him I would return his extension cord to him ASAP for the moved A/C and he asked why. So I went back to work and we didn’t talk. The next day he left for work again. I texted him our usual “Catch ya later, take care” messages and no reply. It’s now been one week and no texts from him – completely unusual. Last night I sent one of “How’s it going, handsome?” like we usually do and not even a reply to that.

I know he can be pretty busy, but I have a bad feeling he’s ignoring me. But why I don’t get. As far as I can see I did nothing wrong and I thought things were going great. If anything that very last night we hung out I got the sense from him that he was caring more and he even said he was opening up a lot more. He told me I’m the one he talks to the most and sees the most in his life. And why is he asking himself over and over again why he wants to come to me? Is this he freaked out about ruining us being neighbors, but it sure feels like it’s already being ruined because I’m getting deeply hurt and where I want to pull away completely again, not even see him. He knows my past and promised me even that night before he left that he would never ignore me and hurt me the way the on again off again had. Well right now I feel precisely how I did with that guy. I do feel used, like he had his fun and now he’s done. My best guy friends say that it’s obvious he cares. He drops everything to rush to help me, even waits to be sure I’m home ok when my car has acted up before heading out of town, brings me things he thinks I need around the house, rushes to the hospital when we’ve taken my dad to the ER for heart issues. He came to my Grandma’s service, he always takes my side and when he’s picking on others around us, including just his friends or my friends he never picks on me. He always defends me. He did his best to help me find a new job. He tells me to come to his side of teh driveway and use his BBQ whenever I want even, even come use his shower when my bathroom will be remodeled for 2 months. I once told him before we started back up that I wanted to take him to dinner to repay his kindness (our other neighbors and I do the same for when I help them and he takes his best friend’s wife and girls to dinner too to repay them for watching his dog the 2 weeks he’s gone) and he says ok but just keep it open and we’ll go some day. I told him if he doesn’t want to go he just has to be honest and say so. He said he does want to, but explained it’s a little different with me since I’m female and he’s male. I told him we were when he took me to dinner when I was with my ex too and that his best friend’s wife is a female and he’s a male. And he said “It’s different with you and you know it.” Even when my friend and her kids asked him to join us to go bowling he showed up and insisted on paying for me. My friend had just met him that day and she even said it was obvious his eyes never leave me. But yet this ignoring me right now is really hurting, this silence. Why is he pulling away? He’s never been this quiet to me. What do I do?

[AskApril Masini]

You’re focusing on him instead of yourself. Every time you ask a question about him, you should scratch it and ask the same question to yourself about you.

The bottom line is that if he wants to date you, he’ll ask you out on a date, and if he doesn’t want to date you, he won’t. If you look for every little nuance to mean something, then you’ll find meaning in every little nuance, but you’re going to miss the forest for the trees — in other words, you’ll miss the big picture, looking for the details that might or might not mean something important.

My advice is to focus elsewhere. If he asks you out on a date, and you want to go, knowing he’s someone who’s on again, off again — like your last four year relationship — then you can make a decision at that time, but this is really more about you deciding what and who you want in your life, and then sticking to it. 😉

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[mkinder98]

Well actually my last one wasn’t 4 years. I was in it when I moved into the house 4 years ago. But then 2 years ago was when that ended and the neighbor stepped up. Then I’ve gone out with other guys and done my own thing too all since the neighbor stepped back. He hated the fact a good guy friend was coming to see me and stated so much and said he thought it was because the guy friend would come out expecting something and it wasn’t right to be close to him anymore as he was in a relationship (the guy friend not neighbor). Then that was when the neighbor started us up again 2 months ago – we’ve been good friends all through the last 2 years even though he said we can’t risk losing us being neighbors. Then he pulled the let’s try again and after 2 months just gotten silent.

[mkinder98]

See the neighbor does ask me out and starts us trying a relationship he says. Then just when we get really close and things are going great like 2-3 months in he pulls back, saying he can’t risk us losing our relationship as neighbors if it doesn’t work out. This is the second time he’s done it. He said this time he doesn’t know why he keeps coming to me and wanting to be around me and keeps asking himself the same thing over and over. Frankly it pisses me off but it does hurt too. And what makes it especially hard for me is that we are neighbors sharing the driveway and I have to see him nonstop and suddenly he’s just gotten quiet as can be. For no apparent reason either. Part of me wants to go off when I do see him and the other part is he can drop dead. He promised me he’d be upfront and honest and yet it’s this passive aggressive attitude and behavior like a child. And what hurts is how he bashed my ex and even the very night he said this time he can’t risk us ruining what we have if we don’t work so he’s “stopping us for now” he promised he’d never just use me and it wasn’t that – yet this behavior screams that at me. I just don’t get it and I don’t know how I should be. Isn’t he ruining it by acting this way on his own? How do I react to him now when he tries being all nice when we run into each other (which he always does and we are bound to do)? Why would he suddenly act that way?

[AskApril Masini]

[quote]I just don’t get it and I don’t know how I should be. [/quote]

That’s because you haven’t been clear about what you want. Until you do, you’ll stay in chaos. Do you want a monogamous, long-term relationship that will lead to marriage? Do you want to date and play the field? Figure out what you want and then I can help you better — and you can help yourself better, too! This is the very basic step that so many people skip when they start dating, and it comes back to haunt them. 😉

[quote]Isn’t he ruining it by acting this way on his own? [/quote]

He is not ruining it for him. And you are not a victim here. If you think he’s ruining it, then you have options, too! 😉

[quote]How do I react to him now when he tries being all nice when we run into each other (which he always does and we are bound to do)? [/quote]

It really depends on what it is you want in a relationship. Until you are able to say what you want, you’ll continue having these questions of him and others in your future. Time to do the work and figure out what you want. 😉

[quote]Why would he suddenly act that way?[/quote]

Because he wants to. “Why do YOU act this way?” is the question you should be asking.

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