u/Few_Elk9442

Why do people lie to themselves? From saying they ended the relationship, when they never did and saying you’re crazy and erratic when you just stood up for their manipulative tactics, lies, omissions and coercion?

But the worse is lying to others and completely hiding the context, acting as if the reactions were out of the blue responses to random things when they constantly bullied you? Tbh idc at this point, but when I read about flying monkeys and things like that, I never thought about how far someone would go to badmouth you because you could no longer sit still and take the constant humiliation.

They create a whole dynamic that set you up for failure and act surprised when you aren’t ok with that. They do the most hurtful things and if you happen to find out accidentally bc there is such a thing as algorithms and pattern recognition, they’ll accuse you of the most awful things.

Who would just smile finding out their SO is cruising for cheating? I’m very upfront about who I am, my own red flags, what I’m working on and how I function with people I meet. These are people that constantly create chaos, then feel entitled to peace while creating a brutal mental warfare. It hurts to know there are a considerable number of people like that in the world. I am glad I’ve learned my lesson, but sad to see a lot of people have been through the same.

It’s insane to see how they desperately want to have an audience, the extreme need for external validation, how they freak out once they realize they can no longer control you with their covert tactics. Trying to control the narrative never ends. I can only imagine how terrible it must be to live with themselves to the point they have to create an alternative world just to keep pushing through.

So I met someone. First date was ok. No reason not to have a second one. We texted daily after. Then the second date was amazing and only stoped bc I needed to go to my 2nd job that day! It was 7h long! We didn’t even kiss yet but we held hands.

After that, we have texted daily and now everyday, we end up having 3h long phone convos (we are both busy and don’t live that close) before we go to bed. The convos can range from making up guessing games, to deep philosophical discussions to likes and dislikes and preferences, to the swords we collect to political views or anything really.

Both are having a good time getting to know each other and yet respecting our autonomy and individuality without feeling insecure about it and without rushing into anything prematurely. We don’t feel criticized by each other but also don’t fear disclosing our wants and needs, nor feel like we have to hide any aspects of ourselves.

This feels scary to me, because I wasn’t looking to get into anything at the moment, I’m very busy rn with work, family, training for multiple different martial arts competitions, spending time with friends, making new friends and planning some for upcoming life changing things. I don’t want to get my heart broken and I’m afraid of being disappointed. We are both holding a lot back in order to not jump into it too quickly or coming up way too strong, but it feels incredibly right. If anything, it feels wrong to hold back but I’m protecting my heart and he is very respectful of that.

How does taking things slow look like when meeting someone? I feel my last relationship happened too fast in many ways and at the time it seemed like things were naturally developing, but eventually, it felt unsustainable. How to properly pace it? I don’t want to deal with Limerance, I don’t want us to wow each other, I just want us to be ourselves and decide each step of the way if the connection continues to align.