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[Tiruin]

...I seriously think its in your viewpoint and how you act upon it..unless I'm missing anything.

Could you elaborate? Or is it the fact that im not willing to spend the same amount of time with her now that a relaationsship is out of question?

Well what I can see with it is that there's a cut out version that is being displayed, and onnly your reaction to it, which does make sense. However I also see is that there's lacking communication--did you explain why you lacked to talk to her and so? Maybe its that. Maybe it's in how she values people talking, which is essential in any friendship. Maybe its in the feeling of being alone, which is subjective yet explains itself, basically.

I'm unsure on how you value relationships, but being friends is also a relationship in itself.

Skype shows 15 new Chatmessages in the past hour. Geez, with all the bad stuff happening to me when trying to date, im slowly beginning to think im not meant to find a girlfriend.

It's how these 2 sentences connected that gave me the first impression that you seemingly just don't like talking with her..or talking much in general. :/
Tell her that, but be open and diplomatic, if so.

^{And on a tiny note I somehow accidentally philosophized on this matter. xD
...best guess is that they're projecting whatever their dreams and wishes are on you--and do not see any kind of adverse reaction. Lacking understanding maybe?
Must send a PM...just noticed they weren't sent before and I lost the links >_>}

They've laid off bothering me so much now that I'm a published author and am starting a tech company >_>  They were worried about my being financially screwed, which is fortunately not looking like it's going to happen.

Oh man..the implications... :S
*hugs Vector*
Perhaps you could...talk it over with them about it someday?

[Stuebi]

Well, have you explained why you're chatting with her less? If not, when you do, remember to emphasize that you're not trying to make an ultimatum to make her change her mind - all you're doing is explaining that you don't feel obligated to treat her any differently than your other friends, and that you need time for yourself and to keep looking for a girlfriend. I know that if a buddy who was previously chatty suddenly dropped off the face of the earth, I'd feel a little abandoned.

Remember, this isn't a dating problem, this is a friendship problem. Either way, though, the only solution to either category is to calmly and explicitly explain your motivations and ask the other person to do the same. Don't think of her as an antagonist - if she's your friend, you're on the same side. You both want both of you to be as happy as possible. Once everything's on the table, and your being honest with yourselves as well as with each other, it becomes much easier for you both to work toward that.

Allright, gonna elaborate a bit further:

I was very explicit ony why we arent doing a lot of stuff anymore. This only applies to "Going places", I still chat regularly with her and we Skype a lot too, but I dont change my schedule anymore so we can go into the cinema or the like, and thats whats upsetting her. Im rather awkward with women face to face, until I get to know them better. So usually when I have a general interest in a girl, I hang out a lot with her so I can feel comfortable and be myself, instead of a stuttering moron. I established this early on and she was fine with it. We were both looking for a partner and would see if it worked out.

After meeting like this for a while she told me that she didnt have any interest in me as anything more than a friend. I accepted this, but stopped throwing around my schedule to fit in those "dates", instead we started chatting and using skype. She asked me after a while why i was cutting those trips down so much, and I flat out told her that I considered these to be "dates" and since a relationsship was off the table I wasnt interested in doing a lot of those anymore. Thats it, I dont drag all my friends to the Cinema every week, its not like I ignore her on purpose or throw her off. Shes treated exactly like my other friends, nothing more, nothing less. Truth be told, im a bit overwhelmed and shes starting to use a tone that makes me angry, accusing me of "using" her. I mean, seriously? SHE gave me the preemptive "Just friends dude." and is now giving me attitude because my behavior changed? It confuses me, really.

Skype shows 15 new Chatmessages in the past hour. Geez, with all the bad stuff happening to me when trying to date, im slowly beginning to think im not meant to find a girlfriend.

It's how these 2 sentences connected that gave me the first impression that you seemingly just don't like talking with her..or talking much in general. :/
Tell her that, but be open and diplomatic, if so.

Ah, thats not the case. Im on work, which means I can only reply on breaks or in between when theres nothing much to do. I told her that, so she knows I do not ignore her on purpose, but she writes tons of stuff in those timeframes where I cant reply.

[Bauglir]

Ah, well, then, yeah. You've done what you can, I suppose. Personally, I wouldn't go out of my way to make things easy for somebody I was interested in dating, because I feel that would create a false impression of who I actually am. That sounds like what's happened here - she thought you were being a normal friend, and she wanted to maintain that, and since that's not what happened she feels upset. Usually, people suggest friendship over romance because they want to maintain the status quo. From your perspective, of course, the status was only quo* in the first place because you were pursuing the romance, but often people don't realize that.

However, that's just my approach (it's been equally unsuccessful, I might add), and it sounds like you've deliberately made your choices after considering your options, so I'm not giving any advice so much as vaguely commenting. Good luck.

*Almost certainly does not reflect correct grammar; English, Latin, or otherwise.

[scriver]

*Almost certainly does not reflect correct grammar; English, Latin, or otherwise.

*Most certainly reflects correct grammar: Wit

[Iceblaster]

Gah.

Apparently I can't work on something and listen to something at the same time(point to 15k story thing) because I can't. Sure, some days I can get engrossed in something, but goddamnit, I don't have the attention span of a gold fish. Some days I hate my parents' logic.

/whinyteen

[Stuebi]

Ah, well, then, yeah. You've done what you can, I suppose. Personally, I wouldn't go out of my way to make things easy for somebody I was interested in dating, because I feel that would create a false impression of who I actually am. That sounds like what's happened here - she thought you were being a normal friend, and she wanted to maintain that, and since that's not what happened she feels upset. Usually, people suggest friendship over romance because they want to maintain the status quo. From your perspective, of course, the status was only quo* in the first place because you were pursuing the romance, but often people don't realize that.

However, that's just my approach (it's been equally unsuccessful, I might add), and it sounds like you've deliberately made your choices after considering your options, so I'm not giving any advice so much as vaguely commenting. Good luck.

*Almost certainly does not reflect correct grammar; English, Latin, or otherwise.

Thanks, it actually helps reading that im indeed not a horrible person, at least. The main problem is that im a very awkward fu*k when it comes to dating and relationships, it was allready amazing to me that she even wanted to hang out. The "dump" in itself wasnt surprising at all, but I seriously cant handle the fact that she gives more attention now than before. She also gives me this weird mix of being angry and feeling bad for her, which is really upsetting.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

-snip-

(BTW I'm not directing this at Stuebi, I'm just ranting)

I'm quite happy with my reputation as someone who doesn't like children. What's not to not like? And I don't want children (luckily my girlfriend is quite on board with me there).

The kid didn't break the thing because she wasn't watching him for a second. He broke the thing because (1) he doesn't respect other people's things, (2) he doesn't listen to an adult telling him nicely to please put it down, (3) the mother wasn't listening to the conversation an adult was having with her son for *some time* because (4) she can't stop touching her phone and having pointless conversations.

She was probably texting her OBGYN to ask if she can still get an abortion in the 9th trimester.

Anyway, she failed as a parent. But parenting, child-rearing, is one of the taboo subjects which people are intensely protective of: we form strong opinions and absolutely refuse to change them. Home life is a subject on exactly the same plane as religion and politics (separate from the fact that politics has subsumed all other subjects so that now all things are political). So because she failed as a parent, not just on that day but on many days before, she felt deeply ashamed. Like most people she didn't want to accept that shame and sought any way to deflect it: perhaps by attacking the man who was victimized by her failure? Oh yes, that will work.

If you have a screaming baby, maybe you don't get to go out to eat at nice restaurants until your baby grows up into at least a non-screaming baby. That's one of the prices of parenthood: you don't necessarily get a social life anymore. You are saddled with a kid, you unlucky bastard. You might want to hit the town to blow off steam, and you may not be able to afford (or find a reliable) babysitter. But your desire to do that doesn't overcome everyone else's desire to not be annoyed by your horrible child.

Also stop trying to get on airplanes, lady. I swear every time I get on a plane I'm encircled by a half dozen screaming, choking, colicky babies - sitting on mom's lap. How safe is that. "In the event of a water landing, the baby you're holding will be scrambled by the forces of impact and sink to the bottom of the sea to be eaten by those weird fish with the lamps hanging in front. But everyone who has their own seat may be just fine." If I've gotta listen to your baby screaming, if I've gotta smell you changing the diaper right there instead of going back to the latrine, if your baby is gonna vomit right next to me, at least you need to pay for the seat next to you.

In fact, new rule for airplanes: if a passenger is under 3, it must have its own seat immediately adjacent to and in a contiguous seating block with the parent, the child must be seated in the rear five rows of the plane (referred to after this as "steerage"), and the five rows ahead of that are 50% off ticket price which is subsidized by the people behind them paying extra.

And not all kids are horrible, not all parents are horrible. The horrible parents with horrible kids just try to make non-parents think that to cover up their many inadequacies. If someone has a shitty dog that barks all day and bites people eventually the police will come and shoot it. The shitty dog barks and bites like that because the owner never trained him properly (and it's not hard, you're a lot smarter than he is and you control everything).

If someone brought their dog into the store and he ate a magazine, everyone would scowl at him and he'd be forced to pay for the magazine. If he left in a huff and exclaimed that he'd never shop there again, every single person in that store would bellow and laugh and send the bastard scrambling away in shame. But if it's a lady with a horrible child who causes damage? Suddenly it's like she's the gestapo and we need to mind our Ps and Qs.

So why is it different for parents vs. dog owners? Are all the non-parents so grateful that this person squeezed out a child and had to pay the approx. $30k to bring the pregnancy to birth, much less the cost and effort to raise the child, and we don't have to? Are we all  sympathetic that this person made such a huge mistake? Is it because the parent values the child more, so we attribute higher value to the child? Is it that we value the child as a potential member of society? Are we bamboozled by genetics to feel especial sympathy and empathy for a baby of any species?

So I'm supposed to be annoyed and inconvenienced by your child, and pretend to love it,  just so he can grow up and compete against me for a job when I'm 50? What incentive do I have to give a shit about someone's baby?

[/xmas card]

[Stuebi]

-snip-

-awesomesauce-

I read the entirety of this in a voice somewhere between a military officer and angry Vegeta, and it just cheered me up from a really horrible day. Thanks for that!

[Avis-Mergulus]

-snip-

-snippity-
[/xmas card]

Pretty much my opinion on the subject. The general realization that everybody around you doesn't somehow owe you for having a baby hits some people pretty hard. I respect the right of people to have children, it's just that there is a certain mentality that has "people with children are fundamentally better than people without them" as a core axiom. It's the product of all those tribal-throwback scenarios where having a child is a step up on the social ladder for the parents. I swear, some people have the things just to put a tick on their to-do-in-life list.

On a completely unrelated note, I really enjoy your rants. I understand that they may not be a laughing matter or very pleasant to deliver, but you tell'em. Us. Whatever.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Hey thanks. Actually it's just nice to have somewhere to rant even if nobody sees it or people get upset about it. I'm not trying to irritate people in the thread. I mean, I'm polite around people. And it's not like I'm just seething whenever there's a kid. It's just that there aren't a lot of outlets for complaining about stuff.

[Avis-Mergulus]

I have also always found that ranting in writing is more productive than improvising on the spot; there are also less idiots who seek to close the whole question with a single phrase like "Wait until you have kids of your own" hate hate hate. Of course, it also has less impact, but well. Finding a meatworld person and suddenly telling them about how you hate this and that doesn't make you very popular, in my experience. At least here, the word RAGE is at the top of the page.

I don't know why I am suddenly praising the concept behind the rage thread. Never mind me.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Lady: "Wait until you have kids of your own"

Me: Sorry, not having kids. How is the crushing despair working for you?

Lady: "Oh you never know what can happen!"

Me: Do you mean an abortion?

Lady: *Shocked expression*

Me: Hey, smile lady. It's the second-best thing you can do with your face.

[MagmaMcFry]

Me: Do you mean an abortion?

Lady: *Shocked expression*

Me: Hey, smile lady. It's the second-best thing you can do with your face.

I read that as you telling the lady to abort her face.

[Bauglir]

I know this is the rage thread but we're getting awfully hateful in here. It's one thing to vent, it seems like another to take satisfaction in wrecking another person's day. Even if they're being dicks, they're only dicks because they don't care about you, so what does that make you when you do care about making them feel like shit?

[LordSlowpoke]

someone who's bloody well pissed about having their everything not cared about by pricks who can't see beyond the tip of their nose that's who

if i were to speak of this thread's contents on a meta level it would be along the lines "as long as nenjin's fine with it and it doesn't get toady involved anything goes"