Never Enough

We continued texting and speaking on the phone over the following days. By that time, I had come up with some relationship conditions after thinking about this topic for a bit. I don’t remember all details, but it included moving in together before marriage. She commented on this with “more rules to follow,” to which my intuition waved a red flag. As it was her, who came up with the idea of a relationship contract, I felt I was being gaslighted and told her on the phone, to which she didn’t respond.

I searched the web for indications of Asperger’s and narcissism. I tought of Asperger’s because of the callous comparison of a relationship to a rental contract. I thought of narcissism because of the perceived gaslighting approach. I dismissed both ideas, because she emphasized how she is a kind and empathetic person, which didn’t fit together neither with Asperger’s nor narcissism. The fundamental issue at stake: I trusted her words and didn’t judge her by her actions at that time.

She complained why every man is coming up with preconditions and not accepting her as who she is. This seemed odd from someone who had just ended a relationship, because she came with her own conditions and didn’t accept the conditions of her ex-boyfriend. Obviously I wouldn’t argue on behalf of her ex-boyfriend and tried to understand her viewpoint instead: she was hurt and disappointed from her recent relationship. From another perspective, her viewpoint can be seen as narcissistic entitlement: I am entitled to get what I want and how I want it. People who come up with preconditions are just a pain who deprive me of what I deserve.

She came up with what she called a compromise: if we engaged in a relationship, we would commit exclusively to each other with the goal of marrying about one year in the future. I as the man can choose whether and when to ask her for commitment. She explained that she needs to protect herself from exploitation. What she meant is to protect herself from men who don’t want to commit–like her ex-boyfriend in her opinion. By asking for that type of commitment, the man would make the promise to marry her. She described herself as a Mediterranean girl who’s just looking for security. She wanted reassurance and this made sense to me. After all, aren’t we all just looking for happiness and love.

At some point, we spoke about our previous relationship experiences. Before her recent one-month relationship, she had been in another 6-month relationship a few years ago. Although she clearly had more dating experience than me at her age of 34, she hadn’t been in a long-term relationship either. I told her that at the age of 38, I had not been in a committed relationship yet and I understood that it constitutes a red flag. She told me that she finds it brave for me to tell this, which I found reassuring. Later, she would tell me that she cried after our phone call.