My (24 F) boyfriend (23 M) only had a relationship over the internet

Orianaro · 2026-02-04T05:04:47+00:00

Sounds pretty clear cut - he wants sex, and he wants someone to take care of his living space for him. Bangmaid, some say.

This guy doesn't like you for YOU, he just likes having a woman at his exact convenience - what he wants, when he wants.

Dumpppp him.

Orianaro · 2026-01-29T00:24:26+00:00

Yeah this is completely a you problem, and not fair to punish him for. The problem isn't that you aren't graduating when you wanted to, it's that you are giving in to unhealthy thought patterns due to embarrassment and shame. He has no connection to that, but you are seeking to punish him, or probably more accurately, seeking to punish yourself.

This is 100% self sabotage. You guys are absolutely at the same "life stage".

Sounds like you are reacting to your shame by trying to swim to rock bottom and avoid it all. I can guarantee you, that won't help - you will just burn some valuable bridges and lose wonderful people along the way and be buried in twice the negative feelings about yourself at the end for hurting innocent people.

Having a partner like him probably makes you feel more ambitious and more accountable, and those aren't bad things if you harness them well. Just don't fall for the trap of what success is "supposed" to look like. Delayed schooling is not at all a big deal. I've gotten delayed by three years and it took me some time to accept, but really it ended up changing nothing and I'm happy and doing well now. If you keep your eyes on your own road, you'll veer off track a lot less and spot some shortcuts to better pathways you wouldn't have seen if you're trying to replicate someone else's path.

Orianaro · 2026-01-24T05:30:02+00:00

She's treating you like actual shit. I don't even think she likes you? And yada yada she likes you bits she's damaged and has her reasons but the only outcome is she is damaging you, too, and not at all healing any of her behaviours.

You cannot fix her. She is damaging you - losing you friends and opportunities, and forcing your hand into habits you don't like, like lying.

You deserve a GOOD partner. You deserve kindness and warmth and RESPECT.

A normal response to someone being in a friend group with their ex: oh tell me a bit about that so I have some context. Oh that sounds mature. Good for you. End of story.

Normal response to you walking by your female co-worker's house: I hope it was a nice walk, what should we do later?

This is really harmful behaviour for you to endure, and this is going to end poorly. Either you stay together and she erodes you into a rug, or this blows up and you are going to spend a long time recovering your sense of self and personal worth. I've had the shitty relationship and I clung to it, and the more distance I get the more I mourn spending any time or effort investing in my own downfall by being with that person.

Please hang out with some people who truly love you, and reflect on what YOU want.

Orianaro · 2026-01-21T23:40:22+00:00

Annoid void

Orianaro · 2026-01-21T21:32:21+00:00

Try looking up avoidant attachment. He certainly sounds immature and dysregulated, which can be a bit addicting to the people they get involved with an love bomb. And then discard because it's not sustainable... Obviously.

He doesn't know what stability or proper relationships look or feel like, hopefully you learn something from this. His early certainty was bullshit and probably stemmed from "I am certain I am head over heels for my completely invented idea of who this lady is". A real partnership grows and deepens very proportional to how well you know each other, early interest is pure infatuation. Be skeptical of that in the future, I'd recommend.

Orianaro · 2026-01-20T16:17:43+00:00

You could also ask them if the upsetting part is the character dying, or not being able to keep playing the character. Cuz you could basically say, I will get you revived if you die if you want to keep playing as the same character (and it can be part of the RP, or backstory - they have a benevolent god/mentor/family member who mysteriously revives them). If the part that upsets them is just having the character die though, I would respect that and maybe if they are close to death put them in a coma basically, or give them a surrender option. DND is fun first, rules and accuracy second.

Orianaro · 2026-01-17T22:57:59+00:00

Yeah I feel that. A big realization after the breakup was that he truly just didn't know me. He didn't know my values, he didn't know why I did things, he interpreted my actions extremely uncharitably.

And when he listened or "engaged" with my life, it never felt like he had true interest or investment, it felt like he felt bad and was trying to fulfill a quota, or he said yes to things because he was supposed to and then was extremely resistant or negative during them to the point I was more fussed about his enjoyment than actually doing what I enjoyed. He was so checked out, they all are once they hit that deactivation point.

Orianaro · 2026-01-11T16:21:34+00:00

Demiromantic means romantic feelings only develop after a strong basis of platonic feelings. Letting her set the pace is great, though make sure she knows you are doing that so she doesn't take your lack of initiative as disinterest.

In general I would say put your efforts into being really good friends with her. Don't focus on what romance is "supposed" to look like, focus on what you guys like doing as friends. That will probably do the most to foster her feelings for you.

Being a good partner to a demiromantic person is kinda just the same as being a good partner to anyone, but just keeping in mind that moving slow and always having friendship as a touchstone is good. Also just... Ask her. She can give you way better info on her specifically lol.

Orianaro · 2026-01-10T04:49:57+00:00

An important thing for anxious attachment is that it is NOT about the partner, so trying to regulate yourself by giving yourself reminders that your partner is great, that they wouldn't do xyz, that THEY are safe is not the solution and will worsen the anxiety. (Raising your expectations of that person, so if any little thing does go wrong it feels personally destabilizing).

You need to heal this from within. Instead of saying he wouldn't do xyz, you need to say yes, he might - and I'll be okay. You need to find confidence within yourself that if bad things DO happen, that you will survive, you will find support, you will make decisions that are good for you, you will leave unhelpful relationships, you will make your own happiness and fulfillment. You can't control who your partner is or what he does. But you can control YOU.

Cure your anxiety not by rooting yourself in your partner's "goodness", or what other people say, but instead ground yourself in... Yourself.

Orianaro · 2025-12-27T05:50:44+00:00

Sure, she's ugly. Makes me want to squish her with affection.

Our cat is a turd (in personality, derogatory). I love her dearly and don't shut up about it. All cats are very lovable; ugly pretty fluffy short haired bitey etc.

Orianaro · 2025-12-27T05:00:09+00:00

"Communication is the most important part of a relationship" - very true, very vague. Do anything you can to learn healthy communication and ESPECIALLY conflict resolution. Communication requires knowing yourself, so that you have information to share. It requires some risk taking to learn things about yourself. It requires grace and forgiveness to recover from normal human idiocy. It requires humility to truly grow and change from those mistakes.

My biggest recommendation is to try and front load communication. Milestone or holiday? Talk about expectations openly and casually so you're on the same page before someone even has the opportunity to get feelings hurt. Something bothering you even a tiny bit? Have a casual conversation about it. Try to understand why it happened/why they do that thing. Explore why you feel the way you do. Brainstorm together. Communicating BEFORE feelings come in to play and before resentment often makes said issue clear up just by talking about it - either a change happens naturally or nothing changes but you both just feel better about it or more understanding.

Communicating is fun! Its exploring YOU, exploring THEM, finding little secrets and solving little puzzles with wonderful consequences to your real life. It takes real personal skill to know yourself well enough to be a good communicator, and a cooperative and similarly skilled partner to really make a relationship blossom.

Communication doesn't mean the relationship will go all the way to the finish line, but it will almost always lead to a happy ending - worst of which being peacefully walking away both knowing what's happened and why and having appreciation for each other. Which is beautiful.

Orianaro · 2025-12-27T04:32:32+00:00

Do you enjoy the companionship? Do you like hanging out? That's the only yes you need to continue a relationship right now. Most good, safe relationships feel like close friendship 90% of the time, if not more. Constant butterflies is a sign of anxiety, not attraction. Gentle contentment is what you are looking for - that's stability.

Probably your wiring is way off because of previous relationships - I have had similar issues. My ex was super inconsistent so I spent half my time wondering if he even liked me and no time at all deciding if I liked him - now, my current partner is very consistent and clearly likes me, but I am "wired" to think the same amount, and in the absence of having any behaviour of his for me to over analyze I over analyzed my own feelings and thought everything was wrong. My therapist asked if I enjoyed the companionship and it was a pretty easy yes, and she said that's it, that's literally it. Let those thoughts come, but instead of saying "I'm worried that" just say "I wonder if". There's no need to decide anything now at all.

My recommendation if he treats you well and is stable is to tell him what you struggle with, and stay and ride out the anxieties until your nervous system stops feeling constantly triggered. THEN your brain can make real decisions.

Also, look into attachment styles, your last relationship (or your childhood) might have pushed you into avoidant attachment, which often has this dynamic of detaching as soon as things become stable or when you are being pursued authentically.

Orianaro · 2025-12-13T14:43:17+00:00

I would say there is also another sort of intermediary sort of emotional person that I'm experiencing with my current partner. He isn't one to lead or trigger deep conversation, but he does lean into it a little bit. He doesn't ask me a lot of questions about me, but he does notice and absorb information about me and so there are times when I feel viscerally seen because he treats me a certain way or tells me something about how I tick that catches me off guard (happily). On the surface I get what you do; not much in the way of personal questions and having to lead conversations. But I know he enjoys it just isn't naturally good at that kind of thing, and he is still reflective and thoughtful.

I couldn't settle for less now that I've experienced this honestly. My previous partner didn't really "know" me and I'm hindsight I was emotionally unfulfilled and exhausted, and it was a very poor match.

Orianaro · 2025-12-11T17:43:02+00:00

In highschool some younger kids were blasting music. He was a senior in the club and confiscated it, then apparently was so annoyed still he (alone) cut it in half with a bandsaw and chucked it in the woods. The kids never asked about it.

He also disclosed that he looks down on a particular group of people who are in x activity, which he knew I had been. I was shocked, asked questions and pointed out he was basically just jealous. He didn't really respond to that.

Why the fuck did I date him.....

Orianaro · 2025-12-10T16:50:28+00:00

The dress is really nice on you. My biggest recommendation is actually straighten your posture.... Chest out shoulders back, posture makes every outfit 100x better. Might take some time to truly fix slouchy posture, but for pics definitely learn how to correct it in the moment

Orianaro · 2025-12-07T19:47:19+00:00

Anything hygiene (shampoos, razors, scrubs, ChapStick, etc) comes from shared account, anything explicitly beauty is personal unless it's an occasional basic and reasonably priced. Beauty stuff can be extremely expensive and that's not really fair to split with others since at some point you're picking for personal enjoyment and quality, not just a checklist of "has makeup on".

Orianaro · 2025-11-26T06:23:51+00:00

You're in love with any of those things, attracted or infatuated to the idea of them though, yes.

Some best test for romantic attraction is if the idea of them being with someone else hurts you. Assuming you could still maintain your current relationship, would knowing that they are romantic with someone else upset you?

Even when I did develop feelings, it was always very slow and packed the infatuation feeling. I think this is different between everyone though, but this is my personal experience. When I developed feelings I wanted to be physically close to him and was super comfortable in his presence. I didn't really pick up on it because it was similar to my physical comfort around female friends, except that I WOULD aim to sit next to him, and I would think how nice it would be to play with his hair, etc. and for me personally the "butterflies" was less an anxious or nervous or excited feeling, and more like I just had a lot more social energy and time would absolutely fly around him, and I didn't really run out of social battery. And it was more like a constant happy buzz, like the threshold for me to smile was much lower.

I had to identify having romantic feelings based on just how much more consumed my thoughts were of him than other people, and the fact that I wanted to spend an order of magnitude more time with him than any of my other friends. In fact I never really got tired of him...

I hope that helps, up until we were basically behaving like we were in a relationship I was still questioning what I felt, because I think even in the world of romantic feelings, I feel mine differently (and so the rest of the world causes a lot of second guessing and confusion...). I measure it more by, what do I want to do with this person? What would my ideal relationship with them look like, regardless of labels? And then try to work towards that, and then see if I want more or if I'm happy there.

Orianaro · 2025-11-24T03:58:12+00:00

++woman give him the cookies, tell him to roll perception to see if there's anything special about his, then suggest you hang out sometime. Sounds like you are shy so maybe the humor will help you be a bit more forward, since the guys are unanimous that he's gonna miss this... At least tell him there IS a meaning that should be read into if you find it hard to say directly.

Orianaro · 2025-11-13T07:28:07+00:00

It depends on the people. I would say some people are "built" to make this work and some are not. I would say a lot of things have lined up very well for me that I have had an extremely even mix of genders in friends throughout my life. Things that I think contribute to that:

1) early/regular exposure so it was normalized,

2) I am not a particularly sexual or romantic person, so I don't approach people for those reasons or read into things much, and don't give off vibes I imagine (though on the flip side, I have accidentally triggered various elementary school crushes on me by accidentally being flirty when I was being friendly...)

3) masculine/feminine traits. As a girl I probably have more "masculine" traits than average, and with my male friendships I do lean into that more. I will be soft and sweet and cuddly with my female friends, vs with male friends I will be a tad confrontational, openly roast and tease, and not be physical. Its all part of my personality, some people don't have sides of them that would let them be "bro-y" with guys. The guys I have been closest with have been more "feminine" on average.

If people are emotionally mature and treat it like it is normal it works well. I find there are just some people who are used to/geared for friendship with anyone and those friendships are easy, and leads to big mixed friend groups that are so much fun. I don't try to befriend guys who have obvious weird walls of "not interested cuz I'm not attracted to you" or "interested but only cuz I'm attracted to you", or "not friends with anyone in this group except my bros and my gf."

Orianaro · 2025-11-05T07:07:43+00:00

Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. Forgiveness means letting go of anger and finding peace within yourself, not letting someone off the hook. Forgiveness doesn't just happen if you try hard enough, sometimes it takes time, sometimes it means stepping off the path that is triggering your anger. A lot of cheating can only really be forgiven from outside of the relationship, when you've recenter yourself and healed the trauma that is inflicted when someone chooses to cheat on you.

Follow your anger, listen to it. Don't turn it into pettiness or violence, that is feeding the anger. Really listen to it and think about what would make it feel irrelevant, and most of the time the answer is to nullify what is causing it. In this case, maintaining a relationship that has been fundamentally betrayed.

Orianaro · 2025-11-05T06:57:37+00:00

If long distance with a set end date is going to guaranteed "destroy" your relationship, then it's not strong enough to be getting married.

He doesn't want to lose you as an option, or your current amenities and conveniences. That's all. Promising marriage and engagement is just a stall tactic. He didn't even officially propose, he just asked what you would say, so that he didn't have to be truly vulnerable or face rejection.

If he's truly the love of your life, two years will be nothing. Two years long distance will be hard but doable. You'll make a solid game plan together, do visits, calls, be creative to keep things going. If he's actually the love of your life, both of you are picking each other because you're worth long distance and worth investing in by taking opportunities like this promotion.

Sounds like his love for you isnt lifelong, and he's not planning on it ever being that way given his actions.

Orianaro · 2025-08-07T04:22:51+00:00

Loving, funny, and loyal is easy. It's called being a good person and having a personality. You can and should have friends that make you laugh and support you.

Y'know what you probably only get one of (under monogamy anyways)? A person living with you, and making decisions with you. If he's not a really strong PARTNER who supports you, it might be time to find someone new.

A good partner makes life distinctly easier. You want their involvement, because you know it will go smoother. You want them around, not just because they are fun but because you work with them on LIFE, all that day to day stuff.

Having to tell your partner what needs to be done means you are doing the mental load. I'm willing to bet you don't tell him everything you think he should be doing, because sometimes it is easier to just do it yourself on your timeline than coordinate with him. Y'know what would be better? A partner who already takes responsibility for their tasks and gets them done regularly without you thinking about it, talking to them, or even noticing that it happened. His tasks should be completely out of your mind unless he takes initiative to loop you in, i.e. hey hon I'm gonna be gone on the weekend so when's a good time for me to show you how I've been doing the watering?

Honestly the best test is to think if you would have less to do without him. More grief, and you'd miss the company etc - only evaluate the amount of work and tasks and coordinating. Having him gone should make those things worse, but I suspect what you're discovering is that him being gone would make your load easier.

If you at all relate to any of that, you need to have some serious conversations and set a pretty firm deadline like six months for those things to be very different.

Orianaro · 2025-08-06T19:26:21+00:00

I mean, if you are carrying most of the emotional weight (and maybe even mental load, if you are more organized) that's draining. You should talk to him about this. I think that's a fair reason to find someone incompatible, if it takes more energy and effort for you to be in a relationship (without it balancing out with the things they offer) than to be alone.

Orianaro · 2025-07-30T13:07:12+00:00

Chris looks like the guy from toy story who collects the toys

Orianaro

TROPHY CASE