Ahh that makes sense, your English is is very correct, just harder to tell with more reserved English speakers. Your situation is certainly very normal and not at all unique to younger folks!
I guess another pragmatic thing people do sometimes is, if they know they’re going to see someone they get weird about, they’ll leverage their refractory period so it’s less intense when they meet.
Ahh, I see. Pardon my assumption, but your phrasing does suggest to me that you might be younger/teenage–are teens on Lemmy now? Out of an abundance of caution, I’d recommend you try talking to someone a bit closer to you that you trust, like a counselor, older friend, or parent as this does get into a more sensitive topic. Talking to randoms on the internet can be helpful, but also very risky as it’s wild out here and there are all kinds of predators let alone bad advice. I don’t know what your life circumstance is and counselors/parents aren’t perfect either, but it’s usually a much safer starting place. Use your head, verify what you hear.
If you’re an adult, totally apologize. I hope you’d agree with with my caution.
As others have mentioned, there is clearly a communication breakdown. It’s probably not the only thing, but the key thing I see is a lack of communication about expectations.
It’s clear you care about this relationship because you’re experiencing a lot of hurt over his actions. And it’s clear you care about him as you’re doing things for him the way you like to be cared for. And under normal circumstances, sure this is one way to communicate expectations and develop reciprocation. Your feelings are totally understandable. His actions didn’t meet your expectations of caring for you and the relationship, and that feels like he doesn’t care or even feels like an attack on you, and it can feel unjust because you’re doing the things.
However, when you’re in a rough patch and arguing, it’s not the status quo anymore and expectations aren’t as clear. It can be confusing, especially when things are tense/fraught, to ask someone to do something and expect them to do something else. If he’s repeatedly not meeting expectations with what you assume he knows in the moment, then you might have to reconsider your assumption and re-communicate that.
So during fights, it might be more helpful to explicitly feel out each others’ expectations and wants at a base level on common things like special occasions. Which brings us to the other side. Understandably, you’re focuses on how you feel about it and your frustrations. It’s a frustrating situation with deep implications for a relationship that’s incredibly important to you. What we haven’t heard much about is what you know about his expectations and how he likes being cared for. Did you know what his expectations around Valentine’s were? For some people, acting like everything is normal and exchanging gifts right after a major fight can feel painfully disingenuous and forced. Do you know what his expectations were around your birthday?
This isn’t to call you out or anything, especially when you’re upset about the situation, but rather to point out a gap. If the goal is to reconcile and develop a resolution to the fraught situation, it has to start with mutual understanding of each others’ expectations and where both your feelings are coming from. This doesn’t mean immediately accepting blame or agreeing with the other’s justifications in the broader arguments. It just means creating the space for each other to be genuinely seen and heard.
From a cis/straight guy’s perspective, I used to find myself in this situation a regularly. I’ve found a good combination of pragmatic coping strategies and reframing the person is helpful. Others have mentioned common coping strategies like distraction and minimizing contact, but I find this alone doesn’t help set you up for healthy relationships because it only treats the person you’re infatuated with as the “forbidden/unworthy object of desire” rather than their own person. So a lot of the reframing I’d do was geared towards reframing then as anyone else that you’re not interested in pursuing, so things like “I’m not their person and they’re not my person”, “they’re not into me and that’s not hot”, “they’re a friend/sibling who has their own life, I’ll support them in theirs, but I should focus on mine”
It’s also always good to put yourself in their shoes. If you were in a relationship and knew someone who you’re not into was infatuated with you, how would you want them to act? I doubt you’d want them to pursue you or conversely treat you like toxic waste just to cope.
It’s infatuation, it will pass. Love must be mutual and is built over time.
TL;DR: As a guy, this usually ends up being a lot of “Don’t be a creep, just be fucking normal.”
They’re for storing the molecular correlates of trauma, obviously :3
This is an unhelpful and condescending comment. It dismisses the meaningful activities people engage in online as “not life”: self expression, creating art and community, working, socializing, enjoying entertainment, and learning new things. It proposes a false dichotomy wherein not-online is utopic with universally accessible activities and, especially, an absence of the very same people who make online spaces toxic hellholes. They are present in “real spaces” too. These are not mutually exclusive things. You are likely to find that pro-social activists online are often try to be pro-social activists in person as well.
That being said, I agree that people get terminally online and that balancing digital and physical lives are important. Managing attention and mental health are important, especially when content about important and meaningful topics turn into viral and incessant feeds that are geared to overwhelm human brains that weren’t evolved to handle such constant cognitive/emotional stress.
Take care out there folks.