She Dated A Question Mark For One Year!

Everything seemed like sunshine and roses in the beginning. Iris was swept off her feet by this man who was not her outward spec in the first instance. He was neither the most handsome nor fit. Still and all, this guy was funny, friendly, and intelligent.

In the first few weeks they met, she did not see any relationship budding. She never thought of it or pursued it. They got talking gradually, and the conversation grew into long unending phone calls. Iris thought to herself, “what in the world is happening to my heart?”

Not once in any of this conversation did he verbally indicate interest in being with her. Yet, his actions were the opposite. Was this a case of actions being superior to words? He acted like he was her boyfriend in his mannerisms and gestures of flirtatious origins.

So, one day, she asked him, “Do you like me?” He giggled for a minute and said a flat yes with a follow-up inquiry of why she asked. She replied, “just wanted to know.” That was the beginning of her confusion. I wish she learned this then.

A month passed, and the talking stage lingered. She grew intensely attached that she did nothing without informing this man. Iris was deeply in love. She barely noticed that his niceness and friendliness that pulled her in the first place was just his nature.

The beautiful compliments, romantic texts, pick-ups, drop-offs, random buying of lunch, morning texts, etc., were just his way of relating with females. They were up to five ladies receiving almost the same attention from him, only in different degrees on different days.

Eight months in and Iris was already a girlfriend in her head. Frustration started to set in when she could not get him to commit. There were bits of love here and there, inconsistent enough to confuse her to stay and hope that she proves to him how worthy she was of his undivided attention.

She asked him for the first time, “what are we doing?” Iris got the answer but sadly did not listen. He told her, “let’s go with the flow. I am not ready for a relationship right now.”  

Each time she distanced herself and decided to move on, he acted better for a while, told her nice jargons about how she was important to him, and roped her back in. In her naivety, she blocked guys who showed interest in her because she was hopeful one day, he would ask her to date him. It was a cycle. The fun friendship had turned sour only for Iris because the guy in question knew how to act like everything was great.

Then, one day in the middle of the inconsistency, while they were sitting on the balcony of their workplace, he muttered, “will you be my girlfriend?” to her. She said yes because she thought they were heading somewhere finally. With exaggerated excitement, Iris notified her two closest friends of the progress. They were happy for her. None of them could picture that would be a continuation of her confusion.

Whenever there was a need to address something that hurt her feelings, she felt so alone and unwanted. His manner of approach to issues was heart aching. The uncertainty trailed. Not once did he bring up any discussion that had his plans and Iris in the same sentence.

She never got answers, only questions. A man who could not provide clarity on where the relationship was heading and how much she meant to him. A man who replied “I don’t know” to the question “what do you want from me?”

Sitting across from me in her fourth therapy session, it dawned on her as I explained it was time to move on. One year was gone, and she was in a relationship with a question mark!