More Online Dating Projection Reflections

I met Berlin on Ashley Madison.  We had a whirlwind 2 week online 'affair'.  Then he disappeared.  And reappeared 2 months later. We've been chatting a little on FB messenger for a few days.  It's still lame and disappointing. 

I am still amazed that the 'something' that seemed so electric and joyful in my mind 2 months ago could be suddenly so flat and empty now.  2 months ago I would have said anything to him; asked him anything; delved deeply into all sorts of emotions and mysteries with him. This time I'm feeling reluctant to broach anything vulnerable with him at all.  So we're reduced to discussing the Oscar Pistorius trial, and the Shrien Dewani case that he may go down and cover in a few days (he's a journalist).  But I have huge unanswered questions screaming in my head that I'm just too afraid to ask.  

"Why did you REALLY" disappear?"

"Have you met anyone else since me that took your breath away like you took mine?"

"Was that connection as moving for you as it was for me?"

"Do you like me?  Or are you just humouring me because you don't have the balls to tell me you're over me?"

"Are you not asking to meet me now because you're afraid I won't like you?  Or have you already decided you don't like me?"

It's amazing how vulnerable I feel about just asking these direct and fair questions.  I have never met this man and yet I'm already tiptoeing around him, somehow playing a 'Pick Me' game and trying to figure out what to say that will make me sound exactly the way he needs me to sound to be attracted to me!  Like how shall I morph myself into what you need?  What is it you need?  Give me a clue and I'll become that in 5 minutes!

I'm spending less time in my head trying to decide whether you are what I need.  I'm doing the same thing as before: projecting my ideal man onto a canvas with a few brush strokes and filling in my own picture.  That's not healthy, Trudy.  Not at all!  Even though being a bit preoccupied with this keeps me distracted from pining after my Narc, it's still not healthy thinking.

Turns out I eventually got a bit of an answer.  I finally got the courage to ask a tentative, roundabout question that wouldn't sound too loaded: "So, Berlin.  How is your life feeling for you now?  Find what you were seeking online?" 

And he eventually responded: "Not really. But my wife has realized that she should do something... So I'm not unhappy at the moment..."

Really? That's it? 5 weeks ago you were looking for an affair because your wife had closed down your sex life for good. Now she's 'doing something'. Who the fuck are you really? Either he's using that as a way to blow me off, because he knows I'm not looking to barge in on any functioning marriages, or.... or he's actually just a dickhead. A fickle dickhead. To his wife. Not me. He owes me nothing at all, but to just expect her to 'do something' to keep him sexually satisfied.....well, I just don't know.

And maybe there's a whole lot more to the story that evades me. And because we're not talking face to face I can't judge his tone and body language. So I'm left projecting and filling in the gaps again. 

Cyber connection is weird.

I think it's time for me to let go of the Berlin connection for now. It's obviously now a relationship that exists purely in my brain, and clearly in the past. It's not going to deliver the potential I hoped for and the magic of the connection has disappeared. Probably for good.

Sad really.