I don’t make a habit of dating men younger than me (not that I think it makes a huge difference), but I met this guy and it all happened pretty quickly. I thought he seemed very mature, and I’ve been in relationships with men 5 years older than me that were barely functional so I didn’t think his age mattered that much. He works two jobs and goes to university.
I used to work in a pub but a couple of months ago I got a remote job and began working from home. All my friends in my hometown work at the pub still, so I go there a lot. A couple of months ago 21m started working there. He was very quiet and seemed to do everything possible not to have to speak to me or serve me any drinks. After a while I was getting pretty frustrated that every time I went to the pub he would ignore me whilst I waited for a drink and served other people. One day my brother (who still works at the pub) went in and jokingly told 21m to stop ignoring me. 21m had originally thought my brother and I were a couple so when it was confirmed that we were not he started to make some little advances, buying me a glass of wine here or there and coming out with our group after he’d finished work. We had fun on nights out and kissed a couple of times, and he’s now joined our friendship group.
We went on a date a couple of weeks ago which was nice, and soon after that I had a free house so I had him over and we slept together. He stayed over at my house several days in a row – basically any chance we could get. Things were getting pretty couple-y, but not very serious in that he didn’t seem to be super interested in finding out anything about my past or my life really – apart from TV shows, music and books that I’m interested in. For me, when I meet a new person that I like, I want to know absolutely everything about them.
This guy has had pretty bad mental health problems and opened up to me really early on about them. I completely understand and listened to him. His family seems pretty unsupportive, and his group of friends outside of the pub seem to be useless too. He seems like he’s been crying out to talk to someone about stuff and I totally get that, and I’m happy to be that person. The only thing is I find it pretty strange that he doesn’t want me to reciprocate and tell him stuff I’ve been through, tell him about my family and my life as a whole. Because he hasn’t asked, he doesn’t seem interested, and to me this is a red flag of sorts. Like I said, I think it’s a signifier that someone really likes you if they want to know about your life and your hopes and dreams, and that doesn’t seem to be happening here.
I would assume he was just in it for sex, but he’s never forceful about that and seems quite happy to come and sit with me whatever I’m doing and if I text him to come and join he always arrives very promptly. He’s thoughtful and he often brings me stuff just to treat me. He’s always super excited to see me and I’ve never really had that before. Friends have commented he seems really into me.
I spoke to him about the situation today and he seemed absolutely tongue-tied. He said he had wanted to ask me but was worried I wouldn’t want to talk about my past and my life and basically just rambled away for about 10 minutes. I wasn’t being mean or anything when I mentioned it, but I just said I felt like he wasn’t very interested in who I actually am, and that I didn’t want to have to force him to be interested. It was a mess of a conversation and I regret saying anything at all, but it makes me uncomfortable when I feel like I’m being treated either as an object or just as someone to listen to someone else’s problems all the time. My last boyfriend couldn’t have cared less about who I actually was; he liked me for how I looked (I don’t mean this in a cocky way) and for the ideas he had about me in his head that weren’t actually true, so the fact that this could happen again is freaking me out.
I’m unsure if I’m overreacting to this, or maybe he’s just not mature enough for what I’m looking for. He’s a lovely kind-hearted person but I feel unsatisfied at this stage.
TL;DR guy I’m seeing doesn’t seem very interested in my past or my life.
1 comment
I think you are over thinking it. Getting to know everything about someone takes time.