Never Enough

We agreed on another date at her place. During this date, she told me that she had just gotten out of a relationship. She met her ex-boyfriend in her home country shortly before coming to Germany and had been seeing him for one month. During this time, she texted sporadically with me and other guys that she went on a date with once she arrived in Germany. She explained to me that she prefers the “American dating model,” in which you date in parallel until you commit exclusively. My preference was to date one woman exclusively, because as a man I wanted to avoid the impression that I’m not looking seriously for a long-term relationship. She said that as a 34-year old woman, who wants to have kids and a career, she doesn’t have the time to date one man after another, each for 6 months. It seemed a bit weird to me, but made sense from a rational point of view. With almost no dating experience, who am I to judge anyway.

She told me that she had been discussing engagement plans with her ex-boyfriend, but he didn’t want to commit while she was staying in Germany. He demanded that she comes back first and then they talk about future plans. She suggested that he either relocates to Germany, too, or as a compromise, waits for her for two years while she secures her career in Germany and then moves back to their home country. When he didn’t agree to her plan, she got angry and blocked him. I told her that by blocking him, they didn’t break up and thus technically, they still are in a relationship while we were out on our second date. She disagreed and stated that by not agreeing to her ultimatum, it was actually him who had broken up with her. She was quite firm that it’s over and said: “one month is enough to decide, take it or leave it.”

From today’s perspective, there have been a few giveaways that can be attributed to narcissistic behavior. First, she didn’t consider the needs of her ex-boyfriend in this conflict, who had built a small business in their home country, and instead demanded that he is flexible towards what she wants. This would ensure her independence, if the relationship didn‘t work out. Her idea of a compromise consisted of him agreeing to a two-year long distance relationship, which is quite an unreasonable expectation after one month of dating and a sign of a controlling tendency from my point of view. Second, after blocking him, she shifted the blame onto him and didn’t take responsibility for her action.

The approach of keeping potential dating partners on hold while seeing someone is observed with narcissists, but is not exclusively narcissistic. A person with an avoidant attachment style might do it to avoid full commitment to a partner and instead have a backup plan to pull out when a relationship gets too intimate. A narcissist might do it to resort to another source of narcissistic supply after discarding their partner. My Ex would later describe herself as a wary person, because she was often disappointed in life. When you used to have high hopes, but life keeps giving you lemons, you better lower your hopes and have a backup plan at hand. The key question would be why you seem to attract lemons in life. We will get to that point later.

During our date, she asked me about my relationship conditions. I hadn’t thought about it before, but came up spontaneously with the idea that the couple must fall in love with each other. Marriage was an option for me after two or three years into the relationship. This was too late for her, she wanted to marry within one year. I said, she spoke about a relationship like a contract, to which she agreed to; she compared it to renting an apartment, where you make a contract, too. This complete absence of romance irritated me, as it appeared callous and calculated.

As our date continued, we watched a movie, held hands and hugged. Later, she texted me that she was positively surprised how our date went. I was happy that we established a mild level of intimacy, which gave me the affirmation to explore the possibility of a relationship between the two of us.