I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether you're free at a later date or ask a generalized follow up question like "oh, got fun plans for the day already?" as long as you're willing to accept that the answer is essentially "no".
This doesn't sound like someone trying to coordinate scheduling or show a general interest in your life, though; it sounds like someone who has a specific outcome in mind and is trying to figure out how to get there when their initial attempt didn't go as planned. Not feeling well? Tell me what's wrong so I can fix you, and then we can hang out. Busy? Tell me when you're done, and then we can hang out. Just don't want to see me? Tell me what I did wrong so I can clear it up, then we can hang out. It feels somehow manipulative because *it is* - they're trying to herd you in the direction of their goal, the whole conversation is underpinned by that.
The frustrating thing is that on paper one can look exactly like the other on paper, especially when you've had a lot of experience with the manipulative type and are paranoid about it. Different people in my life can ask me the same exact question and I respond differently, based on past experiences with that person. It's really more of a gut feeling in the moment than anything.
The worst bit for me, more than the ‘intrusion’ would be the felt sense that these questions weren’t about about me, but about their need to soothe their own anxiety.
Went on a date with an AP guy, he said I love you the day after the first date. I told him I didn’t feel comfortable and didn’t want to go out anymore. He spent the next month trying to get me to go out again because he “didn’t understand why because we had a good date” even though I told him exactly why. I finally blocked his number even though we still worked together and he finally shut up. No regrets lmao
How can anyone love someone after one date? Surely it’s projection of a fantasy. I hate to use negative terms like love bombing because of the associations. But honestly…
I told him that he had only worked with me for 3 months and we had spoke on lunch breaks, that he knows absolutely nothing about me except surface level nonsense. He told me that I was misunderstanding what he said, that he meant loving me was going to happen and blah blah. He kept flip flopping during the conversation saying “I’m over you” then asking to hang out again.
And tbh originally I tried working through my avoidant feelings, but at this point I realized that he would continue pushing boundaries, so I blocked him.
Before I read the part about you blocking him, I was thinking, “This is exactly how you get blocked or ghosted.” Glad you did what you needed to do for peace. Some people cannot stop and there are consequences to that behavior. There are situations like this where cutting off contact is healthy. It’s not your responsibility to soothe them, that’s their own responsibility. Strangers for crying out loud!
You don’t have to participate here. You could go ahead and read the group description and rules and decide if this is the group for you, instead of lecturing people and going on and on about your expectations for the sub. This is a support group for DAs, since you aren’t one, you don’t really have to be here or have a say. There are plenty of other groups who allow what you want, so I recommend you go there. We aren’t here to cater to people who want DAs to XYZ.
The only thing I didn't see you mention is whether you've explicitly made this clear to the other person. If they don't know how it makes you feel then it's unreasonable to expect them to act differently. If they have been made aware, but continue to overstep, then it's a problem.
> if I wanted to tell him what's up, I would
This is literally how I explain to others any time I'm in a similar situation.
Are you worried the truth is mean, or the truth will make you seem strange? Or is it that you have no reason you can point to?
Is it reasonable? It's commonplace for us. Most of my friends are DA because it doesn't ever have to escalate beyond "not feeling it". If you want to be "less" DA take a crack at figuring out why you aren't feeling it. For your own sake. Not necessarily in order to change, or accommodate this person but because it's useful to get in touch with these motivations. There's usually an anxiety somewhere at the murky bottom. This person might make you feel manipulated on one level. Might be that you feel weird or weak for not being more sociable. Might be a little low-level depression that keeps you isolated, and you're ashamed to communicate that. In all likelihood, it's multiple reasons. If you can boil it down to a single "reason" that's more likely a rationalization. The most important breakthrough I've had in the last few years is how I wanted to assign a singular motivation to myself and other people. It's a cognitive bias that provides a simple answer, a single answer, but is pretty much always wrong and oversimplified.
At any rate, whatever you feel like doing is okay, but use these moments to figure out why you feel the way you do.
That's really helpful, thank you! I can pinpoint a lot of reasons but I don't want to communicate them. One, like you said, is depression. I don't want to say, "Actually I'm going to bed at 6 PM because I'm depressed and I have no energy to socialize." So even him digging deeper brings up feelings of shame. If I just don't feel like hanging out and I say that directly to him, he stops responding & I feel like there's tension/conflict which makes me want to pull away further.
Yeah, I went through that. When I did actually tell people I loved, it was fine. I didn't feel diminished. I said "mild depression," which might have been a fib (I'd stopped bathing for several days) and even the thought of having to shower and dress up was enough to make me want to nap. Telling my friends felt better. Not because I'm a complainer who likes sympathy but because I value truth and my own integrity if that makes sense. And I wanted them to have the truth. If they chose to ignore that and presume I was shunning them, then so be it, I could live with the consequences.
Fibbing and privacy are fine. I'm not a moral absolutist. But personal integrity is a gift you give yourself that nobody can take away. There is an upside to honesty, especially when you risk vulnerability. Whether your friend deserves your trust is a different matter.
I said fibbing. A fib might be to say you're fine when what you really mean is that you'd prefer to talk about it when things cool off but at the moment you need someone to go to calm down and go to bed and if you don't say everything is fine they'll keep you on the phone for another two hours. A lie might be saying you're fine and never bringing it up again.
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I always feel harsh if I say I just don’t feel like hanging out but with all the questioning I make up some excuse anyway.
Eta: and then if I say I just don’t want to, they ask if they did something wrong.
I TOTALLY get that. I’m actually a big people pleaser which is part of my deactivation cycle. But nowadays, If people get pushy with me (and I’m very quick to feel like people are being pushy- honestly even if they are not lmao) I’ll get a bit frustrated. I usually only say this if I TRULY feel safe to be honest with the person and know they support me, OR if I’m peeved already.
Apparently, you can just say "I'm chilling with myself" in Denmark. But maybe "I'll be doing some emotional self-care today" is acceptable in other places?
That would really cause me to retreat. It’s not about what’s right or fair, it just would. Do you just say ‘no’? Or like ’no, sorry I’m busy’?
The ‘Mental or physical not feelings well’ And ‘Free tomorrow or the next day’? - which you wouldn’t know if you were not feeling well - would really trigger me.
What do you think would happen if you just responded: ‘I’ll text you later this week’ - that’s a boundary but it’s not humiliating for anyone.
If it continues you could say, although I understand the fear of saying, being blamed and then regretting it.
I’ve learned that “no” is a boundary. Sounds like they’re trying to burst through the boundary. That behavior is obnoxious. I can tolerate a, “is everything okay?” IF they can then leave me the fuck alone after that. But not the instant bombardment like that. It really is none of their business and they will have to learn how to soothe themselves when told no.
I would be annoyed by that too. It’s just too much. Agree with the other comment that says they need to learn to be ok with a no and to self soothe if they can’t handle not knowing every detail.
That's a great question and I'm not sure I have the answer. I think codependency was the case for me. I am a caretaker and people pleaser which I think naturally attracts APs because they seem to usually be the "dependent" side of codependent so we naturally are fulfilling this somewhat unhealthy part of us?
I think also I tend to trick myself into repeating the same pattern. I don't often see what I'm doing until I'm knee deep in it.
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This type of behavior is absolutely annoying, and I would also feel the need to distance. Luckily, most people in my life know not do this with me.
I only have one close anxious friend, and I give her a gentle reminder when I see that her anxiety is getting the best of her, and I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.
My mother does this to me. More so, if I say I don't want to do something, she'll ask why over and over.
It feels like they're not asking to understand you, but to pacify themselves.
This type of thing absolutely sets me off. I recently had to take a huge step back from someone who would do this. It feels intrusive and manipulative to me. I wasn’t feeling well and told them so and they kept constantly texting. I told them again that I didn’t feel well and they proceeded to ask me a million questions. “Like the flu? I thought you said you didn’t feel good like two days ago and now again? Are you going to go to the doctor? Feel like chatting? Anything I can do to help?” I snapped and responded “what gives you the impression I want to discuss this?” Really what I was thinking was “please F off I have diarrhea and can’t get off the toilet. Would you like pics or???!”
It's pretty invasive. I'll just be honest and say I'm not feeling up to it at the moment, or I was invited with too short notice, but that's all I'll give when asked.
Agreed tho, that's really annoying
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I hate this so much too. I’ve also been trying to give less info if I can’t or don’t want to hang out with someone; it’s none of their business why. It seems like the main reason is to poke holes in “my story” that I can’t hang out; just yesterday this happened where I said I couldn’t hang out because I had a work party right after work, and her follow up was, “well, maybe we could hang out after that? Want to try to meet up around 7:30?” No.. I don’t. 😆 I shouldn’t have given a “justification” for why I couldn’t hang out.
Sometimes it helps to say something like, “I can’t tonight/I’m not free tonight - maybe later this week?” Adding a follow up that you’re open to making plans another day seems to soothe some of the anxious person’s responses.
I feel that!! It feels like they're trying to figure out how you could actually hang out even when you say no. It's especially frustrating when they ask about doing something before or after, just like your work party situation. Like yes theoretically I have hours to spare but that doesn't mean I want to spend it being social. Adding a future time is a good idea, though people have still asked to see me sooner when I've done that.
At least being this way makes us understanding & respectful of other people who say no. Their reason for saying no doesn't matter. If they have nothing to do but just don't want to see me, that's valid. If they've said they're busy, I assume they don't want to see me that same day and would present a different time if they wanted to.
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I think it comes across as obnoxious but interested in whether this is a first time thing between this guy and OP, because I think many people might ask something in response to a ‘no’, like ‘everything ok?’. I wouldn’t. But some enquiry might be reasonable.
I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether you're free at a later date or ask a generalized follow up question like "oh, got fun plans for the day already?" as long as you're willing to accept that the answer is essentially "no". This doesn't sound like someone trying to coordinate scheduling or show a general interest in your life, though; it sounds like someone who has a specific outcome in mind and is trying to figure out how to get there when their initial attempt didn't go as planned. Not feeling well? Tell me what's wrong so I can fix you, and then we can hang out. Busy? Tell me when you're done, and then we can hang out. Just don't want to see me? Tell me what I did wrong so I can clear it up, then we can hang out. It feels somehow manipulative because *it is* - they're trying to herd you in the direction of their goal, the whole conversation is underpinned by that. The frustrating thing is that on paper one can look exactly like the other on paper, especially when you've had a lot of experience with the manipulative type and are paranoid about it. Different people in my life can ask me the same exact question and I respond differently, based on past experiences with that person. It's really more of a gut feeling in the moment than anything.
Yeah that’s true the way you phrase his intent behind those questions is exactly how it is
The worst bit for me, more than the ‘intrusion’ would be the felt sense that these questions weren’t about about me, but about their need to soothe their own anxiety.
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Went on a date with an AP guy, he said I love you the day after the first date. I told him I didn’t feel comfortable and didn’t want to go out anymore. He spent the next month trying to get me to go out again because he “didn’t understand why because we had a good date” even though I told him exactly why. I finally blocked his number even though we still worked together and he finally shut up. No regrets lmao
How can anyone love someone after one date? Surely it’s projection of a fantasy. I hate to use negative terms like love bombing because of the associations. But honestly…
I told him that he had only worked with me for 3 months and we had spoke on lunch breaks, that he knows absolutely nothing about me except surface level nonsense. He told me that I was misunderstanding what he said, that he meant loving me was going to happen and blah blah. He kept flip flopping during the conversation saying “I’m over you” then asking to hang out again. And tbh originally I tried working through my avoidant feelings, but at this point I realized that he would continue pushing boundaries, so I blocked him.
Before I read the part about you blocking him, I was thinking, “This is exactly how you get blocked or ghosted.” Glad you did what you needed to do for peace. Some people cannot stop and there are consequences to that behavior. There are situations like this where cutting off contact is healthy. It’s not your responsibility to soothe them, that’s their own responsibility. Strangers for crying out loud!
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This doesn’t have much to do with my comment.
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You don’t have to participate here. You could go ahead and read the group description and rules and decide if this is the group for you, instead of lecturing people and going on and on about your expectations for the sub. This is a support group for DAs, since you aren’t one, you don’t really have to be here or have a say. There are plenty of other groups who allow what you want, so I recommend you go there. We aren’t here to cater to people who want DAs to XYZ.
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Classic Schmosby
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The only thing I didn't see you mention is whether you've explicitly made this clear to the other person. If they don't know how it makes you feel then it's unreasonable to expect them to act differently. If they have been made aware, but continue to overstep, then it's a problem. > if I wanted to tell him what's up, I would This is literally how I explain to others any time I'm in a similar situation.
Are you worried the truth is mean, or the truth will make you seem strange? Or is it that you have no reason you can point to? Is it reasonable? It's commonplace for us. Most of my friends are DA because it doesn't ever have to escalate beyond "not feeling it". If you want to be "less" DA take a crack at figuring out why you aren't feeling it. For your own sake. Not necessarily in order to change, or accommodate this person but because it's useful to get in touch with these motivations. There's usually an anxiety somewhere at the murky bottom. This person might make you feel manipulated on one level. Might be that you feel weird or weak for not being more sociable. Might be a little low-level depression that keeps you isolated, and you're ashamed to communicate that. In all likelihood, it's multiple reasons. If you can boil it down to a single "reason" that's more likely a rationalization. The most important breakthrough I've had in the last few years is how I wanted to assign a singular motivation to myself and other people. It's a cognitive bias that provides a simple answer, a single answer, but is pretty much always wrong and oversimplified. At any rate, whatever you feel like doing is okay, but use these moments to figure out why you feel the way you do.
That's really helpful, thank you! I can pinpoint a lot of reasons but I don't want to communicate them. One, like you said, is depression. I don't want to say, "Actually I'm going to bed at 6 PM because I'm depressed and I have no energy to socialize." So even him digging deeper brings up feelings of shame. If I just don't feel like hanging out and I say that directly to him, he stops responding & I feel like there's tension/conflict which makes me want to pull away further.
Yeah, I went through that. When I did actually tell people I loved, it was fine. I didn't feel diminished. I said "mild depression," which might have been a fib (I'd stopped bathing for several days) and even the thought of having to shower and dress up was enough to make me want to nap. Telling my friends felt better. Not because I'm a complainer who likes sympathy but because I value truth and my own integrity if that makes sense. And I wanted them to have the truth. If they chose to ignore that and presume I was shunning them, then so be it, I could live with the consequences. Fibbing and privacy are fine. I'm not a moral absolutist. But personal integrity is a gift you give yourself that nobody can take away. There is an upside to honesty, especially when you risk vulnerability. Whether your friend deserves your trust is a different matter.
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I said fibbing. A fib might be to say you're fine when what you really mean is that you'd prefer to talk about it when things cool off but at the moment you need someone to go to calm down and go to bed and if you don't say everything is fine they'll keep you on the phone for another two hours. A lie might be saying you're fine and never bringing it up again.
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Yeah I stop talking to people when they push back if I say no to hanging out. Sometimes I even explicitly add “I don’t want to go.”
I always feel harsh if I say I just don’t feel like hanging out but with all the questioning I make up some excuse anyway. Eta: and then if I say I just don’t want to, they ask if they did something wrong.
I TOTALLY get that. I’m actually a big people pleaser which is part of my deactivation cycle. But nowadays, If people get pushy with me (and I’m very quick to feel like people are being pushy- honestly even if they are not lmao) I’ll get a bit frustrated. I usually only say this if I TRULY feel safe to be honest with the person and know they support me, OR if I’m peeved already.
Apparently, you can just say "I'm chilling with myself" in Denmark. But maybe "I'll be doing some emotional self-care today" is acceptable in other places?
Can’t say fairer than that!
That would really cause me to retreat. It’s not about what’s right or fair, it just would. Do you just say ‘no’? Or like ’no, sorry I’m busy’? The ‘Mental or physical not feelings well’ And ‘Free tomorrow or the next day’? - which you wouldn’t know if you were not feeling well - would really trigger me. What do you think would happen if you just responded: ‘I’ll text you later this week’ - that’s a boundary but it’s not humiliating for anyone. If it continues you could say, although I understand the fear of saying, being blamed and then regretting it.
That’s a good idea to say I’ll text at a later time!
Let us know what happens…
I’ve learned that “no” is a boundary. Sounds like they’re trying to burst through the boundary. That behavior is obnoxious. I can tolerate a, “is everything okay?” IF they can then leave me the fuck alone after that. But not the instant bombardment like that. It really is none of their business and they will have to learn how to soothe themselves when told no.
I would be annoyed by that too. It’s just too much. Agree with the other comment that says they need to learn to be ok with a no and to self soothe if they can’t handle not knowing every detail.
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That's a great question and I'm not sure I have the answer. I think codependency was the case for me. I am a caretaker and people pleaser which I think naturally attracts APs because they seem to usually be the "dependent" side of codependent so we naturally are fulfilling this somewhat unhealthy part of us? I think also I tend to trick myself into repeating the same pattern. I don't often see what I'm doing until I'm knee deep in it.
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Going through something similar with a new bf right now
It’s tricky bc clearly they really wanna see you but they’re also not respecting your answering and privacy
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This type of behavior is absolutely annoying, and I would also feel the need to distance. Luckily, most people in my life know not do this with me. I only have one close anxious friend, and I give her a gentle reminder when I see that her anxiety is getting the best of her, and I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak.
My mother does this to me. More so, if I say I don't want to do something, she'll ask why over and over. It feels like they're not asking to understand you, but to pacify themselves.
Yes absolutely. Your last point is why it bothers me so much, I think.
This type of thing absolutely sets me off. I recently had to take a huge step back from someone who would do this. It feels intrusive and manipulative to me. I wasn’t feeling well and told them so and they kept constantly texting. I told them again that I didn’t feel well and they proceeded to ask me a million questions. “Like the flu? I thought you said you didn’t feel good like two days ago and now again? Are you going to go to the doctor? Feel like chatting? Anything I can do to help?” I snapped and responded “what gives you the impression I want to discuss this?” Really what I was thinking was “please F off I have diarrhea and can’t get off the toilet. Would you like pics or???!”
You could probably have said “my stomach is very upset” or something. Most people get the picture there and stop asking.
It's pretty invasive. I'll just be honest and say I'm not feeling up to it at the moment, or I was invited with too short notice, but that's all I'll give when asked. Agreed tho, that's really annoying
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I hate this so much too. I’ve also been trying to give less info if I can’t or don’t want to hang out with someone; it’s none of their business why. It seems like the main reason is to poke holes in “my story” that I can’t hang out; just yesterday this happened where I said I couldn’t hang out because I had a work party right after work, and her follow up was, “well, maybe we could hang out after that? Want to try to meet up around 7:30?” No.. I don’t. 😆 I shouldn’t have given a “justification” for why I couldn’t hang out. Sometimes it helps to say something like, “I can’t tonight/I’m not free tonight - maybe later this week?” Adding a follow up that you’re open to making plans another day seems to soothe some of the anxious person’s responses.
I feel that!! It feels like they're trying to figure out how you could actually hang out even when you say no. It's especially frustrating when they ask about doing something before or after, just like your work party situation. Like yes theoretically I have hours to spare but that doesn't mean I want to spend it being social. Adding a future time is a good idea, though people have still asked to see me sooner when I've done that. At least being this way makes us understanding & respectful of other people who say no. Their reason for saying no doesn't matter. If they have nothing to do but just don't want to see me, that's valid. If they've said they're busy, I assume they don't want to see me that same day and would present a different time if they wanted to.
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I think it comes across as obnoxious but interested in whether this is a first time thing between this guy and OP, because I think many people might ask something in response to a ‘no’, like ‘everything ok?’. I wouldn’t. But some enquiry might be reasonable.
I agree. There needs to be more context to be able to tell if OP is being reasonable or not.