Return of the Naruto Community Derail Thread: Part Two!

Don't drink a bottle of vodka and post at 2 am, kids

Edited by Saiga on Sep 12th 2020 at 7:13:14 PM

I came here to respond to Saiga's Mammoth of a post, and now it's just... gone.

Ditto. Dude, Saiga, if things aren't great, you can still share.

Thanks dudes. That really helps. I copied yesterday's message, not sure what I'd do with it. Seeing your responses I thought I'd type it up with the benefit of sobriety and time to digest it to improve it - but I don't have the energy to go through this again, so I'll just reproduce it in its original form and add today's update.

So about 2 months ago my roommate had the idea to have a pizza party. I'm like sure, whatever, I like pizza even if I don't know your friends.

And like, I was trying to organise a D&D at the time, needed two more players. Not three, two more. Four total. Optimal numbers, it really isn't worth going beyond.

Anywho I quickly find players 3 and 4 from two guys at the party who have prior D&D experience, add them to the group chat, I'm pretty much done here right? I achieved my goals, I made small talk, I have absolutely nothing to gain from deviating from these plans.

Enter: a cute girl.

I start talking to another girl at the party. Like, a lot. I spend the rest of the day talking to said girl. Night falls, I'm still talking to this girl. I'm self conscious, I've spent a disproportionate amount of my time talking to this one girl who isn't just cute, I have a really easy time talking to her, which for my socially inept ass is really welcoming. We're taking about all sorts of bullshit - I talk too much about myself and my goddamn accountancy studies, no one could be interested in that.

My roommate cuts in with a D&D question, cause she's totally new to it. I have to explain the content to new girl, she mentions that she's played D&D before.

I have four players. I do not need more than four players. Five players starts to get difficult to manage, it makes my life harder.

So, I invite cute girl to our D&D group. She is interested.

She's very new to D&D. I message her to work out her character, I eventually go to her house to help her make the character - I get it, D&D is hard to get into. I hope I'm not pushing this too much.

But hey, we get there. We play some sessions, it's a lot of fun. Really digging the new group.

She tells me she has too much on. Can't come to weekly sessions while studying. I get it, I've faced the same situation. But it sucks not seeing her

Go out with impromptu drinks with my roommate. Turns out she's there! I spend the entire night talking to her. Like an idiot, I wear my heart on my sleeve, not even being subtle about my interest in her. Unfortunately, inleanr she's moving interstate at the end of the year. Shit. Maybe I shouldn't be crushing on her.

Two weeks later, now last week, another impromptu night out. As I hoped, she is there. Due to COVID restrictions, it looks like we won't be able to get into any bars after a certain point. But that means I won't be able to to stay out with her? Gotta work around that

I announce that everyone should go back to my place, where the spirits are plenty and there's no curfiew. She sounds keen, the other almost don't take up on it (I am screaming internally). It works out - we arrive at my place, we drink and are merry. I sit close to her all night, we share some pretty private stories just between her and I. She falls asleep on my couch as everyone is leaving. I bring her some sheets and pillows, and call it a night.

Saturday morning. She leaves, while I am awake but not daring to risk waking her by entering the living room. But she starts messaging me. We talk for most of the morning, it feels nice.

She messages me at 2 am that "night", having gone out again. That's unusual, but appreciated. We talk during the Sunday.

I decide to message her on Monday, using a weak tie in to a previous conversation we have. Holy shit, it works, we talk for most of the night. My roommate comes out into the living room and accuses me of flirting with someone as I sit there with a slack-jawed smile looking at her texts. I feign ignorance - poorly. I am so transparent.

Tuesday - we talk for a bit. Wednesday - we talk. Thursday - we talk. Friday - we talk.

I'm being careful, during this time. Can't seem over eager. She starts most of the conversations, which makes it easy for me to message her back. I'm a genius. She's texting me for totally innocuous reasons and I'm trying to subtlety turn it into a conversation. It mostly works because, again, I am a genius. So subtle.

Saturday - she has a housewarming. I've gotten advice from friends. I've decided that I'm crushing on her too bad to NOT do anything. I've got to make some move tonight, but my stomach churns at the thought as I realise I'm kidding myself. I haven't been subtle at all. She'd HAVE to know I was interested - here I am, grinning like a dipshit as I text her and she's probably just seeing me as a friend. Sorry, how did I think this was going to go? In the last three years, I've had two crushes. Guess where following up on those went? Nowhere. This isn't going to be different.

So, I resolve to strike out. I'm going to be honest with myself, even though I don't expect anything. Goddamn, that's daunting. But we're having a fun house party. It slips my mind, for a while. She has a great singing voice. I wasn't ready to be even more impressed by her - this is hardly fair.

One of her friends beats me to the punch. She sits next to me, says we have to talk. "Okay lol" I think, getting into a serious conversation with a person I've just met.

"What do you think of [her]"

FUCK

She's in earshot, by the way. I'm lost for words. "She's pretty great right? Hey I'm just trying to help out your love life, [her]" I am off guard. I am screwed.

Some time passes, we do more karaoke. (I barely sing cause duh) she comes and sits next to me. We chat about nothing, really. She starts taking about something I don't really get. She tells me she was never interested in D&D. What? That doesn't make sense. I mean, why would she join the group if she didn't care? Why would she ask me around to her place to help her with a character if she wasn't interested in

OH FUCK

OH FUCK OH FUCK I FINALLY GET IT

I am

powerfully stupid

She's hurt. Two months of non-activity on my part - I must not be interested right? She tells me that she went on Tinder, went on other dates - they didn't work. Holy fuck, I am sweating.

So, I tell her I like her. I really like her. She says she hates me for not saying something sooner. I hate me for not saying something sooner. She asks me what I want of her. I'm not fucking around any more - I tell her I want her to be my girlfriend. She's. It sure she can do that. Ow.

So, this was a house party. Everyone else? they were still around for this. They announce that they're going out now, and we can join up when we're done. Realize that they've heard this whole exchange is mortifying for both of us. And then, we're alone.

She does a tarrot reading for me (we're wasted). I interpret every tarot result as a sign we should give things a shot (I'm trying). Somehow we end up on the floor of her living room, and then we end up cuddling. We talk about all sorts of stuff. I tell her, I want to make this work. I tell her everything I've felt since we've met - my fear, my anxiety. What stopped me from moving earlier.

We lay there for an eternity as I try to find the words to make things right. I feel like I'm getting somewhere when everyone else returns - they couldn't get in to any bars in town, cause COVI Dz even though they'd spent the last 10 minutes trying. It was only 10 minutes?

We both get up, she's wobbly (so am I). She ends up going to bed, pretty much immediately, and I hang out with everyone else until they leave. Internally, I am screaming.

As I'm the last to leave, I talk to her roommate. I tell her I think I fucked it all up - I waited too long. She tells me to calm down, not to overthink (HAH), and that everything will be okay. She says she knows [cute girl] and it's going to be alright - just wait until the next day, and talk it out.

So this morning she messages me, we go over what happened the night before. Eventually, she asks if I want to meet in person to go through it more, and I'm variously optimistic. We pick somewhere to get dinner, and meet up. On my way, I'm not sure if I want to get straight into talking about this, or if I just wish this went like... A normal date.

Dinner goes well, with us just talking but not really broaching the subject. It's really pleasant and I'm thankful for that. She then asks if we should go for a walk, and I realise this is where we're going to talk about it. So we head down and sit by their river, and laugh at the awkward silence that follows. She decides to open things up.

We spent a fairly long time talking. A lot of it is going through what we had before, with clearer minds. I learn that she has been SO MUCH recently, and we tell each other the signals we had been desperately sending from day one, and respond with the reasoning we had that caused us to miss them.

She tells me that Friday night (two nights ago for those in the wrong timezone) that she went out on her last date, and decided to end it. She tells me that she had resolved not to date until she can work through the things she has to deal with, and yesterday has really conflicted with that. But after further reflection, she thinks that's best for her and I verbally support her.

This is basically what I wanted most of all - to make sure she is doing what she is comfortable with. I mostly expected this outcome, as much as I'd hoped otherwise.

(This is hard to summarize as our conversation jumped all over the place, leaving and then returning to topics to add more).

We work out that we'll still be friends, which is a huge relief to her. Some of the stuff she says makes it sound like the door isn't fully closed on us - well, she outright is still saying things like "whether we do or don't" even after we've established that we're not acting on it for now.

Oh yeah - we talk about the tarrot reading she did, and she asks my star sign and talks about how it's highly compatible with hers etc. I tell her I am not really one for horoscopes, readings etc, and she gets that. One last thing she does is put the two of us through some app called "Pattern" or whatever that takes information from both of us and does romantic compatibility - it's our old love calculator with extra steps. But it has a lot of detail that we end up reading through together, and while I know this shit is made as a "one size fits all" so you read it and go "OMG, this totally applies to me"... Some of it seems pretty specifically accurate. Of course that's probably me just putting more stock in it for saying we have amazing compatibility.

But the conclusion we come to, is that she is happy - saying that she thinks this has had meaning for both of us, even if it doesn't develop.

And here's the problem. I agree - I feel like I've learned a really valuable lesson in being too careful in not wanting to show my interest too early, even though I dislike having to learn this the hard way.

But I'm not happy with this. I still wan to try for something, and it really doesn't seem like that will happen. But... That's definitely at odds with me wanting her to do what's best with her. I should be happy with this.

I didn't tell her I was unhappy, of course. That wouldn't help her closure at all, and for that matter, I had already told her not to be worried about hurting me when making her decision - I maaaaaay have been acting a bit too strong here, as I told her that I'm not worried about getting hurt because past experience has taught me how to manage it. So, I set myself up to hide my own unhappiness right after deciding to be completely open with her. That doesn't seem good.

But also, what's the right move there? I just add more pressure/stress by voicing my unhappiness with this outcome? I have to add that I don't mean unhappiness in the sense that I want to challenge her decision or change her mind... But it's hard to articulate that I'm unhappy while supporting her.

Whew, what a story! I've read it while on the edge of my seat! Especially once the twist came, and I realized it's not a funny DnD story.

Unfortunately it didn't have quite the happy ending I was hoping for. Sorry buddy.

Don't be too hard on yourself, I don't think you did anything wrong. When to express your feelings can be a bit tricky - too early, and you come of as a creep, too late and you're leading her on, and the right "window" is different with every girl. Annoying, I know. Especially since social norms still put the onus of initiating the relationship mainly on men.

Also, it sounds like she has her own issues to deal with, and there's just nothing you can do about that. I would strongly recommend against trying.

I don't want to be cynical or pass judgments on anyone based on few paragraphs you wrote while drunk, but some lines like "she says makes it sound like the door isn't fully closed on us" kinda sound like she might be leading you on if only unintentionally. Don't let yourself become the guy who just hangs around her in hopes that something might happen in the future.

About speaking your feelings - well that's difficult, and I'm honestly of two minds. One on hand your feelings are just as important as hers and you shouldn't hide them to avoid making her uncomfortable. On the other, I don't think adding pressure will actually accomplish anything positive for you here. So be honest with your feelings but don't hold them over her head.

If I may offer last piece of advice, don't think about relationship as something you have to "earn" by making the right moves and pleasing a girl. You're a great guy with a lot to offer, and any girl would be lucky to have your interest. If anything, you're the prize, have more faith in yourself!

And that's my unsolicited hot take on the story. I'm no expert, but I hope it helps.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

Thanks, Shlugo That does help, that was sweet.

I completely agree, it's much better for me - for both of us - if I don't try to pursue any further. That's what I'd decided yesterday, but I still had the hope that you know, a few months down the line that she would be ready to date. But after sleeping on it another night, I am not going to hold out hope for that.

That's how I ended up being strung along in my last relationship.

I think this has just been a lot for me to take in. Finding out that she liked me two nights ago caused me to reprocess everything that happened in the last two months, in the space of one night. And then I had yesterday's meeting/talk, which was way too soon for me have sorted out everything from the day before.

But I'm feeling better now than I was yesterday, and much better than I was the night of.

And if there's anything to take away from this...

...is that I'm starting to believe things like this, instead of dismissing them whenever someone says that.

Thanks, man.

No problem man, always here to listen to you, that's what friends are for.

Glad to see you're doing better and have clearer view of things.

Glad you're having faith in yourself. Three quick things I wanted to echo:

1. Don't let yourself become the guy who just hangs around her in hopes that something might happen in the future.
2. ...Your feelings are just as important as hers... So be honest with your feelings but don't hold them over her head.
3. ...Don't think about relationship as something you have to "earn" by making the right moves and pleasing a girl.

You can't be too analytical about things. Relationships and dating aren't completely logical, and neither are you or other people.

Don't be a simp, don't be too aggressive, and don't get too down if something seems like it should work on paper, but doesn't in practice. Don't close other doors, or this one for good, since something might work out, you may see.

Also, what do girls in Australia/New Zealand like? Just in case the US goes up in racist, authoritarian flames sometime soon.

Good call on not being too analytical - overthinking is definitely something I can get caught up in, and I have definitely been contrasting my rational thoughts on the matter Vs my wildly turbulent feelings.

Yup! This is the case for any gender. The people who try to please the other person are the ones who really don't get what a relationship is about and they end up in toxic relationships.

I think the moment is gone in this case. It's good that you learnt and worked through things and that the other person is working on her personal issues. It's like a summer fling. It has done good things for you and you can now move on.

@Wander Your escape plan should be Canada not Australia.

Climate change will make Canada more habitable. Australia not so much.

That's my backup-backup plan.

Tell me what you want to do, now.

KEEP ROLLIN, ROLLIN, ROLLIN, ROLLIN...

Went to the forest to pick up some mushrooms today. It would've been nice, except it was hot as hell. Also, fresh air makes me sleepy for some reason.

Whenever I think of mushrooms, I'm going to think of this scene.

"Oh sure, listen to a fungus over your own brother!"

By the way, that fungus also voiced Azula.

Recently I saw someone compare mask mandates to the Holocaust, saying that Jewish people were following along with what they were being told was for their safety.

Edited by wanderlustwarrior on Sep 17th 2020 at 1:59:15 PM

It's stupid bullshit. Which makes it really sad that like the 40% of Americans with red caps on shouting for Trump believe that shit.

So are seatbelts also holocaust now?

I really don't want to think about the upcoming election. Like, it should be a crushing defeat for him but somehow I can't be real optimistic about it.

I'm actually a bit surprised that I haven't personally heard anyone say more about masks than that they're annoyingly stuffy. I mean, Alabama.

Edited by Arha on Sep 17th 2020 at 8:06:44 AM

I've got some other shit going on, but I really think I and others need to make sure people are registered to vote, capable of voting, and intend to vote.

Yeeeeeeeeeap. I've seen a bit of that myself. Similar to a lot of people calling (my) Government's measures tryannical, draconian, etc.

Oh, now you care about that shit?!

It's infuriating, after all the shit people turn a blind eye to but suddenly the very real need to control the pandemic is a goddamn travesty.

Also, blaaaaargh, some of my favourite songs are really hitting different ATM:

Edited by Saiga on Sep 18th 2020 at 12:28:05 AM

They only care when it's not happening to them. They'll be happily behind officers doing extrajudicial killings. But when it comes to them, they're all "don't tread on me!" Ask them who they'd actually use their second amendment rights against. What if the police or the army came for their guns, what would they do?

I'm sure the masks we wear are secretly dosing up on gas to assimilate the ways Jews were experimented on during the holocaust.

In fact, this theory ties up neatly with the conspiracy theories that posit COVID to be a Jewish conspiracy to ruin our free will and economy. MUH FREEDOM.

Liberal US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died of cancer at age 87.