Commitment
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You are currently reading a thread in /adv/ - Advice
You are currently reading a thread in /adv/ - Advice
hey /adv/
I'm a very empathetic person and really love other people. I can tell my friends really cherish my friendship and I feel the same way, but the problem is when it comes to relationships.
I'm not capable of being in an uncommitted relationship, I end up falling in love with the person and getting my feelings hurt. But it's weird, I feel like I could fall in love with anyone that I care about enough to be friends with, if we spend enough time together. That intense feeling that comes when it stops being "just friends" causes me to make hasty decisions. It always feels like that's the ONE person and for a while I feel truly grateful and complete. Of course it doesn't last forever, I end up feeling trapped in the relationship because I want to leave but at the same time I feel so miserable just thinking about breaking the other person's heart. All my past relationships always reached a point in which it just felt like a friendship because those initial feelings just drifted away with time.
When I break up a relationship I feel so torn, so tricked by myself, that I don't want to fall in love ever again. It came to a point in which I started to distance from people who were getting too close to me, but it eventually felt ridiculous to run away from something when obviously feelings were mutually. Like before, it felt like that was it, but then the feelings passed.
I really don't know what to do anymore. I don't want to hurt anyone, but it feels like I'll either tear a person's feelings for putting a relationship to an end or by fleeing a possible one because I'm scared I'll end up getting tired. Guess I've been deceived into think "the one" is real. Maybe I need to accept there's no such as thing as strong feelings that last forever. Is it all really a lie, /adv/? Should I just commit to something when I find someone I can live with even if it feels dull compared to the things I felt before?
Sometimes I just want to run away and hug the true one tightly.
bump?
>>17227743
You need to figure out the difference between the temporary empathetic rush and real, lasting, romantic attraction.
I'm in this position too, but from the opposite end: despite high empathy, i can't tell the difference either, so i don't know when to pursue a relationship at all (thus i've never done it, for fear of breaking some poor girl's heart like you when the initial rush wears off, which it does quickly).
I'm trying to run through the list of people i know and dig deep into what i feel about/towards each of them, in detail. That may help, especially since it can reveal patterns.
>>17227743
man you described me to a t... especially this line rang true
>I feel like I could fall in love with anyone that I care about enough to be friends with, if we spend enough time together.
my friends and family always bitch about how my partners are ugly, poor, stupid... but they were very caring at some point and that was all i cared about.
i still keep trying though, and try not to look back in relationships that i've ended. (i've ended every one of them) mostly because there was probably a good reason why i've ended it. sometimes i think back and wonder if i did the right thing or if i should've tried to save the relationship harder... in the end i realized there's just so many people out there and so many possibilities to discover so might as well move on when i feel it's time.
i think what helps is that i try to embrace the possibility that i'll end up alone and try to enjoy my relationships for what it is... i already have a few grand plans about that, like traveling the world, taking care of some really cute cats and dogs, really honing my art skills and creating works that i can leave behind after i'm gone... my "true one" will be the one who'll be with me when i'm on my deathbed, and if i don't find that true one, well then i guess i would've lived a fulfilling life anyway.
op here
guess I just need to talk about it
I'm a weird person. I wouldn't say I'm a depressed person, that really isn't true especially when I'm with other people, I'm a really joyful person. But there's this part of me... that isn't really me. It's a part of me that emerges from time to time that I have to hide from others because I just wouldn't be able to explain why I was feeling so down. It's a weird feeling of void mixed with sorrow from past events and at the same time it's like I absorb the pain of those around me. That really doesn't describe it, but that's the closest I could get with words.
I guess all this time I looked for the person that would understand it, the person that would accept me when I'm not me. I've looked for the person I could talk about this without bursting into tears. That always seemed like a person.
I never even reached that point. I just had to deal with those bad moments of my life alone and at the same time carrying the burden of trying to be happy for the other person.
Now I realize I might have been wrong all along. Maybe I just need the person that's oblivious to all that side of me that shouldn't exist and makes the good me be present all the time.
I've always been with people who seem so broken, people that seem to need my presence, even though sometimes it didn't look like that in the beginning. Even though helping others makes me really happy, maybe it's time for me to find the one that doesn't need my help. The one that just makes me happy.
>>17227989
>I'm a weird person.
No, you're a normal person. Nothing you said sounds remotely abnormal.
Everyone with substantial empathy feels that way sometimes, it's part of life.
It's the ones who don't experience the full range of emotions that have something wrong with them.
>I've looked for the person I could talk about this without bursting into tears.
Probably better to look for someone you're not afraid to cry with.
