studentofthegame

don't worry about moments of silence. in fact, you should expect them, which will help you not be thrown by them. in moments of silence just offer a smile, or make a positive observation about something in your environment. girls like confidence, but you can fake it if you feel nervous. give her a compliment during the course of the evening, but one or two is plenty. don't overdo it.

@Aquarius I thought you'd quoted me and changed my words for a second, but I see what's happened there.

@EvilAngel that's just a perception. I can confirm that I am here, hitting buttons on a keyboard. there are also other people reading your words on some sort of device.

@universe I'll rephrase. it's important to own it. and work on eliminating it.

when I was younger I was very needy and would be left devastated by a break up. during my last relationship I was managing my emotions much better. I thought my neediness was a thing of the past. I have been seeing a girl for a month or so. things are progressing steadily, though we aren't bf/gf yet. I have noticed that a neediness in me that I haven't felt for 15 years has returned. in retrospect, my ex-gf had some mild needy tendencies. maybe this satiated the somewhat insecure attachment category I fall into in some regards, where someone in the relationship was showing some neediness. The girl I am seeing now has shown no such tendencies so far. she is very busy, she doesn't have a free weekend for weeks and weeks now, our dates are relatively limited in quantity and she'll sometimes send a 'good night' sort of text prior to seeing her friends in the evening, because she is very present and won't be distracted by her phone while she is in company. I recognise this is all healthy, but it's a new world to me and it's unsettling. Equally, she is present when we are together, and rarely goes near her phone. I will acclimatise and grow from this experience, regardless of whether the relationship stays the course. I have plenty else in life to focus on other than a relationship - but being from a broken home, with attachment and loss issues, certainly leaves a residue that rises up from time to time. I'm working on these issues. Neediness is a painful, lonely experience. It's important to recognise it, and not communicate it to the other person in the relationship.

marriages are harder to predict than that. you can have two 'weakly developed' people as you put it who fight and make up, fight and make up, and are constantly up and down, but it works for them. that's how they relate to each other. I do agree with your last point. there is a certain pressure to get married and settle down by a certain age. and like yourself, I refuse to marry into a dysfunctional, co-dependent relationship. I'd rather remain single and childless. that's how I feel about it at this point in my life, and I am 36 years old.

You can rationalise it all day long, be told you are over-thinking it and should laugh it off, meditate on it, etc. Maybe you will get to that place eventually, maybe that is the course of action for you. Or, maybe, the feelings of deceit and having your boundaries invaded are legitimate enough to warrant treating it as a serious trauma, if that's how you feel, in which case you might feel you need to sit and talk it through with a professional or some such course of action. That is for you to decide. I can understand how one person would almost immediately see the humour in the situation and draw a line under it, whereas someone else may be more affected by it. Everyone's different.

i'm sure meditation is good (I haven't really started doing it yet myself, it's on the to do list). But the devil makes work for idle hands. Get busy. There's a balance to be struck between sitting quietly and also taking massive action.

I've been seeing a new girl for a month or so. i'm really into her, but have not been able to bust a nut during sex. I need to cut out deathgrip and masturbation, recover sensitivity, and re-tune into healthy sex, rather than relying on heavy fantasy. i'm on day 5 of nofap, so early days.

Good luck with that mate. Hope it goes well. I wouldn't think you would be 100% sure after one or two dates with her. I have been seeing a girl for a matter of weeks now and it's a definite feeling out process. We agreed to slowly get to know each other and there's been no discussion about when and if we should make it official and be bf/gf. I hope it happens, but if it doesn't, then I won't consider her a waste of time. it's all experience

@Commodent good stuff man. As for finishing the computer science degree, I tend to agree with others that seeing that through and closing that chapter feels like the proper advice to give. But that is for you to contemplate. Another 3 years is a long time to commit to something that your heart and head is no longer in. On the other hand, if you can draw up a list of the benefits of finishing the course, how you can explore other passions around it during the 3 years, possibly the discipline it will help to build by staying the course, you might feel it's the right thing to do.

Hello mate. From our chats it’s obvious to me that you would be an incredible teacher in the field somewhere. Whether that’s as an author, a therapist, a psychologist, a life coach. Whatever it may be. Time is on your side to explore and find your purpose. I’d recommend the book ‘shapeshifter’ by geoff thompson. He’s a guy i recommend for a lot of things, and typically i advise that people understand his life story first, possibly by reading his autobiography ‘watch my back’ or by researching him. Reason being that understanding that context makes his work much more powerful.

Thanks for sharing man. i’m going to take a look at that video about building bricks. Sounds interesting

So as I understand it, you focus your attention on your breath, observe thoughts as they appear then re-focus on your breath.... and repeat throughout the session? I'm playing around with a breathing app used by deep sea divers to increase lung capacity. It is my gateway into meditation.

hi man. I might have asked this already, but how do you meditate? mantra, follow your breath, or something else?

you are very honest and insightful. it's a journey we're all on and I wish you luck.

your 'relapse' sounds entirely normal to me. it's a journey that doesn't end when a workshop finishes. I've had feelings arise in the last 6 weeks that I haven't felt for 15 years, triggered unexpectedly. I thought I was past this. they too are around attachment, loss and abandonment. I've had some amazing highs and lows in the last 6 weeks actually. i'm still dealing with it. still learning. still scared

in the early stages of a relationship with this girl. we both have busy lives and I have to manage my expectations. I am observing the neediness I feel and not projecting it onto her. we will see where that goes. in the meantime I have habits to maintain. >drinking water >eating on waking up >picking up my guitar every day

I agree with this and it's been energising to read it and remind myself what it's all about

when I'm stressed I tend to listen to one or two albums on loop. it's been all opeth and tool for about a month straight. I recognised it as a crutch, but then I saw tim ferriss talking about how he uses one song on loop sometimes as a meditative device. so maybe there's a bit of that going on too.

@SFRL Not to hijack the thread, but after typing my response to the opening post, I read your post and found some balm in it. Thanks for this. I knew it all to be true, but to read it the way you put it has helped me understand something. It does take a while to get to know someone, and I'm expecting results after one (not very good) date. I think what i'm feeling is a kind of helplessness that, while im confident the girl I dated would like me if she spent more time with me, I have to live with the possibility that I will not get that opportunity. As outlined in my post, I believe my over-reaction is because of past, unresolved trauma.

I think i'm having a very similar experience to you right now. For background, when I was younger, I was very vulnerable in relationships. I was needy during them, and devastated when they ended. I had a near breakdown around 21 when my GF split up with me. As I got older, I have gradually become less needy in relationships, and far more stable if they finished. I split with my GF of 3 years last summer, and while tough, was not the catastrophic experience it might have been in the past and we remain on good terms. I was fully confident I would find someone more suitable for me and wish my ex-gf happiness as well. Then, 3-4 weeks ago, I met a girl. Immediately attracted to her. I recognised that for a girl I had only just met, I was thinking excessively about her. It should have been cause for alarm and I should have started getting a grip of my thoughts and expectations, but I think I felt confident that as we get to know each other that I might be able to win her attention too. Well, last week, she agreed to come on a date with me and we went for coffee. I was a bag of nerves. I have a lot of stress in my life at the minute anyway, so my head isn't really in a good place. And during the first date I think I came across as very tense and a bit awkward. Since then, I have been an emotional mess. I haven't felt these particular gut-wrenching feelings for 15 years, since that breakup which left me devastated. It's confusing and alarming, because this girl and myself just went on one coffee date. The date probably isn't the disaster I imagine it was, but I feel like i'm not good enough for her, that I repulse her during the date, and my intense attraction and neediness for her is scary and makes me feel very uncomfortable. I never anticipated behaving like this - reading and re-reading all her texts for a sign of anything, sitting by the phone waiting for a text, all that stuff. I am having mood swings, bouts of tears and thinking obsessively about this girl. There is a lot going on here, and I can relate to a lot of your opening post. I have been in attachment therapy for nearly 3 years (I suffered significant separation and loss from ages 2-4). I am doing inner-child work in therapy and at home. I have no doubt that it's these core issues that are at play, but why this girl has triggered these feelings at this point in my life I have no idea. A possibility is that I have a lot of stress in my life right now, I am not balanced and maybe I have been prone to something like this happening because the mental guard was down and I allowed my thoughts to get out of control when I first met this girl.

May 2019 Addictions i'm focusing on: Porn - porn is out, fap is limited Phone - limiting use of phone. Reading 'digital minimalism'. Fears i'm confronting: Kickboxing class - this is at the bottom of my fear pyramid (see Fear: the Friend of Exceptional People, Geoff Thompson). Showing up at this class on a Wednesday night is like a pressure test for how well I've been looking after myself during the week and whether I can hang. It also asks me to confront the self-doubt I have for myself, the fear that i'm not good enough, that people there don't want this newbie in their class. Habit i'm forming: Eating at 7am hasn't stuck. Will revisit. I suspect I need to make this as 'can't fail' as possible. Possibly a banana by the bedside for the morning, instead of going downstairs and making up a protein shake. Instead I'm switching focus and picking up a guitar every single day, even if I only hit one string. Pick it up, one string. Thus far, the effect is maybe 10-20 minutes guitar practise a day. Hopefully I manage to build that up. Healing work Currently reading Homecoming (Bradshaw) and The Tao of Fully Feeling (Walker) in addition to attachment therapy. I currently only sit in front of the therapist twice a month, but I'm considering resuming weekly sessions if possible.

@Gladius thanks man. appreciate it. Will update later.

I know how the sentiment 'it's going to be a long summer' feels. i'm in the same boat. I like the model you have going in your journal of focusing on 3 areas. it seems ambitious but also manageable. they are three areas that I should also be paying attention to, because I also have issues with all 3. So your journal is an inspiration mate.