Terrified of intimacy; 5 years of mixed sig Can I still tell him I love him?

Hi, Kaila! I think you’re right – consistency is the key, and while I was really confused after our encounter, I was, somehow, not upset. It just didn’t seem like the end. also… I’ve seen this before. How many times have I “rejected” his advances, his touches, his flirting, his attempts to get closer? Plus, this happens with us – I’ll hint at something and he doesn’t take the bait, and then later on, he will. A week ago he didn’t take the bait that I wanted to go eat something with him, and this week he did! Maybe it’s the same way with the hug… Sometimes I feel like he and I are communicating through Skype and there’s a 10-second delay… I only realize he’s reaching out after I go home, and I think it might be the same with him. And you’re right. If he’s back with whatserface, she’s not that important to him. There’s still something between us.

And last night confirmed this! I do have news. And my news is this:

I went to a concert with a (female) friend and he was there. I knew that even if him not returning the intensity of my hug was a real rejection, I had to be as normal, fun, and consistent as possible. On his way to the bar, he passed me and my friend, and we locked eyes and smiled at each othe. For a second, I thought he was going to pass by without talking to me, but he stopped, greeted me with the cheek kiss (we live in Italy) and we chatted for a few seconds. Then he said he was on his way to the bar to get some beer – “breakfast”, he called it. Throughout the concert, it was almost like last summer; he pretended not to see me, but then I’d catch him looking at me. I thought, “this is stupid. We’re not going back to that shit, not after Monday night!!!!” So when my friend went home, I went up to him. Unfortunately, he was talking to some guy who came on to me really strongly last summer (ugh) so that situation wasn’t optimal. But I got in there and started teasing him. He was a bit nervous at first but then he relaxed and we started laughing.

He said, “I haven’t eaten dinner. Have you eaten?” I said I hadn’t. We kept chatting and then he said, “I want to go say hi to Simone [his work partner; also my buddy]”. But still feeling nervous about his perceived rejection, I took his words to be the “brush off.” So I said, “Ah, okay. Well, i’ll say goodnight to you now, too – I need to head home.”

He gave me a startled look! He said, “Where are you going?”
I said, “I left my cat outside all day today and she hasn’t eaten anything… I feel terrible.” (100% true)
He said, “Cats are auto-sufficient!”
I said, “She’s a kitten!”
He said, “You got a kitten! How old, 2 months?”
I said, “Yes… otherwise I would stay, I really would. But she’s been out all day and it’s dark now and she’s so little… too bad. I’d like to say hi to Simone, too.”
He said, “He’s over there!”
I said, “He doesn’t see me!”
And then he was making more jokes, and I was laughing at them. He said he’d see me Saturday at band practice and he wanted to see my “Rock and roll side.” I told him he’ll see my rock and roll side, my pop side, my country side… (he cracked up). We were both dragging out the goodbye (a welcome change from this past month’s weird goodbyes). And as he was heading over to say hi to Simone, he reached out to squeeze my arm. And as he did that, I grabbed his wrist. We kind of pulled at each other for a few seconds, grinning, and then we both parted and I left the bar.

… and as I was walking, I said to myself…. “was…. was he trying to get me to stay? was… was he going to ask me out again, to eat? he looked startled when I said I was going… I was sure he was brushing me off but his reaction was totally unexpected….”

I did have to go home and feed the kitten (poor thing; I found her crying in a bush when I got home). But…

… am I just jumping to conclusions? Or can I have him?

Well, I guess I can’t have him today. I saw him at band practice and the wall was back up: he greeted me with nice smiles but his responses were polite and brief. I tried to engage him in conversation a few times and always the same thing: polite and brief. I did manage to get a few real smiles and one old inside joke out of him but for the most part, he avoided me. It was a total 180 from the last band practice when he sat next to me, observed me carefully, joked with me and courted my attention. Today I might have been a piece of furniture.

At one point, I showed him a picture of my kitten, stammering that I’d given her a bath because I’d found her in a bush Thursday night, covered in dirt. I asked him what he’d gotten up to after I left the concert and he acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about. Oh, yeah. I ate something. I was starving.

He kept doing busy tasks as I was talking to him: wiping door handles, cleaning off the lid of the trash can. I asked him, “Are you okay? You seem strange.” He stopped what he was doing and stared at me like I had two heads.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just super busy. I’ve got deadlines and I just keep taking on more work.”

I wanted to shout: so why don’t you go do your work instead of wiping the stupid garbage can lid?!!!

But instead I asked him what he’d done last night. He said he’d gone to a concert at this one beach club (I’d seen his ex [?] girlfriend’s name on the “will attend” list for the Facebook invite). As soon as he said that he followed up with, “But I don’t like that kind of music so I got there late. I saw these kids I know from Rome who will be working with us and then I saw some people I hadn’t seen in a long time so I ended up chatting with them until 3 a.m…”

I feel like I give him the 3rd degree lately: “what did you do last weekend? Where are you going to the beach this summer? what did you do last night? what kind of dog was it?” I’m trying to give him the opportunity to tell me: “I was with my girlfriend.” But instead it seems like he gives me a lot of strangely detailed information, almost like it’s designed to dissuade me of the idea that he’s in compromising situations….

Anyway, today the wall was up and I took the hint. After rehearsal, I said goodbye and got a nice smile out of him. “Don’t work too hard,” I said.

I feel like I want to throw up.

Another deflating encounter; another sleepless night. At my wits’ end.

Last night was the music school’s end of year concert. I was going to play in 2 numbers and was pissing myself; both for the performance and because I knew I’d see him. I wanted so much to try 1) being calm (i.e., not being up in his grill like last Saturday) 2) being attractive 3) showing him that I care 4) trying to bridge that physical gap that has always existed between us.

I think I succeeded in doing all of those things, but it was just another whirlwind of mixed signals from him; mostly neutral/negative. When I got to the concert, I was prepared to find him in tense “work” mode and I planned to give him space, but instead I saw that he was jolly. He greeted me with a big grin and an old inside joke; a little later I asked him if I could see the set list and asked teasingly if he’d be performing. He said, “I’ll be dancing!” I said, “Excellent. I’d pay money to see that.” He gave me a strange grin (confused? surprised? impulsive?) and said, “Let’s discuss that!” So I felt pretty good about the potential of the evening, but it just went downhill from there. After that, it seemed like he was trying his hardest to ignore me; he was laughing and joking with all of the students and people who came up to him, but, again, it was like I was a piece of furniture. I tried hard to catch his eye but couldn’t; when I finally did, he gave me a strange, conspiratorial grimace and went on his way. When it was my band’s turn to perform he gave me a very perfunctory, “Ready?” and then as I got on the stage he patted my back as though I were a horse. But after our number, nothing. No “well done,” nothing. I couldn’t even catch his eye. Not even once through 3 hours of performances.

After the concert, I talked a bit with some other students and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him head to the pizza joint on the corner and my heart sank: no opportunity to ask him to eat something with me. Finally, he came near to where I was and sat down in a chair a few feet away from me. I got up and went over to him. He looked at me and shook his head “no” as I approached!!! He continued to shake it “no” as I got closer.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I’m tired,” he said, and then he switched to English (during our marathon, I had told him how much I like it when he speaks English): “It’s better you don’t stay near to me… I smell like an horse.”

“You smell fine,” I said (don’t know if he heard me). He tried to say some other things in English but then someone came and interrupted us. After they left, I tried to bring up something we’d talked about during our marathon (relating to his favorite movie of all time, The Bourne Identity). He said, “Yeah, that’s a great movie. One of my favorites. You saw it again? Or you just saw it? Oh. You saw it because I told you I liked it, because I told you to?” He looked at me strangely.

People kept interrupting us and he got up and went to go deal with them. I was trying so hard to be calm and not panic like last Saturday, so I sat down with some friends and had pizza with them, telling jokes and acting like I hadn’t a care in the world. Another band member came over to try to hit on me and I made sure to be as neutral as possible. But it was almost 2 in the morning and I felt like I was getting nowhere. I kept thinking about how he had shaken his head “no” when I approached. I decided to call it a day. As I was leaving, I heard him call out, “Bye, penelope” and I went over to him. But he was sitting next to this crazy drummer guy, and every time I tried to talk to him, the crazy guy interrupted me to ask me about myself or flirt with me. I made my responses as brief as possible and focused on F, but it was getting damn near impossible. F complained that he was exhausted, that he’d been preparing the concert since 8 in the morning: “I’m absolutely cooked!” I poked him in the arm and said, “Yes, you’re cooked perfectly” – no response. His friend kept cockblocking. I looked over at F and he was smiling at me with a nice smile. I wanted to rub his shoulders, I wanted to kiss him on the cheek, something, anything, but that crazy jackhole wouldn’t quit interrupting me and there were too many people around so I gave up. I told him, “I hope you have a nice rest” and “thank you so much for everything. I’m so glad your coworkers pushed me to participate in this concert” and “I hope you feel satisfied. It was a beautiful event. You did something wonderful tonight.” I put my hand on his shoulder twice as I was speaking (something I’ve never done before). No response. I stammered, “i’ll see you… tomorrow… saturday… later… I don’t know. Good night.” He smiled nicely but said nothing. I went home, crestfallen.

He’s not being totally cold (I’ve seen him totally cold; it’s horrible); I’m still getting nice smiles and even unprompted inside jokes so I know that his feelings for me remain, but the wall is up again and it’s thick. My impression is that he’s trying extremely hard to push me away, to the point where he’s using a lot of energy to do so; for him to not even tell me “well done” on my performance is absolutely mental. Like I’m a total stranger! Just a week ago he wanted to invite me to dinner again after our marathon, two weeks ago we were together until 3 in the morning and just a week before that he was falling all over himself to get my attention. I know I panicked when he tried to ask me out again; I know I take huge steps forward and then steps back. I want so much to change and I’m trying but when he’s like this it brings all of my rejection trauma back and it’s like I can’t move.

He does have issues – I’m often so busy worrying about my own fears and trauma that I forget about his and how my odd behavior might affect him. So a bit on him:

He comes from a wealthy, important old family (so they tell me; he has never given me that impression so every time someone says “oh, that family is so important” I’m surprised). He’s extremely good-looking, has a great personality and is well-loved and admired by everyone in town. He is used to women throwing themselves at him; easy prey. He once told me, “I’ve never had any trouble getting women.” Except me, I guess.

His mother died when he was very young; his family situation after that was very sad. Talked about it a bit with me when we were first dating. I think he was going to say something else during the marathon but I didn’t pick up on it and I changed the subject.

I’ve noticed that every time I leave before he’s ready for me to go, our next encounters are tense and awkward. I’ve been running away ever since we met. Abandonment issues? He’s not the only one who ignores hints and come ons – I’m usually that way, too. Sometimes I don’t get that he’s inviting me somewhere or flirting with me until later (see last Thursday). When he touches me I usually freeze because I can’t believe it’s happening and I tell myself: it means nothing. Don’t get excited. How important must physical affection be to someone who grew up without a mother?

By now I know that it’s important for me to read the positive signs with him, not the negative ones (and I’d say the same is important for him). I was doing pretty well keeping calm. But when he shook his head “no” as I approached… wow. He gave me some nice smiles after that but it was hard to get the image of him shaking his head and grimacing out of my mind.

For the past two months we’ve been building up a new trajectory of our relationship and the night of the marathon we broke out of our typical mold. I’ve been wondering if he didn’t respond to my hug for the same reasons I usually don’t respond to his touch: surprise, trying to stay calm and not get fooled again. But apparently he thought about it in the intervening days and wanted to invite me out for Round Two. Maybe he thought, “Perhaps Penelope is finally ready to be with me.” And then I flaked. Maybe he’s punishing me, maybe he’s testing me. Maybe I was supposed to stay and break through his defenses to prove that I want him and am not just playing games….

One thing I love about him:

He was the first person I met here so I didn’t know yet that the local mentality is very narrow. He only seemed surprised when I told him that I had lived in Japan for two and a half years; he was interested in everything else and has always been extremely supportive of my writing (despite the fact that he can’t read anything I’ve written). But he’s never made a big deal about my history. Is impressed (“you’re a spy!”) but has always taken it in stride.

EVERY time I meet someone new, they immediately say: “You’re American? What the hell are you doing here? Go back to America! I don’t understand you. You’re crazy.” And if I haven’t seen someone in a while – work, life – the first thing they say when they see me is, “Oh, I hadn’t seen you in a while. I figured you’d moved back to America.” Despite the fact that I’ve been here for 5 years, am an Italian citizen, speak both Italian and local dialect, live in my own house and work full-time, apart from my closest friends, people here see me as a tourist; ignorant, temporary, not serious.

There are many periods where he and I don’t see each other for a while. He has NEVER said, “I figured you’d gone back to America.” He has NEVER seemed surprised to see me. He has NEVER treated me like a tourist.

He has also never asked me the famous question: “Why are you still here?” He’s the reason, and he’s the only person who’s never asked.