I'm in a Romantic Rut..

[thinkmcflythink]

Dear Scarleteen,

I get this feeling that my romantic life is a complete and utter wreck. I haven't actually had a committed, official relationship since I was around 16 or 17 and I'm 19 now. That committed, official relationship was not exactly functional after awhile however and I ended up getting partner assaulted by him. He was also very emotionally abusive and would put me down, even in front of my parents at the time. He was much older than I was and after about a year of being with him, I decided I couldn't take it anymore and walked away.

I've moved on since then and a lot of things have changed in my life, I now attend a public university decently far away from my home town and got away from everything there. I love the program that I am in, I'm doing well in my classes and all of that is going perfect. I'm even starting to make progress in my field while being a student, which is exciting. However, I feel like my chosen craft of journalism is the only thing that ever seems to love me back.

I've been with maybe two guys since my ex. One was a friend that I really liked and had known for a long time, we had a long standing fling, that I enjoyed but he eventually decided to leave and essentially cut himself off from the world to focus on graduating from college, getting into graduate school and get his life straightened out. I was hurt and didn't understand, he just kind of left.

I've tried to pursue other guys but they always end up either crashing and burning in my face or just becoming friends. Or both. Or in the case of this guy I met at my university that I really think that I liked, "are not over their ex." Basically, my question is why I can't I find anything that works? I might act ultra confident, forward and like I do not care but really I just want something real. Do I end up with dysfunctional partners because I'm dysfunctional in my own right? How do I still learn to love myself but gain the support of someone like a partner? I'm just very, very tired of burning bridges and pushing people away from me. Please help.

[Heather]

One thing I'm hearing in this sounds, to me, like an assumption that for a romantic relationship to "work," it has to always stay that kind of relationship and either ever continue, or do so for a long time.

In reality though, many of the kinds of relationships we have throughout life -- especially romantic and sexual relationships -- will shift over time, either becoming another kind of relationship, or ending when one or both people move on and feel like they've run its course. Too, for young people, it's most typical for romantic relationships to generally be a few weeks to around six months long. Statistically, that most often tend to change only once people are entering their late teens or twenties.

So, the abusive relationship kind of goes in a pile of its own (and it being abusive likely wasn't about you so much as it was about the person being abusive). It sounds like everything else was...well, pretty typical. (I personally wouldn't call someone leaving a relationship to focus on something else dysfunctional. People often shift their priorities in life, or need to cut some things out to make more time and energy for others.) Same goes for us often having interest in people where the timing just isn't right, or they don't share our interest in them. That's usually just a bit of a given, all through life.

But I hear you saying you want to find something "that works." What does "works" mean to you in this respect?

[thinkmcflythink]

I guess when I say I want something that works. I mean that I want someone who is supportive and who can be there for me, who aren't my parents. Someone who understands me on a deeper level and that I can go out and experience life with. Who is always guaranteed to be there, or at least for awhile. More like a best friend I guess.

However, I definitely have sexual needs also and having someone to do things like that with other than myself would be nice. Obviously there's a trust and respect requirement with that added in that is a bit different than just a friendship.

Overall, I just need someone to be there. I often feel as though I don't have people like that in my life in general, perhaps part of that is through my own doing. I've had to cut ties quite a bit over the past year or so and have disposed of so many friends in such a short period of time.

[Sam W]

Hi thinkmcfly,

I hear you mentioning that you've cut your friend group down considerably lately. Have you been doing anything (like joining clubs, or other group activities) that's getting you into contact with new people with whom you have some common interests? If not, that might be a sound thing to direct some effort towards. It has the benefit of you getting to do something you enjoy and bringing you into contact with new people. Some of those people might be friend material (which is awesome on it's own), and some might turn out to be more than friends material.

Too, it can help to remember that most people are in a state of romantic flux in college. It's a weird time, our personalities and goals and changing, and people are starting to work out what they want from relationships, both in terms of type (casual vs monogamous) and partner qualities. And a lot of that is trial and error, dating someone for a few weeks and going "nope, not feeling it." So please don't feel as though you're an outlier because you haven't found what you're looking for yet. This stuff takes time and experimentation.

[thinkmcflythink]

To answer your question, yes I have gotten involved with student media on campus quite a bit (and I get paid too, which is a plus). All of the people I work with are absolutely wonderful and I thoroughly enjoy being there three days a week. I'm moving up to be a reporter next semester and I'm very much excited for that. I guess my issue is that I never exactly hang out with any of them outside of the newsroom. I guess I always feel afraid to ask for some reason and reach out to people for fear of being rejected. I'm one of the younger ones in the group and feel intimidated asking because of that.

[thinkmcflythink]

Also, I've been noticing that maybe the issue with my romantic encounters is that I tend to let things go too far too fast in the bedroom. For example, this particular romantic encounter I had with the guy I liked at my university, that I mentioned in earlier posts, resulted in us doing mutual masturbation, oral on each other and of course the making out and removing of clothing. Which isn't a problem, except I had literally known this person for not even a week yet and that was the first time I had ever hung out with him since initially meeting. Then he revealed to me throughout this that I was too much like his ex girlfriend/he was not over her. Thus the whole crash and burn effect I was discussing.

However, I feel like in this type of a scenario, the bad outcome could have been less bad if I would have not let it continue that far. It is not that I have an issue doing those things, in fact I really enjoy them. I just feel like in certain situations like this one, I need better tools of how to analyze situations, bring up questions to decide what is appropriate so that both myself and potentially the other person have no regrets.

So, I guess another question I have is that how exactly do I communicate that effectively? How do I not let my sexual desire and feelings get carried with me in situations like this one, where I know I probably shouldn't do that, but sexually, I want it, so I say yes or get them to agree anyway? This isn't the first time this has happened to me and I would like to eventually not have this issue pop up so much in the future.

[Sam W]

Wow, the student media stuff sounds awesome! I feel you on the not being sure how to transition from the knowing cool people in a context to hanging out with them outside that context. A few strategies I know of are to a) attend or instigate group hang-outs not related to the work you're doing. Centering these around food usually helps. But it gives you a chance to see people outside of their work environment and lets you hang out with multiple cool people at once. Another strategy is to pick the person who you'd most like to hang out with and take the leap and ask if they'd like to grab coffee (or whatever). It's not different from asking someone on a date (which is why it can be so anxiety provoking for some people).

I think it's good that you've been doing some evaluation of what you do and do not want in terms of the timeline of activities with partners. Having a sense of that will make things easier in the long run, since you'll actually have an expectation to communicate when that conversation happens (as opposed to not really knowing what you do or don't want). I think it might help, if you're finding that you want a better sense of a person before anything sexual happens is to restrict the first few meetings to a set time and place. So, "can we meet for tea at X shop from 1-2?" That can create a boundary all by itself, plus it gives you a chance to get to know the person.

I would also say that being up front about your wants can help a lot. That can feel weird the first few times you do it, but it helps. Letting a potential date know that "look, I want to be up front about this, so I want to let you know that I don't want to do anything sexual until after a few dates (if it ever even gets to that stage)" can help you weed out people who are not on the same page in what they want, and will help you spot potential partners who are respectful of your boundaries.