[AskingQuestions]

April, you’re probably right. I will see. It’s easy to give advice; difficult to take it.

[AskingQuestions]

Jade & April,

So much of what you say is true.. It’s just that she’s so sweet & so psychologically interesting & her international background is so similar to my own..

I will keep this post in mind when she comes in ten days. April’s suggestion of not letting her come to visit me[i] at all[/i] is “the nuclear option;” it ends any possibility of future contact. That’s a problem for me. I[i] do[/i] wish there were a[i] less final[/i] way to deal with this sort of challenge — what I’d call a “measure short of war” to make her realize that she’s sending out hopelessly mixed messages to me and that she needs to get her message straight. Why on Earth is she coming to visit me for weeks when she’s told me she doesn’t want a relationship with me?? [i]That’s just bizarre.[/i]. She should spend the time with her new boyfriend..(!) She seems like a lost soul. I take your point that I am “[i]inviting chaos into my life[/i]” — and am a fool to do so. But I also have a project this spring I really want to do with her — a big project — and she’s the perfect person to do it with me. On some level the sex was a mistake as it crossed the professional/personal boundary..

I will fight back. I will not have sex with her, not play her games. Deal with her professionally. Make her sleep in the guest bed. Put things back on the non-sexual level. That’s not that big a deal for me. As cute as she is, there are others who are less stressful — although less psychologically interesting. Doubtless I will look back in three weeks and wonder if I should have just followed your advice.

[AskingQuestions]

I’ve been thinking about this all day… and trying to figure it out. This is a woman who by her own admission:

— Has commitment problems, a history of promiscuity, and a history of “never trusting men.” When I’ve discussed it with her it seems to be related her father dying when she was fifteen. He was the perfect father, apparently; he died tragically of cancer. She loved him very much. The family were immigrants in a new country. It was very tough on her when he died. I think she closed up on men after that. Admits her first sexual experience in college “was a disaster.” With time she started to go out with men, and became, in the end, promiscuous. (Far more experience than I’ve ever had.) She is now an extremely attractive and a successful professional. Men flock to her.

— She told me once — when we were “just friends” that she “loves the feeling of power that sexuality gives [her] over men.” I replied to her that she was a control freak; she laughed and agreed. I told her that she used relations with a lot of men to protect her when any individual man wouldn’t commit to her. She quietly said “there’s some truth to that” and immediately changed the subject. Another time she described, laughing, taking a test of her personality type. The psychologist was very distressed with the results, she said, laughing, and said to her “you really have trust issues!”

What I don’t understand is why she is seeking me out, chasing me around the world, and wanting to stay with me for weeks after telling me that she could never have a relationship with me, and after telling me that she just started a relationship with somebody else — just weeks after sleeping with me (!) Am I answering my own question here, by implication?

Sorry to beat this subject to death. I just find it so perplexing. The idea that I am just a doormat seems a bit definitively denigrating. I am a pretty successful, handsome guy in my own right — and she knows it, she knows the kind of women who are chasing after me. Is this just a power play, nothing more? What’s in it for her?

[AskingQuestions]

Hmmmm… I do see your point. You may actually be right.. [i]I think — in fact — you might be[/i]. It’s a little bit more complicated than that, however. I am only a doormat with her in one sense. I see her as a woman who could easily just hang out in London and party with her friends but she chooses to come here to the US to be with me, at great expense in time and money to herself.

Why is she using me a doormat when she has more accessible and cheaper doormats galore in London and elsewhere? Couldn’t another explanation be possible — that she likes me but doesn’t have any decent relationship patterns to model a relationship upon? She doesn’t need me for money, professional reasons, or any other reason I can think of except sex and companionship. She clearly has had a succession of lousy lovers. (Partly I think because she traditionally sees sex as just hooking up for a brief fling in between projects. We both work short-term international projects and are almost never in the same place in the world longer than four months.)

The first time she climaxed she told me, shocked, that she must really trust me because that had never happened before to her with anybody.. And I actually do believe her — I saw how surprised she was by it. It was as if she didn’t want it to happen.. but it did.. [i]and it was so unexpected that she doesn’t know how to deal with it.
[/i]
I am very successful, both in my professional life and with people. She knows very well that within the bounds of realism I have my choice of partners. (Partly because I am successful and attractive, but partly due to the the nature of my international profession.) Unfortunately she’s my choice just because of how well we get along. She’s very uncomfortable with the fact that I only divorced my wife last year. She’s had a bad experience with a divorced man in the past — she felt used, I think.

[i]So I have to think about the total rejection, close the door and lock it thing. It would be nice if there were a middle way.[/i] I have to say, however, I like the tough love nature of your advice. You’re very realistic and I am glad I found your site. Thank you.

[AskingQuestions]

Thanks for this.. It really got me thinking!

Interestingly, she just called me a couple of hours ago from South Africa, where she’s on a business trip, and reiterated that she would be staying at my apartment platonically — otherwise she wouldn’t be coming — but when I demurred, she said, “I really have a headache right now and can’t talk on the phone”. So I told her I was really not happy with the platonic bit. She said (nicely but firmly) “It’s non-negotiable. I don’t want to lie to my new boyfriend. I have to go” and said good-bye. An hour later I got an automatic email from her with her itinerary visiting me in New York.. (meaning she immediately bought the ticket after our phone call so I couldn’t change my mind. She knew perfectly well the platonic thing was not assured!) I really wonder whether she’s just using me for sex & companionship; she’s very attractive and pretty much chooses the man she wants. She’s told me repeatedly if I weren’t so much older than her we would be the perfect couple.

Since she’s coming now for sure, I think I will take your advice, and take her at her word, and not have sex with her (!) It will be interesting to see how she reacts. I am sure she doesn’t expect that.

[Member]

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