Dealing with Snowballs (Unresolved Female Anger)

[Tweed]

I'll open by saying I've read Chase's article on beating women at their blame game, and it is excellent.

My situation relates to times that anger stems from an unresolved issue. Issues that are ignored early on and build over time.

...

I have a housemate I got along with pretty well at college. Hot, fuckbuddy type deal. Once things cooled off in the first couple months we drew back from sex to occasional drunken make outs. As we both started seeing other people I guess she little resistant to roommate sex. I'd not pushed too hard for it though, I'd been seeing other girls so it wasn't a big deal for me.

Anyway, this girl had her moody days, where she'd become argumentative, or even start to refuse everything in conversation (stories, suggestions etc) for seemingly no reason. I had noticed it happened more since we'd stopped sleeping together, but going back wasn't an option so I'd just come to accept them. A couple weeks back she was testing my frame more than usual on a trip back from the laundromat, and on this particular occasion it was a slog to deal with. I couldn't feel a way out. I'd experienced testing before but I guess this girl was some kind of monster mood because she wasn't pulling any stops. So, once home - a friend called and I saw an out. I asked if she could pick up the washing later herself while I headed out. She agreed (mind you this was only an extra 10 minute walk for her).

The following days she appears to act colder and colder. Even angry around the house. I decide to ignore it for then as I'd had exams to think about and I'd seen her in bad moods before.

A week later I find time to question her. She first pretends nothing's wrong, but I break through and she says she's upset about the washing incident. Fine. I try to pace with her and have a chat but it's cut short as she walks out angrily. From then on it's awkward after awkward encounter. I asked her whats wrong a couple times. Cold aloofness. I try to break through a couple more times over the week. Icy aloofness. At one point she got sulky for using her cutlery and insisted I buy her another one.

Most recently I bumped into her at the bar, tried chatting as if nothing was wrong and she scoffed at me for being "annoying". I could have capitalized on her emotion, but was drunk so I didn't trust my ability to resolve it. I walked away wordlessly.

There's been no contact since. I've switched rapidly between non-interest to reconciliatory over the last couple weeks - something that likely didn't help. But man, what a learning experience.

What's my move here girlschase. We really did get along well, but now I only care about the awkwardness. I don't think it's going away by itself.

TLDR: Girl got angry over small thing. Started snowballing. Need to stop it before it ruins the year.

 

[DarkKnight]

How about simply telling her to cut the shit? You don't have to repair what others break down. If I am interpreting this right, you allow her to trample over you by allowing her to act passive agressive.

 

[niger9dm]

Besides it looks like you were chasing, the problem was HERS to resolve because she was angry over something trivial, you didn't do anything relevant to make her angry but still you tried to make up with her like it was your fault and give in to her desires.
Don´t do that, it makes you look weak and women hate weakness.

 

[Chase]

@Tweed,

Seems pretty obvious she is sulking about you not giving it to her any longer.

But your attainability is in shambles. Maybe she broke up with her guy, or on the rocks with a guy, and is horny for you, and resentful you're different with her now, or so on. It's tough living with someone you were sexual with previously but no longer are. One of you will typically always catch feelings. If she had none, she would not react this way.

The challenge is she's resentful, so you can't just walk up to her and start escalating (she'll reject it).

With the washing incident, I probably would've just argued with her until we got back to the apartment, then shut the door, wall-slammed her, made out with her, and (assuming she was into it, which I suspect she would've been) shagged her right here on the floor inside the door. The whole thing just says "obscenely horny and mad at you for not giving it to her."

But you didn't shag her when she was hot for it, so she went into a deep freeze the next day.

I'm not sure exactly what you want with this girl. It's obvious she wants to be with you. But it needs to be handled appropriately.

The way I'd deal with it at this point, if I was in your shoes, is I'd catch her and say, "Look. There's a huge amount of tension between us right now. It's really weird if we're going to be two platonic roommates. Now I like you, I think you're great, but you've been way hot and cold. So it's up to you. We can do whatever you want. We can fuck, and get all our anger at each other out, and it'll be explosive, and then we can talk about what we do after that. Or we can just be totally normal platonic roommates, and that's cool too, but we can't have all this anger stuff because it's stupid to have that with someone you're not fucking."

And she will be pissed off you phrased it like that, and will insist she will never fuck you again in a million years, or something like that. Because she's in auto-rejection.

And that's fine. Just let her go. Leave her to think on it.

She will come back to you a little while later though, and either just straight up jump your bones and want to shag, or she will want to have a heart-to-heart, followed by wanting to shag.

You have to be completely cool about it. It has to be "I'm fine with it either way", and you have to mean that: either she can act like a girlfriend and get pissy and testy and moody, and you guys can fuck, and that's fine because you know moodiness goes with that territory. Or you guys can be platonic, that's okay too, but she needs to cut out the moods because you don't sign up for that when you're just a platonic roommate.

Then let her choose what she wants to do.

The act of highlighting how she is behaving and pointing out to her why she is doing it (because she wants to have sex with you) is going to force her to be honest with herself... and then she will be honest with you.

Chase

 

[tweed2]

Hi all, this is the OP. Updating with a new account as I lost access to my original.

Seems pretty obvious she is sulking about you not giving it to her any longer.

Haha, power of hindsight.

Thank you all for your advice, Chase in particular. Very practical steps. I wish I'd seen this sooner.

I'm not sure exactly what you want with this girl. It's obvious she wants to be with you. But it needs to be handled appropriately.

A relationship, if salveagable. I don't believe I did. I'll share though, hopefully as a lesson of what not to do.

We had taken to flat out ignoring each other following the incident above. A few days before term-end she lashed out at me in front of my housemates and I took this as an opportunity to air grievances. I went aggressive to get her talking but unfortunately pushed too far. There was yelling. She ended up saying she never wanted to speak to me again.

I approached her a couple days later, and told her I thought she was great, and we don’t have to be friends if that’s how she felt. We left on a dour note before Christmas. 4 weeks of no contact.

The act of highlighting how she is behaving and pointing out to her why she is doing it (because she wants to have sex with you) is going to force her to be honest with herself... and then she will be honest with you.

Chase, I suppose this advice can still be used - albeit in a tweaked way? Seeing as we've had a month to cool off now (I'm back in 2 days). And this girl's been auto-rejected to hell and back. She even saw me bring a girl back at one point.

Emotions were high. I've been a jerk, I just wonder whether conceding that will make her feel better... or worse.

 

[Chase]

"Hey, look, I'm sorry. I was an asshole last term. You were moody and I think I took it the wrong way. I don't know why you affect me so much. Anyway, I don't want to push if you need space. But maybe it'd be nice to get a dinner, you and me, sometime, just to make peace. There's a nice place I know nearby. It'd be my treat. You don't have to answer right away, you can just let me know when you're ready and we'll schedule something."

I'd do it like that. She's auto-rejected and thinks you don't see her as a romantic option. So you give a little speech like this, where you show her she's affected you but you're not sure why (so she can guess... "Maybe he likes me like that too!"), then you propose a romantic-sounding dinner in a traditional dinner date setup, where you also pay as a peace offering. Normally I wouldn't recommend that, but since you were already sexual with her and the main obstacle is her thinking you aren't interested in a relationship with you, an offering like that will get her wheels turning.

I'd be prepared for her to be cold and dismissive when you propose it. Just finish your little speech anyway and then give her her space. Give her a little time to process it. She will mull over what you said. And most likely change how she deals with you once she's realized she read you wrong and detects that you've warmed up a lot to her.

Might be worth keeping in mind that a not insignificant number of roommate romances move to pregnancy/marriage. And especially when there was a huge row and then you got together after, emotions are going to run high between the two of you. So I would bear those things chiefly in mind as I proceeded... and have a think about whether that was what I wanted, and would still want once the emotions had calmed a bit...

Chase

 

[tweed2]

Chase - this is brilliant. Not my usual approach either so could be a good learning experience.

Normally I wouldn't recommend that, but since you were already sexual with her and the main obstacle is her thinking you aren't interested in a relationship with you, an offering like that will get her wheels turning.

She's kept a regular fwb the last couple months who she often texts in front of me (like during the OP) - though never brought back to ours. It's likely ongoing. I don't suppose this is at all significant to my approach?

Might be worth keeping in mind that a not insignificant number of roommate romances move to pregnancy/marriage. And especially when there was a huge row and then you got together after, emotions are going to run high between the two of you. So I would bear those things chiefly in mind as I proceeded... and have a think about whether that was what I wanted, and would still want once the emotions had calmed a bit...

I'll try to stay objective/ levelheaded. Thanks for looking out.

 

[tweed2]

Hi all, update on the situation.

So I bumped into her today round the house. She wasn't so keen on even a quick conversation, and kept interrupting. When I asked her to think about it she stated she'd already done that over the holidays. Moving wasn't an option so she wants nothing more than to be polite and that's it. Whatever negative feelings she harbored, seem to have solidified. I went a little off script towards the end, rambly. I'm sorry if it seemed I didn't care. Then I left.

Anyway.

I've been focused on myself/ meeting other girls ever since this topic first went down, and I guess I'll continue to do so. It's hard. Knowing whether I misread in the first place, or if I was just too late.

If boards have an input I'd be happy to hear. This will be my last post on the topic.