🚀 go-pugleaf

netnom@aol.com (Netnom) wrote:
>once i was involved with someone for several months and we'd
>discussed getting more involved in each other's lives...
 ... and ...
>so i told him that i wanted to end the sexual/romantic relationship for
>those reasons.

   It's hard to tell how the impression I get from reading your description
compares to the actual events, but I find it very easy to see how this
misunderstanding could arise.

   If someone I'd been sleeping with for a while said she wanted to become
more involved, and I said no, and then soon afterward (even a few days
afterward), she said "I've decided to end any romantic relationship with
you", I'd certainly consider seriously the possibility that her decision was
based on my saying no, particularly if the reasons she gave to justify it
were long-standing reasons.  I have no trouble at all imagining someone
seeing a situation like this as an implicit "ultimatum", even when it's not.
The next issue is how one acts in such situations.

   The less you know and can "read" each other, and perhaps the more you've
seen movies of deceitful, lying, conniving, manipulative, scheming,
underhanded, brilliantly devious people in action, the easier it is to
misread another person's poor handling of a difficult situation as a "head
game".
 -WBE

(Not that I claim any skill at or understanding of such things...)