I finally got up the courage to message someone on a dating site. It was mostly for practice because she hadn't been on in a few months. Remarkably, she responded, and it was positive, too. Then I saw her name. Some of you may already know of the girl I fell for last year (and who I am still not over yet, as today illustrated all too vividly). This girl happens to have a fairly common name, but that doesn't mean I'm used to seeing it yet. On my good days, I'll just look away quickly or pretend I didn't hear it. On my bad days, however, it can serve as a fairly major trigger. (I know I need to deal with this, but frankly I'm at a loss for what to do. Counseling hasn't done me any good so far.) It probably goes without saying at this point that both this girl and the girl I messaged have the same name, albeit with different spellings. They even look similar and have similar interests, too. I had to check multiple times to make sure they weren't in fact the same person. So now I have a bit of a dilemma. Should I tell the new girl about this problem? Any advice on what to say?
I don't know that there's much to tell this new person, but if I've read your post right, you went on a dating site and decided to contact someone who reminds you heavily of your ex, and who you didn't think would be responsive, only to shy away when she did answer and you figured out they have the same name. To me, this suggests you might not be over your ex yet, and possibly not ready to date. I don't think there's any specific thing you should or shouldn't do, but if you do still have feelings for your ex, then I would start by respecting yourself and those feelings and dealing with them first. If you need to communicate something to this other person, can you tell her that you aren't ready to date yet, but are just looking to meet people? Assuming, of course, that that's how you feel.
I never date the girl last year. I do still have feelings for her and readily acknowledge that I'm not over her yet. I've tried to deal with my feelings, but have so far been unsuccessful. One thing that's supposed to help is building your non-romantic relationships. Problem is, I don't have any that I can rely on. I'm trying to reach out to new people, and that's where this site comes in. Both of us are listed on the site as looking for friends as well as dating, and in fact that's what I mainly messaged her for. I would like there to be the potential for a relationship down the road, but it takes me so long to warm up to people that I figured I should be in better shape by the time I'm ready for that. In the meantime, I wanted to find someone to talk to and be friends with, which should in turn help me deal with my feelings. I guess a better question would be, then, how should I go about telling new friends about my emotional baggage, especially if something about them triggers it but I still want to try being friends anyways?
