Hi guys. Over the past few months, I’ve created the most complex situation I’ve ever been in, and I don’t think it would hurt to get as much feedback as you’re willing to give concerning what I should do and what I should learn from this. I’ll give as much background information as I think necessary, and for more you can reference this post that I made a while ago: http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=5083. The point of that post was to figure out how to get over a girl who happened to be one of my best friends’ girlfriend. In case you’re wondering, this post is about the same girl. This turned out to be much longer than I thought, but if you can bear with me, I could really use some advice.
Starting around March of last year, I met this girl through one of my best friends. I was slightly interested in her, although I didn’t say anything, and my friend told me that he wasn’t interested in her. Things looked good. Then I didn’t really see her much and she ended up liking him a lot, eventually getting him to say yes to a relationship. I saw her even less at the end of the semester (this is all at my university), and eventually summer came and I didn’t see either of them at all. When I came back from the summer, they were still together, but he had transferred to another school a few states away, so they were in a long distance relationship. This persisted until just recently.
So over the course of this year, this girl was my circle of friends, and eventually got pretty close to us. Needless to say, I was still interested in her but it was futile because she was dating my friend, even if he did live hundreds of miles away. As much as I tried to let it go and get over it, I found myself becoming more and more attracted to her the more time I spent with her. As I would later find out, it was the same way for her (although she was a little more discreet about it). We were always flirtatious with eachother and I know I felt a lot of emotional tension when it seemed like we were falling for eachother but we both had to act otherwise.
This proceeded until about 2 months ago. I came to visit her on my way back to my room, around midnight after studying all day. We were sitting on her bed talking, and eventually the tension I was talking about reared its head and finally was shattered when I kissed her and things got heavy. This was while she was still in a long distance relationship with my friend. This was my first mistake. Afterward, we talked about it, and she said she felt guilty but we both confessed that we had felt very strongly about eachother.
I spent some time thinking about what had happened, and decided that I had made a mistake by violating the trust that my friendship with her boyfriend was based upon, and that I had no choice but to tell him that something had happened with the two of us. At the same time, I decided that having a relationship with this girl would be a much greater value than my friendship with her boyfriend. I concluded that I would be at no moral fault if I were to engage in such a thing as long as I was being honest about it; it may be a bit unkind to do such a thing to my friend, but I don’t feel like that is violating a moral principle and I think I’d be gaining a greater value by doing so.
So I told her in writing (I don’t think I would have been able to articulate myself any other way at the time) that I (or we) would have to tell him eventually, but that I would refrain from doing so until she was ready for it, and until we had things between the two of us figured out, so as to avoid from making the situation any more complex than it had to be. This was my second mistake (making a promise that could contradict one of my moral principles, being honest with my friend, if she decided she was never going to be ready).
A few times, I would talk to her a little, and we would both conclude that she needed a little space to make some kind of decision about whether she wanted a relationship or not, but inevitably we would end up seeing eachother again and would be intimate with eachother again (another mistake). This occurred a few times before I spoke with her. When I talked to her in person about telling her boyfriend that something had happened, she basically told me that she understood where I was coming from, and wouldn’t blame me if I did it, but that she didn’t want me to do it because she felt like he wouldn’t be mature enough to handle it and that it would unnecessarily cause her own world to come crashing down. I told her if she wasn’t going to forbid me from doing it, then I was going to talk to him, so I left with the intention of doing just that. Soon afterward, however, she told me that she wanted me to wait. I’m still waiting a few weeks later.
Eventually she told me that she was no longer dating her boyfriend, but not because of what had happened with us. I think she was being honest, as he had basically burdened her from his school throughout the year by calling her all of the time and using her as an emotional crutch, making her pretty miserable (not that it changes whether what I did was right or wrong). At this point, I didn’t (and still don’t) feel like anything that were to happen between the girl and I would be any business of my friend’s, since they were no longer together. This was probably 6 weeks or so after everything started.
Then, someone told him something about the two of us flirting with each other. He started calling all of our mutual friends and asking them everything they knew. They couldn’t really tell them anything other than what they had seen, which was me visiting her pretty frequently and being flirtatious with her when we were together. This was enough for him to call me about 20 times in one day, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him without being honest about how I had violated his trust, so I didn’t pick up the phone. I haven’t talked to him since then either.
What I came to find out from talking to her, is that she feels like everyone is judging her (which is true), and that she just wants people to leave her alone. I told her that it is not their business and that it shouldn’t impact her decision. People have also told her that if she has any kind of relationship with me, they will discontinue their friendships with her because they would find her morally at fault. It kind of came out that she still cares about that, but if it were me, I wouldn’t. In addition, she still cares very much for her ex-boyfriend and does not want to hurt him. I can understand that. On the other side, she feels very strongly about me and has even said that she wishes she had just met me first. I told her either way, she needs to make a decision, and she admitted that she had been avoiding making a decision. I told her to to think about what is important to her, how things could turn out depending on her decision, and which one would be most important, then to come up with a decision.
Since then, we have still been physically intimate with eachother and have been seeing eachother a bit. We talked about our values, and she asked me why it was that I was so kind and caring when it came to her, but not to everyone. I told her that she was more of a value to me than most people. We talked about our similarities and differences, and she said that what was important to her was making bonds with people and wearing her heart on her sleeve, while I weigh out costs and benefits, and that I don’t let myself feel a full range of emotions by keeping my guard up (remind anyone of when Rearden’s brother tells him something about how he has never felt pain, and it’s a devastating blow?). I want to say that while our fundamental values sound so different, I think there is quite a bit of overlap. I am compassionate toward her, which she likes, and she is very rational on a day to day basis and has long term goals and does live very much for herself. I think she misunderstood me somewhat, and I told her not to make any conclusions about what I had said to her until I could make sure she explained me clearly (she said not to worry about it).
We both feel very compatible with eachother. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone in my life who I’ve felt able to become so close to. I understand exactly how she thinks, or what she means when she says something, or where shes coming from when she is telling me how she feels about something. She says its like that for her as well. I have felt like I have grown tremendously just from spending time with her by learning more about myself, and I love spending time with her. In addition, while things may have escalated very quickly physically, emotionally I think we have been growing together for quite a while now. It seems like things would work out so well… but then of course circumstance has to show its ugly face, not to mention that we could have both made some much better decisions along the way.
To make the possibility of a potential relationship even more complicated, I just found out that the ex-boyfriend plans on coming back to my school next year, because he feels like he has closer friends here. While I think it’s a big mistake, and while I can’t change what he does, it certainly makes a relationship between us that more unlikely. In addition, summer starts in a month, and she and I will not be able to see eachother for 3 and a half months.
I’ve got a decent idea of how I feel about the whole situation, which is that I still want a relationship with her even if it will be a little rough, but I don’t have a clue how that will work with her ex-boyfriend coming back. It seems like we would almost have to break away from our group of friends, which, while I admit I am not very close to except for a select few, almost seems unthinkable, especially for her (she is much more social).
I made some mistakes, and I’m paying the price. I’ve also learned a lot along the way. But this is by no means a simple situation, and I gladly welcome anything anyone has to say about it. I’ll try to keep up with replies, and I will consider everything that is offered very carefully. I’m sure there are a lot of things I haven’t considered, and also things I have considered that I forgot to mention. It will also probably help to figuring out what my priorities should be in dealing with this situation. Anyway, forgive me for being so longwinded, I’ve tried to be as concise as possible.
Thanks
