I was slow getting into the dating world because of emotional and religious trauma as a teenager. I went head down into my education and didn’t look up until I had my Masters Degree (all but thesis.)
After some really bad experiences with online dating, I eventually landed with a man I met through work. We bonded on lunch breaks and became really great platonic friends for about eight months before romance became an option.
During that time I started crushing on him hard, but I was too shy and insecure to take the next step.
For his part, he had the same feelings about me. But: he was good friends with my roommate at the time (the woman who introduced us.) He knew that she’s gay, and because I lived with her, he thought I was her girlfriend and therefore out of reach for him.
That changed one Friday night at a social event after work when her actual girlfriend showed up. That was the moment he learned that I was straight, and single. We were dating by Sunday.
Every time I think I couldn’t love him any harder, he does something that effortlessly raises the bar.
There was the night I gave him a trauma dump. I don’t know how long I was crying into his chest, but he just took it, listening, holding me, stroking my hair until I was too exhausted to cry anymore. I ended up falling asleep on him. I woke up the next morning in bed with a blanket over me. He’d carried me there, took off my shoes but I was still dressed in my date clothes from the night before. That’s when I knew for a fact that I was safe with him. I woke up the next morning to hear him making breakfast for me!
There was the time, six months into our relationship, that he met my deaf sister for the first time. That’s when he revealed that he’d been secretly learning sign language for all our relationship, just so he could talk to her directly without relying on my interpretation. I was floored!
We’re getting married on Saturday and I’ve never felt so loved!
Bad. I was a naive teenager, and he was four years older than me and took advantage of that fact. He screwed up my mental health so bad I still feel the effects 16 years later.
Comments
Too damn clingy. Attached at the hip is not for me. I didn’t date again until the second year of college after that smothering experience.
I was slow getting into the dating world because of emotional and religious trauma as a teenager. I went head down into my education and didn’t look up until I had my Masters Degree (all but thesis.)
After some really bad experiences with online dating, I eventually landed with a man I met through work. We bonded on lunch breaks and became really great platonic friends for about eight months before romance became an option.
During that time I started crushing on him hard, but I was too shy and insecure to take the next step.
For his part, he had the same feelings about me. But: he was good friends with my roommate at the time (the woman who introduced us.) He knew that she’s gay, and because I lived with her, he thought I was her girlfriend and therefore out of reach for him.
That changed one Friday night at a social event after work when her actual girlfriend showed up. That was the moment he learned that I was straight, and single. We were dating by Sunday.
Every time I think I couldn’t love him any harder, he does something that effortlessly raises the bar.
There was the night I gave him a trauma dump. I don’t know how long I was crying into his chest, but he just took it, listening, holding me, stroking my hair until I was too exhausted to cry anymore. I ended up falling asleep on him. I woke up the next morning in bed with a blanket over me. He’d carried me there, took off my shoes but I was still dressed in my date clothes from the night before. That’s when I knew for a fact that I was safe with him. I woke up the next morning to hear him making breakfast for me!
There was the time, six months into our relationship, that he met my deaf sister for the first time. That’s when he revealed that he’d been secretly learning sign language for all our relationship, just so he could talk to her directly without relying on my interpretation. I was floored!
We’re getting married on Saturday and I’ve never felt so loved!
It was amazing, and is still flourishing. We are very much an inseparable triad
[removed]
Bad. I was a naive teenager, and he was four years older than me and took advantage of that fact. He screwed up my mental health so bad I still feel the effects 16 years later.