TL;DR: For a month, I was seeing and vetting a guy who seemed a lot more promising than your usual LVM trope. Suddenly, he cut me off over text -- after one month of seeing each other with serious intentions. The mask slipped off so I blocked and deleted him. I'm armed with FDS principles but this switcheroo still ambushed me and I'd love your opinions.

  1. A soft boy is a guy who appears to empathize with you, then fucks you over with his (ultimately fake) sweetness and emotional intelligence. Like fuckboys, but emotionally.

I just hit the one-month mark since my first date with a guy. He was really sweet, caring, and attentive since the first date, offered to pay for everything, actually listened to me, and got to know me. I’ve been love-bombed before by another guy, so I felt that this time was different. Throughout our one month of going out, he never pressured me physically and I never felt like his goal was to lead me on for sex. (We only went as far as one make out session and never had sex).

Green flags were paving the way. He treated me well, I felt respected and comfortable, and I had every reason to believe that it was heading somewhere serious. As more dates started to unfold, we regularly checked in with each other where we stood in terms of going steady. He said that I was “worth it” and he was eager for a relationship after a few more dates. I felt assured because I thought his words and actions were consistent.

The main bottleneck was he seemed more and more constrained with making time for me as our dates progressed. I’d discussed with him over dinner before about my expectations of making time to see each other once a week. Also, if we continued to progress more seriously at this pace, I'd like to take overnight weekend trips too. Things still looked difficult and he seemed reluctant, saying that “it’s easy for me alone with my goals, but difficult to have someone else involved”.

He did seem “busy” with his military schedule where he goes to sleep at 9 pm and gets up at 5 am, and does not want to go out of town on a Sunday to prepare for work on Monday (I know, military 🙄 Always something is up with this demographic. I thought he was an exception). He tried to squeeze me in on the weekend. He said he was excited for future plans of fun date activities and road trips we were yet to do. We had to work around our schedules twice, and he did try to make the rescheduling happen, so I thought there was hope and I was lenient towards his busyness.

But I could feel his effort waning. I sensed something coming. My intuition was right.

  1. Can “I’m too busy” even be a legit excuse? No. You CHOSE to live your life this way and CHOSE to go out with me on your own will. You knew what you were going into, and you hurt me in the process.

This Wednesday, at 1 pm, in response to me asking him to confirm our plans for the weekend, he sent a text saying that he didn’t want to continue because he was “too busy with [his] life to keep this going”. A classic excuse. Inconsiderate execution that wrecked my workday altogether. I felt hollow and could barely focus on work for the rest of the day. Fucking cruel.

What did he actually imply with “we are two different people, our goals are too far apart” and “you’re a great person but I have a lot to focus on and don’t think I have my life together enough for a relationship”?

My pick-me friends chalked it up to “he must have his own reasons” and “you should always assume the best intention”. They thought I was too ham-fisted, needy and uptight.

But I just cannot buy into this excuse. There is no benefit of the doubt -- no benefit and no doubt. Sadly, very often our society does not hold people accountable for their actions and calls it out as shitty behavior. It’s too rampant.

  1. Ending things over text with someone you've seen/dated to a certain point is straight-up disrespect

He cut me off without having the balls to tell me in person or even over a call. I couldn’t believe he treated me like this eventually and it was just straight up an insult. I was shocked as this was not the person I was used to seeing. The mask slipped off and a coward appeared.

When you do it over text, you can pick and choose which question you want to answer and which one to ignore. You are not open to confrontation and giving actual answers.

He said he also would’ve liked to end in-person too - wtf did he even mean he “would’ve liked to”? He CHOSE to flip on me like this over text and suddenly became obscure, vague, and distant. This ending really left a bad taste in my mouth and tainted all the memories I’ve had with him up to now.

He knew that I prefer to communicate and have heart-to-heart and mature conversations in person. He knew it because we’d discussed things in person. He KNEW, he just didn't want to act on it. And he had the audacity to try to assure me "It's ok don't worry. It's not your fault, it's just not the right time". 😐 Of course scrote, I don't need that validation, obviously it's not my fault. Why do I have to be responsible for your behavior, even implied?

I definitely lost trust in men (again!). I blocked and deleted him right away FDS-style. I’m proud to be FDS trained in a way that I could drop a guy at any moment and I was always prepared to be vigilant but damn. I’m still taken aback and hurt by this switcheroo, ladies. I don’t know what to trust anymore.

  1. Some key learnings I was able to get:
  • Vet aggressively. LVM who waste your time come in many forms. They might not straight-up lie to you, ask for sex, or neg you, but they fuck you up in other ways. In this case, it's acting sweet, future faking, and betraying your trust -- no matter how "genuine" he tried to act.
  • Stay vigilant and willing to drop a man the moment he shows that he doesn't want to make you a priority
  • Words mean nothing compared to the actual effort someone put in. He kept saying how pretty, smart, thoughtful, kind, and worthwhile I was, but he had no problem abruptly ending it with me in one of the most selfish ways possible.
  • The actions at the very end of the story are the endgame, no matter how sweet and lovey-dovey the memories were -- they ended up looking fake.
  • Don’t let LV male and female friends gaslight you into thinking you asked for too much and drop them too. Surround yourself with actual HV people. Protect your energy, especially in vulnerable times like this.
  • No more dating military men. 😬 This one was not an exception to the military trope.