Hi Jhamila, I am sorry to hear you are heartbroken�
It seems like you have fallen in LOVE after 3 weeks of dating a perfect stranger�
I just cannot wrap my mind around that fact!
Acually, as a 37 year old single European male (who has been in two unsuccesful shackup relationships for 8 and 4 years) this timeline scares the living cr*p out of me!!!
I would not even dare to go exclusive with someone I've only met 3 weeks ago!
To start with: I would not trust my own feelings to be genuine: is this real love or am I projecting all my desires on this one person that I am infatuated with?
My "picker" has been faulty many times before, why would I trust it now?
My friends & family would warn me too if I am infatuated with someone I've only met recently�
If I find myself in your position I ALWAYS take a step back and start dating other people ASAP:
This amount of chemistry with someone on such a short notice makes me go deaf, dumb & blind for every red-flag this person may be waiving in my face! (You are not different: I think Indie pointed that one out nicely!)
Some of your statements stroke a chord because it is the exact reason why I find most 30+ woman which I date, their own worst enemy. I'll pick the most obvious quote:
I haven't told about the handsome attorney yet. It's kind of funny but a little unnerving, and it started by his rescheduling our first date several times (a sure sign of ambivalence):
So a man, whome you never met before, reschedules a first date and this is a SURE SIGN of ambivalence... Really? Maybe he is dating 4 other people or has a relative in the hospital?
--> You are projecting your desires on a perfect stranger and when he reschedules, your desire turns into pain.
This is what is called "attachment" in Buddhism and
"Attachment is the source of all suffering!"
Seeking happiness so desperately from outside in any form is a fool�s game as it is incapable of giving us real or lasting happiness. Especially if the other person is as neurotic as we are! How are we going to give them security when we can�t even find it within ourselves?
So let�s look at the kind of thing that happens when we fall in love. If our attachment comes on strong, it is like falling in a ditch � completely out of our control.
Let�s say we�re hanging out with good friends. We�re having a whale of a time, joking, affectionate, enjoying a great night out, until suddenly a really attractive person (to our eyes) walks into the restaurant. Suddenly our happiness is over there. We�re feeling a bit bereft. We�re fast forgetting about our friends because now it�s, �I�ve got to meet that person!� Then they walk out the door, taking our happiness with them!
The scheming begins. How to get their number, set up a date, have their kids. There seem to be three stages to this kind of desire�scheming, indulging, and recovery. Scheming � they are going to complete me, this is it! Maybe we�re lucky enough and we do get their phone number, their email. We wait by the phone � are people still waiting by the phone now? Well, in the old days, before we were plugged 24/7 into the cloud, it went something like this: �I�ll just go buy some groceries, I�ll be away for an hour or so, then by the time I�ve got home they are bound to have called.� But no messages. No emails either. This is painful.
Then maybe the right caller ID or a relevant email does show up, and, ecstatically relieved, we do manage to hook up. We take a thousand photos of our happiness on our Smart phone, from every angle. Everything about them is delicious and special � their perfume, their eating habits, the way they drive� They can do no wrong. The fact that others don�t get it, or even see faults in our angel, is just a sad indictment on their lack of discrimination.
This phase of romantic indulgence goes on, they tell us from studies, for about six months.
Then at some point we say to this person, �Honey, I really love you and want you to be happy.� And they reply, �I�m really glad to hear you say that because I�ve been taking ballroom dancing classes and I�ve fallen for Giovanna, she�s Italian.� Suddenly everything goes pear-shaped. That wasn�t what we meant. We say, �But I didn�t want you to be happy if you�re not giving me happiness!�
Now all the objects of happiness are causes of suffering. The same perfume is now unbearable, the same car is a horrible reminder. All the things that seemed causes of our happiness are now causes of our pain. Maybe we take all their stuff and throw it out of the window. �Take all of your stuff and get out!� We think it�s all their fault, but really the scales have fallen from our eyes and we are realizing that they weren�t the source of our happiness to begin with.
With attachment, we are set up from the get go for disillusionment when that person inevitably cannot deliver the happiness we sought in them, when they cannot live up to our hype. We need time to recover because thwarted attachment is very, very painful. It can make people feel down for months. It can drive people to kill themselves. And it is very dangerous because when we�re in the indulging phase it can look so good that we forget its outcome and fall for it time and time again.
Attachment is called �sticky desire� If you have hairy arms, you can try this experiment, if not you�ll just have to imagine it. Plaster a sticky band aid onto your arm, leave it for a bit, and then tear it off. How does that feel? At some point also we are separated one way or another from our object of attachment, and it hurts. Tears. We often want to lash out.
�If we are skillful, friends can be like treasure chests, from whom we can gain the precious wealth of love, compassion, patience, and so forth. For our friends to function in this way, however, our love for them must be free from attachment. If our love for our friends is mixed with strong attachment, it will be conditional on their behaving in ways that please us, and as soon as they do something we disapprove of, our fondness for them may turn to anger.�
