Once a man stopped talking to me and ignored me so completely after a misunderstanding and what I assumed was a break-up. He started trying to date another female and hinted “someone would be upset” I wrote him a message telling him while I was sad things did not work between us, I was happy for him. Why would a person then persist in pretending you are dead? Vanishing as soon as you show up, ignoring you, acting very rude. I got the impression he was very proud he had gotten this girl he didn’t need to be polite to me anymore. I just remembered this and sometimes it’s still painful to think about… There were few fights, nut I thought after my peace offering, we could be civil. Why does it seem men can be so mean to someone they used to talk to for so long? It was a good thing as it put me on a search to self-discovery to date properly, but sometimes its still shocking to think about.
What you are describing has nothing to do with gender. It is about maturity.
Please, women can be just as vicious and stupid as men.
Low self confidence, injured pride, and general immaturity and turdishness. It’s not always like that, but it is more than it should be. Sorry you had to deal with it.
Because you guys just broke up and he was upset…yes, guys can get upset, too! I mean, this shows that he was probably a good guy and that he must’ve liked you…that is why he got so cold. He was probably burning up inside whenever he was around you and found it very awkward to see you again. Thus, the coldness and the enmity.
If i was you id be thanking god for the break up and consider it a lucky escape…and it is a lucky escape…imagine if you had married him and he suddenly revealed this side of him…
An ex boyfriend who treats you this way doesnt deserve any more of your thoughts or time…
For him to treat you this way he is revealing his true colours and showing uou what he is really like…
I wouldnt waste another moment on anybody like this…instead just pray for them that god change their behaviour with the next partner they have…
When people break up, generally it’s best that you have no contact. Being friends isn’t always possible, and when it is it’s usually after a good amount of time has passed. There is no need to be mean, but “ignoring” someone you just broke up with can be considered a healthy way to move on. He “pretended you were dead” because you no longer had a relationship. There’s nothing wrong with not contacting an ex because you want to move on.
That’s what I was going to say. It sounds like you dodged a bullet, KDamgirl!
I knew a guy in college who thought it was mean to breakup with a girl and so instead he would start ignoring her and treating her poorly so that she would be the one to make the choice to break up with him. He thought he was doing the girls a favor by taking this approach. There are all sorts of weird ideas out there thant make sense to someone. :o
If you’re expecting it to make rational sense, you might be expecting too much. Just be glad that you’re no longer dating a guy who would behave in such a way.
I’ve never talked to someone after breaking up. It’s just not done, at least where I live. It’s not that I’m trying to be mean to them or anything, but I’d be incredibly awkward (among other things).
I think Lorelei summed it up better than I could.
Strange how some people react. I know a few women, friends of my wife, who just cuts the ex-boyfriend out of their lives as if with a knife,
I don’t understand this as ever since I started dating many years ago, I always left any relationship with respect and continuing concern for my ex-girlfriend’s welfare. Indeed one of my old flames, now since married long ago, considers me her best friend, We often socialise as two couples. This works well and my wife has no problem and I have no difficulty with her meeting old boy friends for coffee, without me, as I trust her implicitly.
My wife knows every girl I dated seriously, however, she cannot get over how many of them are still in contact with us.
The only problem with this maintenance of friendships is that another old flame of twenty years ago continues to ring me every week from another State and considers me also her best friend and the best man she has ever had a relationship with. My wife has a tolerance of her calls as she realises that the lass is lonely. She trusts me, as far as any man, but does not trust my friend one inch. However in complete loyalty to my wife, who has the right to terminate any friendship of mine she considers inappropriate, I limit my contact with these friends to meetings only with my wife in her place beside me.
I can understand where pride can cause a coldness meant to sever contact entirely, but I have always respected people who were once close to me, not forgetting their virtues that made them attractive in the first place. I find it hard to shut out people, as every person I meet is of value in my life. Old friends also seem not to be able to forget me,
I agree with the posters who believe you have dodged a bullet. This is not the way normal men behave when they decide to quit courting one woman in order to try to interest another one.
Could be he is hurting greatly inside, or he’s just a rude donkey. Just be polite, and over time you will be able to see which one it is. If he’s hurt, the hurt will fade and h will act normal again. If he’s a donkey, then his behavior won’t change.
Either way, I wouldn’t give too much effort to thinking about. All that effort could be better used for your own betterment, or assisting others, or even being open to someone new in your life.
I truly feel bad for those who are single in today’s age, as maturity is a commodity that is sorely lacking. We infantilize our young adults/children today. They never have to grow up. Look for a responsible man who is mature and acts like a man and not a boy.
I know the phenomenon you are speaking of and it’s distinct qualities. The need to publically write “someone would be upset” and vanishing from somewhere as soon as you show up are easily recognisable.
If you think back to your relatinship, you’ll probably detect other instances of psychological manipulation that undermined you too. Some people like drama way too much and get a high from unsettling and poking at other people for sport. Where I come from, we know these people as a word beginning with w and ending in anker.
You took the highground by not entering into that drama and you should feel blessed for your dignified perspective. Let that memory go in the wind. Write your post onto a piece of paper and burn it outside in a tin and watch the painful memory drift off in the smoke and disperse into the ether.
God bless.
true !!
Birds of the same feather flock together. If you were attracted to this man, you need to examine yourself and ask why that is. I’m very, very skeptical to the idea that all of this was invisible until you two broke up. For a fleeting relationship this might not be true, but for a prolonged one, 9 times out of 10, people get the person that they deserve.
That can of course be true at times, but these days we see an increasing prevalence of narcissism in people that will seek out another person on a whole different basis to shared qualities. It’s a very predatory, non truly relationship oriented drive.
Um, I don’t want to name-call, but she described someone acting very rude. He may only give himself permission to act like that when he has an ax to grind with someone, but unless there is more to this than she says, there is no excuse for his behavior.
The only possibility I can think of is that much more was misunderstood in that misunderstanding they had than she dreams. If he has believed false rumors and thinks she has quite viciously attacked him behind his back, then avoiding her may be the best he can manage in public. He may not get over that.
I can’t know everything, so who knows what really went on here, but by dodging a bullet I mean I’d not feel I’d lost much when someone can’t just come right out and tell me why they’re so angry. That’s not someone you want to marry. If you go to the trouble of contacting him, the man you want to marry will tell you why he has to leave the room whenever he sees you.
I am a little confused about why so many posters think this guy is a jerk? Maybe he is, but what I got from the post was that the issue was he is ignoring the OP after they broke up, despite her continual attempts to contact him. It’s not really clear that he is being “rude” or “mean”, what it seems like is he is moving on and the OP expects that he should still be in contact? OP, maybe you could clarify?
I get the feeling that perhaps he didn’t handle the breakup very maturely, but I don’t see why it’s wrong to choose not to respond to or engage with an ex-girlfriend after you’ve broken up? 
Let me clarify, because perhaps I am taking the OP wrong.
I am not talking about electing not to show up at an event because of the knowledge that she will be there or quietly leaving an event early because another guest, which might well include a former flame, makes one uncomfortable. I’m not talking about failing to make an effort to greet her at a large gathering, or otherwise treating her as a mere acquaintance. We are talking about a) breaking up with a steady girlfriend without having the courtesy to tell her that this is what is being done and b) obviously treating an acquaintance as if you may contract the plague if you get near her.
When you know someone and you make it a point to shun their company, that’s usually seen as relational aggression. You don’t get to turn your back on her standing there or abruptly leave a conversational group because she joins it. You don’t get to look at her, whispering, but then turn you back to her when she makes eye contact. You don’t act in ways that are objectively rude to a person you know even slightly.
If she thinks he ought to treat her as more than an acquaintance, that is not the same as treating her “as if she were dead.” If they are not dating, then she is going to fall in how close he wants to be. He may not feel comfortable socializing with her, and could politely do as little of it as one is allowed to do with someone he has actually been introduced to. Still, if they were dating, he needed to have the courtesy to tell her personally that it was over.
It is possible that he’s avoiding her because his new girlfriend is the jealous sort. Get a backbone, fella, we’re talking about a yes-I-know-her-name level of social interaction. Do not let anyone tell you not to do that. Even if the person has done something to merit being ostracized from her former social group, you still have to treat her with as much human dignity as you would “a Gentile or a tax collector.”
That makes sense. If the guy really did break up with her without making it clear, and is treating her poorly when they do come into contact, that is a problem. But if he’s just trying to move on and is choosing not to respond to text or phone calls, or avoids contact at mutual gatherings, I’d say that’s normal and for the best. That’s what it seemed like to me, but I could be misunderstanding what she wrote. Hopefully the OP will come back to clarify what this rude behavior is and give some context.
Yes, I think you’re making an important point. He does not need to keep her in his close social circle, it would be understandable if he does not want to, and if she’s sort of pushing in where the relationship doesn’t exist, that could put him in a bad spot.
Nevertheless, he still possesses the faculty of speech. He can talk to her, surely, thank her for her good wishes, and then let her know gently that he cannot text her, phone her, or even talk to her much at parties they both attend, because of course she is an attractive woman who has had eyes for him in the past, and he does not want to hurt his new girlfriend’s feelings.