I’m in a weird stage in my relationship with my first boyfriend. I identify as bisexual and up until now I’ve never really dated and/or felt attraction towards men. I love my boyfriend and he’s really kind and caring, but I can’t help but feel like I just don’t reciprocate the same feelings that he has for me. I don’t know how to put it into words but I guess that I’m worried that I’m unintentionally leading him on(?)
I feel like he’s pulling a lot of weight in the relationship and even though I’m trying my best, I just don’t know how to express affection the way that he does- and I’m not comfortable with the kind of physical intimacy that he’s interested in (but we recently had a conversation about the subject and we’ve set those boundaries) I like being with him and it’s resulted in me now being included in an amazing, supportive group of friends.
I don’t want to screw everything up but I can’t stop it worrying and questioning whether I’m scared of commitment or if I’m just not attracted to men. I don’t know how to tell him because this would be so sudden. I don’t want to hurt him but I know it would be better to have a conversation sooner than later. How do I go about talking to him about this?
Hey there, anon. I feel for you in this hard situation you're in.
When it comes to your worry about maybe just being scared of commitment, you know yourself best, but that's not what this sounds like to me. It sounds like you've tried to experience attraction to your boyfriend because you care about him, but you can't force that kind of feeling. It's nobody's fault if you just don't feel that way about men in general or this guy in particular!
I agree with your thought that it's better to have a conversation with your boyfriend about this sooner rather than later.
But I'm afraid I don't know what the Best Way to begin this conversation is. It's going to be hard no matter what you do. I can suggest picking a time when you both have no important deadlines that day or the day after, so you can spend the time you need talking & recovering from the talk. Maybe write down the things you want to be sure you say so you can practice wording.
It sounds like your boyfriend is willing to have honest conversations, which is good. I hope that you both come out of it with a better understanding of where you stand and how to go forward.
I’ve been trying to slowly get back into the hang of writing, so I haven’t really been working on requests because everything feels so clunky right now. Things feel pretty uncertain, but writing something is always better than nothing.
This is just a little one-shot for the most recent episode of the Love Live! Nijigasaki anime with Ayumu and Yuu (yes, I use the romaji spelling). I believe it’s episode 11. It’s very spoilery for a specific scene of the episode! This reflects more on Yuu’s perspective, which I feel we haven’t got as much of in the anime as I’d like--maybe because they want to preserve a certain degree of neutrality. This is angst and introspection.
“I want you to only look at me, Yuu-chan. I-” Ayumu’s voice hitched as she pressed her cheek against the soft sweater of Yuu’s uniform, “-only exist as a school idol for you. My existence...is for you.”
Her whispers, soft and pleading, dissolved and filled the air with heaviness. For moments, Yuu was silent, not knowing what to say or how to even continue a conversation from those words, declared so passionately and yet so wrongly in her quiet, plain bedroom.
Then, she gently took Ayumu by the shoulders and pushed her up and off. Not that the lack of weight on Yuu’s chest really made it any easier to breathe, not in this situation. Her mind was whirring endlessly, spiraling into all kinds of possibilities and thoughts. What was she to broach the topic of, first? But her mouth decided before her mind.
“So, were you lying?” Yuu found herself shaking. She’s never one to instigate arguments but to diffuse them, and she usually does so successfully. But to take apart a ticking bomb that had nothing to do with her was so much easier than resisting the urge to detonate and destroy with the one in her hands, even if she knew she’d regret it later.
Ayumu looks unsure, lost—lost as Yuu had been when Ayumu had abruptly pushed her down on her bed and stopped her from saying any more. Her golden eyes blink once, twice, confused.
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, Yuu-chan…”
Yuu looks away from Ayumu. Her gaze feels anchored to the ground. The storm inside her cast shadows on her heart, obscured any safe path to a happy ending. She doesn’t feel lost anymore. Just disappointed and some measure of crushing sorrow.
“You said you’d support me in my dreams, too. If I found anything I liked. Was that a lie?”
Her voice is dangerously calm, even if she’s holding herself tightly and not meeting Ayumu’s eyes. She wants to burst, keens to let go, but something is holding her back. She’s restrained, chained, and the beast inside her sinks to its knees once again, overpowered. Perhaps it was because it was so much easier for her to express positive emotions than negative ones.
She can express how much she loves school idols, and be thrilled to cheer them on. Those fluttering, limitless feelings will take to the sky and soar as freely as they’d like. But she has always found it difficult to express her painful thoughts, and just how uncertain she feels inside. After all, all that any of the girls in the school idol club know is that she’s not really sure what she wants to do in the future, that she doesn’t have a specific dream or focus yet.
They don’t know what a burden it is to not know. To not know now, to not have known in the past, and to feel like she would never know.
Now, she was so close to finding something, veering toward the edge of something new and exciting—and her closest friend had chosen to remain ignorant of it. Not only that, but she had been prevented from saying it. She thinks it might have been easier if Ayumu had shut her down after she’d said it. Then, she might have understood Ayumu’s disapproval. But she hadn’t even said anything yet.
Yuu has been rejected.
But of course, Ayumu doesn’t see it that way.
“It- it wasn’t a lie,” she says, voice trembling. “That’s really how I felt. I just- I-” she stuttered and fell silent. The ticking of the clock steadily carried on.
Yuu knows it can’t stay this way forever. This impregnable, stagnant tension—so still, the air was suffocating her. She must carry on, too, as time does.
“Forget it,” Yuu says in a bright voice. “It’s late, so you should go to bed, Ayumu-chan. I’ll see you tomorrow at school. I have to get there early to take care of some paperwork for the festival, so we can’t walk there together tomorrow.”
It was a convenient excuse, although true. She’d arranged to meet with Setsuna in the morning to check it all over and work out some more details.
Yuu stands, still avoiding Ayumu’s eyes, and with short, blunted steps, she strides to the door of her room, opening it. She doesn’t look in Ayumu’s direction, but she does hear Ayumu pick herself off of the ground, and shuffle out of Yuu’s room.
“Then… I’ll let myself out,” Ayumu confirms softly. “I’m- I’m sorry, Yuu-chan.” And with those parting words, so thinly strung together that they might come apart at the seams, Ayumu fled the scene in a hurry.
Yuu feels bad. But she also doesn’t feel bad. She hasn’t said anything wrong to Ayumu. Yuu is the one who should be mad, right? Her words were smothered over, rejected before they were even let out. But she’s just sad. Even if the word sad didn’t even begin to cover it.
She feels lost again, maybe even more than before. Because, what do you do when someone closest to your heart rejects who you are? Who you might be?
Ayumu has apologized, but Yuu can’t even be sure of what Ayumu was apologizing for. Was Ayumu apologizing for trampling over Yuu’s efforts to express her thoughts? Was Ayumu just apologizing for tackling Yuu onto the bed? Or maybe, was Ayumu apologizing for not being able to support Yuu in chasing after her own dreams? She has no idea, and she’s not sure that knowing would make it better.
Yuu can remind herself over and over again that Ayumu only said such things because Ayumu cares for her so deeply. But in another way, Yuu doesn’t feel loved at all. She doesn’t feel loved for herself, but for what she can be to Ayumu, what she can do for Ayumu.
Her ears are ringing in the quiet room. She gazes at the electric keyboard, forlorn. Her fingers itch to press those keys, to hear the satisfying drum of note after note, and it doesn’t matter that her piano isn’t a fancy grand piano or that there’s no audience, much less Yuu possessing the skill to perform for one. But she knows that with the dissonance of her heart beating so loudly, she’ll never hear the music of the piano.
Instead, she turns away. She’ll practice more tomorrow. Today, she would just have to go to sleep—or rather, lay in bed and stare blankly into the darkness until she passed out, half-conscious and exhausted, lost in her thoughts, lost in this world, lost in the dark, utterly lost.
Yuu has been lost her whole life. What was another day or more?
Hi Jumblr, so I was raised reform but my family kinda stopped practicing when I was a kid. We didn’t convert to anything else, we just kinda stopped going to shul and stuff. So I’m not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to my culture and religion, but I’m trying to get more involved in the Jewish community and practice more. My boyfriend is from Israel and is orthodox but not a very strict practitioner, like he doesn’t observe Shabbos that often or anything. Lately he’s been part 1/?
Saying that I shouldn’t go to a reform synagogue cuz it’s not Halacha and that my interpretations of Tanakh are all wrong and that it’s a disgrace. He says if I’m going to practice, I should do it the “right way.” I’ve told him about the history of the orthodox and reform movements and how I don’t feel comfortable in orthodox spaces because of the gender separation and stuff and he refuses to listen. Have any of you ever been in a similar situation? How would you approach asserting 2/3
your right to your own interpretations and your own way of practicing? Every time we argue about it I don’t know what to say, but I know that I’m never gonna be comfortable in the orthodox shul he wants me to go to. I tried for Rosh Hashanah to give it a chance and hated every minute of it. He just doesn’t seem to be able to open his mind to the idea that any other movement would be valid, and I don’t know how to explain it in a way that will get through to him. Any advice is appreciated! 3/3
The Right Way to Fight for a Deeper Connection
https://wp.me/p84YjG-b8y
#relationships #conflict #fighting #argument #couplesgoals #relationships #psychology #zsoltzsemba
