Dear astern,
It is difficult, I know, to understand why someone would appear to
change her mind so often and so abruptly while you feel that your
heart is forever set on her. More perplexing yet is why, in a popular
culture that often portrays men as wary creatures afraid of
commitment, a woman would turn down someone as plainly devoted as you
are. I have no reason to doubt that your intentions are of the
noblest, and that you have every attribute necessary to forming a
close and permanent bond with a woman you love. However, you should
also be sympathetic to her own views and life ambitions. The impasse
at which your relation has arrived should act as a signal for you to
reconsider, in as clear-headed and pragmatic a fashion as you can
bear, the facts of this romance and the odds that you will succeed in
making it conform to your vision.
A cynic would say that you've become trapped in an asymmetrical power
struggle in which you are holding the short end of the stick. I don't
think this is the right posture to take. First, a harsh perspective of
this kind leads to self-pity, anger, and other unhealthy sentiments
that will only wear you down without solving anything. Second, it is
most likely incorrect. It very rarely happens -- and essentially never
among people who are able to sustain a dating relationship beyond a
few weeks, never mind a whole year, as you have -- that one party is
actively deceiving the other so as to gain a material or psychological
advantage. It is a mistake to look for Machiavellian tactics here,
because a feminine Machiavelli would have been long gone by now.
Nor should you be so naive as to believe that you and the apple of
your eye are practicing the age-old dance of the pursuer and the
pursued. The reasons are again twofold. On the one hand, to truly
dance such a dance, the parties must alternate roles, yet in this case
you are perennially the pursuer. On the other hand, such frolics take
place in the very beginning of a romance, when passions flare the
highest. A true love must gradually subside into a warm and stable
contentment where each party gives willingly, without expecting and
certainly not grasping at the other's affections in return.
The likeliest explanation here is also the simplest. Namely, this very
nice girl is telling you the truth. That is what people inevitably do
once they have spent as many hours with each other as you two have. It
is too tiresome to maintain false appearances for any appreciable
length of time. So when she says that she has come to recognize her
inability to commit to a lifelong relationship with you, that is a
fact. Perhaps she is not saying it in the bluntest, most clear-cut
manner possible, but this is just her tactful way of putting the
matter to you for fear of causing irreparable hurt. The hurt may have
to come eventually, but it is certainly not irreparable. It only seems
that way for the first few months. Take it from me, I know. I've been
there. A few years hence, you'll look back and find that you've
already forgiven her everything. You'll laugh at yourself for your
foolish insistence that you could somehow, by a tremendous exertion of
willpower, stop time and warp space and bend her personality into
alignment with yours. People can change, indeed, but not that much.
My advice to you, then, is to take a step back. Step away from the
relationship. Step away now. It's difficult, I know, but do it.
Distract yourself with work, study, play. Don't think that you are
playing a game. The games are long over. Now is the time to disengage,
to find something else to worry about. And trust me, there are plenty
of other worthwhile worries. As for this rocky relationship and the
pain of separation, of absence, of begrudgingly saying farewell, I can
assure you of one thing. The pain will cease, and in the very end, you
will see that everything has turned out for the best.
Regards,
leapinglizard |
Clarification of Answer by
leapinglizard-ga
on
20 Sep 2004 19:58 PDT
Dear astern,
First of all, thank you for the kind tip. I'm sorry I was unable to
respond to your Clarification Request in a timely fashion.
I believe that she is giving conflicting signals because she, like
you, isn't emotionally prepared to make a clean break with the past,
even though she has made a rational decision to end the dating
relationship. The past has a tenacious grip on the human imagination,
even more so than the future. The past, for all its flaws, can seem a
rounded and familiar thing compared with the bristling uncertainties
of the future. Another explanation for the sentimental phone calls is
that she is attempting, perhaps too awkwardly and ineffectively, to
palliate your suffering. It is regrettable that her charitable
measures, if that is what they are, only intensify it.
leapinglizard
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