becoming friends... finally

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Hello! I know its been a while since I updated on https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=411000&p=9214577#p9214577 , so I thought it would be better to start a fresh topic.
There's been some improvements on the situation with that guy. Fortunately, I think some peope might have been right about him having a little crush. Unfortunately, I doubt it has potential.

Things started improving slightly naturally. Though I did actively start being a bit more playful with him in group settings. He seemed to enjoy this, but still not much on the eye contact, fine. He's also now fond of referring to me in the third person?? ("X said that..."/ "I agree with X")

One or two drunken gaming sessions led to some very sincere group texts where he:
- compared me to his mother
- admitted he "doesn't trust anyone that cares about him", is "emotionally crippled" and has nothing but "doomed relationships" ;3;
- he's in therapy for the above

this was all leading up to birthday party on Saturday at an arcade/bar. i expected to be ignored again, but it was a smaller group and he ended up sticking to the people he knew, including me. this time I experienced something his original friend describes as "looming", where he just stands over your shoulder watching you do something. despite being a big guy, he gave me a fright the first time. at some points I deliberately leaned back like I was bumping into him and he did not move. then when I sat down with our friends he moved to sit beside me.
we were leaving the bar and he kept asking where people were going. to the point i turned and asked "where do YOU want to go?". he looked me dead in the eye then and seemed to forget what he was saying.
he invited a few of us back to his place. and for the first time I saw him ANGRY. one girl that our friend invited started deliberately arguing with him, getting under his skin and invading his space. in fairness he tried to be polite but eventually lost it and told her to either stop talking to him, or leave. she kept going. at this point I was actively listening and intervened: "i think he's done with the conversation". she tried a little bit with me but i ignored her and she went quiet. queue him staring across for a bit.
end of the night. i was leaving but for some reason his bully was dragging her heels. he walked me out to the door, but i felt guilty leaving him with her, turned to say something. caught him giving me the once-over, and being my awkward self just ended up giving him a hug.

it's all very nice thinking someone's interested in you, but I can't get past the idea of him being emotionally unavailable. also despite my testing him I'm still not sure if I'm attracted. i definitely see him in a more positive light recently but unsure how we're going to progress

If you don't know how you feel about him, I would suggest that you continue getting to know him as a friend, but don't be very flirty, at least for now.


Many (though not all) autistic people have intrinsic difficulty with eye contact, either for sensory reasons or because of difficulty with multi-tasking. For many of us, eye contact is just too much of a distraction from the content of the conversation.


Does he do this only in the context of the group, or when you are having one-on-one conversations too?

Only in the latter case would I consider it to be odd. In the context of a group conversation, especially an online group chat, it seems perfectly reasonable to me for him to name whom he is responding to, to avoid any confusion as to what he is saying in response to whom. Even in an in-person conversation, if a person has difficulty making this clear via body language (e.g. eye contact), then it is necessary to make this clear by naming the person.

Occasionally I've witnessed some really nasty misunderstandings that were caused by confusion over whom a person was responding to. So I suspect he has good reason to be careful to make this clear.


In what way? What are your specific resemblances (or non-resemblances) to his mother, according to him?


I guess it remains to be seen whether, and to what extent, he will benefit from the therapy. At least he's working on it.

I wouldn't suggest that you pry at this point, but hopefully at some point he'll tell you more about the specifics of how and why his "doomed relationships" ended.


If this behavior bothers you, hopefully you'll (gently but clearly) confront him about it?

yes agreed. right now I'm still toeing the line between figuring my own feelings out and interpreting his. i don't want to lead him on, or catch unnecessary feelings


I'm bad at it too but have trained myself into it. he doesn't seem to be bad at all, just with me


yes it's definitely done in the group, but almost as a substitute to addressing me directly? if that makes sense


it's a bit hard to pinpoint, but I've a pretty dry sense of humor that seems to trigger the "you're just like my mom" remarks.


it actually doesn't bother me. i just noticed it as i was watching him more closely. like i don't feel any threat from him at all, he's just a little more "there" than normal?

Regarding eye contact:

Maybe he has a crush on you but is resisting it, out of fear of rejection (or possibly other reasons)?


Does he do the same with other people, or just with you?


Have you ever responded to his "you're just like my mom" remarks by asking him in what specific ways you are just like her?

possibly. I'm terrible at these things so dont know how to tell


i feel like its more with me than others, but then could be personal bias


I'm tempted to tbh. it's happened enough time that i hope I'm not emulating anything unpleasant. but he seems to say it in a lighthearted manner so i assume its not bad

though he IS hard to talk to seriously. has a very "class clown" approach to everything

Hi I was very negative about him last time, due to my bad experiences.

Does he refer to you in the third person but refuses to talk directly to you?

Also it would be good to ask him what his mom was like. That will tell you a lot.

In my reading of the narcissist websites, it seems like they had an abusive parent, then their girlfriend can become the scapegoat and get punished for what happened to them as a child. So it would be 20 years or more of being ignored or shouted at. So the fact that he compared you to his mom already and singles you out for bad behaviour makes me concerned.

There is also an article written by a narcissist where he says that narcissists seem to warn their potential victims by saying similar stuff to what he said about doomed relationships and the other quotes he said.
Here:
https://narcsite.com/2017/01/14/the-por ... arcissist/

That's OK klana I understand. You had good intentions. And like I said, I'm staying mindful.

He DOES talk directly to me, if it's just us he has no problem.

With him comparing me to his mom, I don't get the impression it's a "calling out" way. More of a "haha, that's something my mom would say". I'd have to figure out exactly what parts of my remarks are reminding him, and how exactly I'm reminding him. If he does it again I suppose I'll ask.

The situation with the other girl bullying him makes me feel he's more of a victim tbh. I believe a narcissist would have escalated and he spent hours politely asking her to stop before he finally blew up. Even at that it was just a firm "get away from me".

He dropped something off today and I mentioned that situation. He waved it off and actually gave her the benefit of the doubt saying "We just clashed. I wouldn't hold it against her. I just wouldn't invite her to my house again", then said he'd love to have the rest of us over again.

I DO wonder what doomed his relationships as well, but that might be prying to ask at this stage. I get the sense based off the surrounding comments that it was his trust issues

i actually went back through some chats and think I get the mother comparisons, haha.

example 1: i said "i live to scar kids"
example 2: i tricked him into doing something that got him killed in a game

that's actually funny. so it's situations where I'm deliberately doing/saying something slightly evil paired with some self-deprecating humour

Yeah that's what happened to me in my bad relationship.

I got involved in it due to the low self esteem that comes with having a disability like autism.

Hmm if he had a cruel mother then that fits in with narcissism too.

Obviously that's an IF she was cruel.

UPDATE on the update:
So. Turns out he's really sick. Like REALLY really.
Dont want to go too much into his stuff but - We were all in a call earlier and he explained that over the past few months he's been getting tests, etc. and they finally found something. They're talking treatment now so it's not going to be something he can hide any more.

I don't think it's appropriate at all to worry about him being a bit rude now knowing this. He obvs has a lot on his mind.

Thanks for the update. How is he doing now?

best way i can describe it is an "existential crisis". nice to say he's at least being consistenly inconsistent with everyone now. he'll go from talking about starting a family one day and how much time he's wasted in life, to the next day telling us he's gonna find a shack in the countryside and become a hermit.
i don't think he's a very reliable narrator right now