Well, sometimes people are like that and they mess you about but it doesn't necessarily mean that he's not that into you, or would always be like that. A lot of relationships start off casual, with infidelities and "white lies" about stuff that didn't matter when you weren't in a serious relationship but would upset you now.

Did you tell him before that you have feelings for him? Maybe he thinks that he's little more than a booty call to you. Some men like a woman to show that they're really interested in them. Sometimes they can even lie because they think that they have to to impress you, or hide things that they're insecure about.

It's impossible for us to know more about this guy than you do and we can't say what will happen if you text him. We can't know why he made excuses before. It could have been anything. Maybe he was scared. Maybe he had stuff going on and just couldn't deal with anything else at the time. It's not great if you're not honest with each other though and to a certain extent I have to agree with these other posters. Ask yourself what it is that you like about this guy and if you really want more of it. If you're going to talk to him again then tell him how you feel. He could aproach you but probably doesn't feel like he can. He may feel ashamed and that if he apologised for messing you about that you would just tell him to get lost and it only took a few people on the internet to change your atitude to that, so, his not talking to you is understandable maybe...

Well, a lot of the time it's because they weren't very successful with those young hot women when they were their age and they now maybe have the confidence, maturity, social or financial status, or whatever to get them. They're just going after what they always wanted. It starts at high school. At high school girls tend to go out with older boys, supposedly because at that age girls mature quicker and are taller than boys their own age.

Saying that younger women are more "fun" is a bit of a cliche but there's an element of truth about it. There's a lot of pressure with older women that are looking for somebody to spend the rest of their lives with that you don't get with a younger lady that probably isn't thinking that way. It does depend on your idea of fun though and they aren't all the same. You get the occasional freak that likes gardening or opera and other old lady hobbies when they're still young and you get older women that aren't completely boring yet as well.

The bit about injunction orders was tongue in cheek.

The problem with saying that you should already know what to do is that women aren't all the same and what one wants or expects you to do may not be what another one would want. You can't just say that you should just be "good" or "decent" because that's hopelessly vague and a matter of opinion. Nevertheless, they will still dump you on the grounds that you don't know how to treat them, as if they are all the same and that you should know that by now.

Where did it come from; this idea that all women are basically the same and want the same things? It sounds a bit sexist to me.

They all do it. They set you up for a fall by expecting you to behave in certain ways to prove that you're worthy of them but they are crafty and they don't tell you how you can shape up by constantly nagging you about that.

Well, that happens but that's just frustration about your reluctance to tap into your psychic abilities, or "female side".

They show their displeasure in other ways, such as the "silent treatement", saying that they have headaches when you want to make love and not returning your calls and threatening to have injunction orders put on you, etc.

They complain that you don't even listen to them when they tell you what they want but they can't seem to make up their minds what that is and they'll start off acting like they want to be with you and then when you turn out not to know what you're supposed to do to keep them happy they tell you that you didn't get the part that you auditioned for. It could just be that it's their fault for being bad directors.

Some people are more trustworthy than others. I lent the same guitar to two girlfriends. I knew that I would get it back from the first one but I just hoped that I would get it back from the other one and I didn't. It was worth quite a lot of money as well.

I thought it unlikely that I would get it back from a girl like that at the time but I still gave her it. I may have done it as a sort of test and it's certainly something that I can say about her now that the relationship is over. It's the principle of the thing. I probably wouldn't have given her it if I really expected to get it back but it wasn't a gift and I suppose that I can say that I was a nice guy to her there and that she was nasty and not an honourable person.

With some people you can't even count on seeing them again, let alone getting a loan back from them. It's a bit foolish to trust them when they're like that but I don't really see a problem with it in an established relationship.

I'm not necessarily defending these people but many of them opt for that hobo lifestyle because they don't want any part of precisely the system that you are complaining about. A lot of so-called "travelers" are just middle classed hippy drop outs that think that they are anarchists because they don't claim dole money, while they'll quite happly sponge off their parents and accept handouts from people that they meet on their travels. They are opting out of mainstream society and simply don't recognise your right of ownership or control over the land.

It's true that many of them want it both ways and exploit the system and claim dole money but some of them contribute to society and there's a long history of gypsies making their livings by running fairgrounds. I saw a story on the news recently about a Gypsy girl that just got a place at Oxford university. She went to school when they weren't moving about and just did a lot of studying while traveling.

Well, I have had problems myself with anxiety attacks and although I have that pretty much under control now and am not on medication it would be good if it was "gone" and there are just things that I find stressful, or I just don't do some things because I don't want to put myself in stressful situations, even though they may be challenges that I want to overcome in order to have a better life.

I don't expect this guy to give me any practical solutions and there's nobody else apart from my mother that even cares, so, after years of trying things to try to build a better life for myself I'm not very optomistic about the future and it often seems hopeless.

I've had mostly bad experiences with charities and social workers because they don't really treat you like an individual, with individual needs and difficulties. They only offer one size fits all solutions and just want to get rid of you and close your case as quickly as possible. This sort of thing is different and the guy doesn't blame his clients if something he tries with them doesn't work and he recognises that different aproaches or techniques work for some people better than others.

It was good for a change to hear somebody say that I had actually been right about a lot of things, rather than giving me a lot of patronising crap about how it's just me and saying that some of my concerns may be a bit irrational but not those ones. I want to feel empowered and what I got from charities and social workers had the opposite effect. Their aproach is to put you through ordeals and tell you that you just have to put up with stuff because you have a disability. In my case that "stuff" included harassment and it does for many disabled people. It's hard to feel optomistic and positive and see solutions, rather than more obstacles, when that's what it's like. I do feel like I've been stuck in a rut that I don't know how to get out of for a long time. I don't really feel like I can do it all on my own though and I would like to atract genuine friends into my life.

No, it's not weirdbut most men that have a job work during the day.

Yeah. It seems apealing and seductive in a lot of ways. I even think that it's likely that physical problems that I've had could have been triggered by emotional stress that I had. I'm aware of my own emotional or psychological problems and want to feel more positive about the future and believe that it could be good and I know that I have to be more motivated and start seeing more solutions than obstacles and all of that.

It's just when these people tell you about things that really do seem out of a person's control that it really starts to sound like sheer superstition. There's a difference between someone wishing for a hundred K and then using the resources and ideas he already had to get it and somebody saying that they want to live in Germany and then their husband getting a job in Germany out of the blue. There does seem to be the caviat that you have to wish for something reasonable. I suppose that it's got to be something that I can really believe is possible and it has to be physically possible for the universe to give me it. They won't claim that an amputated leg will grow back but there is a story about a paralysed man that walked again on that video.

The therapist did tell me to take a week and to email him and tell him how I'm getting on anyway. I'm really not sure about it and yes, the fact that money changes hands makes me cautious about it, when I might be more into it if it was free. I wasn't looking for miracles when I considered trying this thing and it seems great and even plausible that this guy has had success with people with serious issues and mental health problems but he's virtually saying that I can have anything I want and told me that he did help someone to recover from partial sight loss.

I do not doubt that some illnesses and disabilities are just the result of psycological trauma and that the body is better at healing itself when you're feeling positive but part of this therapy seems to be asking patients what "secondary gains" you get out of staying as you are and because I told him that I tried to see some sort of upside or "silver lining" to it when I developed sight problems he tried to say that that had been the thought or wish that I had had, when it was after the fact. I just feel skeptical about it being a scam or a cult obviously and it seems like if you don't totally buy into it and have total faith you can't complain about it not working but that's actually quite a lot to ask.

I've never really understood how I'm more likely to find somebody compatible by looking abroad to other cultures, rather than my own and the women that I have that much in common with at least.

I don't care what anyone says. It has to be out of desperation if you're drawing a blank with local people.

A relative of mine recently decided to try hypno therapy because he has panic attacks. It seemed to help a bit and I listened to an interview that the therapist did with a "client" and as he sounded like an alright guy and the woman being interviewed said that she had overcome severe mental health problems and totally changed her life I agreed to give it a go as well.

I've had one session where he said that he wanted to clear stuff like feelings that I was holding on to and that were holding me back. Anyway, he's given that relative of mine a video to watch and I've just seen it myself and it's all about what these people are calling "the secret". They are obviously actors and they make a lot of claims about what this "secret" can do for you and tell their stories and reenact scenes from these events.

It's all about the "law of atraction" and positive thinking. It has most of the trappings of a religion. You need to have faith and you basically have to pray for the things that you want and believe in them. One example that they gave was a guy that wanted to test if it really works, so he wished for a hundred thousand dollars. They claim that anything is possible if you use this secret. You just think about what you want and have the right emotions and you will atract it into your life somehow. They are even claiming that you can recover from physical illnesses and disabilities by doing it.

I've got sight problems and their philosophy is that you somehow ask the universe for everything that you get, so according to them, I brought it upon myself and it's possible to cure myself with their techniques. Needless to say, I'm a bit suspicious about this. The video was a comercial. The hypno therapy or "life coaching" is expensive. It has all the hallmarks of a pyramid or ponzy scheme. People at the top saying that they made a lot of money etc out of it and selling it to others that can be told that they're not doing it properly and that it's still their fault somehow if it doesn't work for them. It seems like a lot of the techniques could be genuinely useful and I'm certainly not knocking positive thinking but this thing seems to involve embracing a philosophy and world view that's a bit far fetched and they just tend to use bits of popularised science (like saying that everything is energy) to legitimise it for the modern day and the emphasis is upon recieving, rather than giving.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. Needless to say, I'm a bit cynical about it and I have tried "alternative" therapies and medicine before and even faith healers because you will try anything if you're desperate enough and hear about success stories.

Well, I would try to find out what she expected from the relationship and then if I wanted to pursue it I would act accordingly. For example, she might want to go out and do stuff together a lot, or she might not.

I treat them how they want to be treated but the problem is that they often can't make their mind up what that is, or they want just whatever suits them at any particular time. If they say to me that they don't want anything serious, or act like they don't then I would be a mug to treat them as well and to go to the same effort to make them feel as special as someone that really wanted to be with me and was making me feel "special".

It can be a problem when you're too nice and people walk all over you and if someone is treating you badly you really should get out of that relationship but I suppose what tends to happen is that after the honeymoon period is over you're going to find out how nice they really are, or how easy to get on with and it really is about getting to know each other and how compatible you are.

For example, she might have a sarcastic sense of humour and then I might start being sarcastic back to her and she should be able to take it if she's dishing it out and that sort of thing can be in good humour and not abusive but someone else might not apreciate sarcasm. You don't really know how a relationship's going to develop anyway. I wouldn't say in response to this thread that I would play practical jokes on my lady but I could conceivably find myself in a relationship where we liked to play practical jokes on each other.

Like I told you before, you can just look for women that you have stuff in common with and then do things that you actually enjoy doing together and it won't be hard work. It's not always that simple but there's got to be more things that you like doing apart from women or just wanking in your bedroom.

As you don't like talking to women though I think that your best bet is to look for someone that doesn't speak English. There are plenty of them on here. It's so-called "intelligent women" that are hard work, so just look for someone that's an idiot.

There you go. A harmless simpleton that you just comunicate with with a series of signals for when you want to have sex or when you're going down the pub etc. That's your type.

I think that if I was feeling like that about it she probably wouldn't be happy in the relationship either and it would be fairly easy to break it off. If we were arguing a lot she might even be the one to say that it's over.

Sometimes it can be kind of mutual and hard to tell which one of you did the actual dumping. If I start the conversation about how I don't think that it's going to work she might finish it. You can have those conversations a lot of times before one of you just says that you really aren't right for each other and it's over.

There are loads of ways that you can do it, depending on the person and circumstances. You can pick out bones of contention and use them as reasons for breaking it off. Probably there was something about the relationship that you argued about and maybe you put up with something that you didn't like when you did want to be with them that you could say that you really aren't happy about at all and can't put up with anymore. You can scare them off by telling them that you want to get more serious than they do, or you could tell them that you want a more casual arangement than they do. I got rid of one by saying that I wanted her to meet my mother. It might seem like giving someone an ultimatum and trying to fix the relationship, rather than breaking it off but you may actually just be being honest about how you feel and about what you had wanted it to be like at last.

If they still keep coming back though you have to be a bit firmer and just make it clear that you don't want to see them anymore.

I've been in similar situations and when someone hurts you like that you can have unresolved anger and other feelings that make it hard to move on.

I did find making friends with an ex that hurt me helpful and I even got an apology out of her. What can also happen though when you basically dig up an old relationship is that the atraction will probably still be there and then you might take them back, or sleep with them again anyway and then you've got somebody that does things like dumping you on Facebook because he's got another girl jerking you around when you're worth more than that.

There isn't really enough info about what happened prior to the dumping though and we don't know what his point of view is and what he thinks about you. Maybe he just bailed out when things weren't fun anymore.

With girlfriends I always let them do the hanging up and that seems like the best policy with insecure types, or it's the polite "nice guy" thing to do. I'm a talker and sometimes I'll keep doing a sort of Columbo and I'll start talking about something else after saying bye.

It does depend on the woman though. My last girlfriend never seemed comfortable talking on the phone and that made it a bit awkward and we didn't talk much on the phone. That can be a red flag thing in itself when it's like that. Some people just don't like to talk on the phone but it could mean that they aren't actually that into you, or don't have much time for you and you're just a booty call.

Yes. They are things that "matter". For some people they're dealbreakers and for some people they're just preferences.

A girl that lives in my neighborhood is better than one that lives in another city or country. Unless you like travel and other cultures I see no reason to go LDR apart from desperation and not being able to find someone local. The same can be the case if you date outside your prefered age range.

I didn't come on here intending to look for a LDR but you can get to know people on the forums here and start to entertain ideas about getting together with them. If you find yourself doing something like that though it's most likely the case that it is because you aren't getting any dates and it is desperation. I've had what you might call crushes for women on the internet that I've never even met but soon forgotten about them as soon as somebody local that wanted to date me came along.

Well, I don't want to make this all about myself and certainly not about my drinking, when I've actually stopped doing that.

As a matter of fact, I was doing more than playing video games and indulging vices during that time. I did have a friend that I was seeing regularly; or I thought they were a friend anyway. I was hoping that would develop into a proper relationship and I have problems that make the other things that you mentioned difficult.

I have tried just about everything that I can though over the years to change the way my life is. I've just had a lot of setbacks and I tend to fall back into what you're calling escapism when things don't work out for me. As I said, there are loads of things that I would rather be doing but they're not much fun on your own and it's hard to really apreciate what you do have when you don't have somebody to share it with, so my life seems depressing when I'm lonely. When you go through a major upset like a breakup it can take a while to pick yourself up and start feeling positive again and ready to try again.

I just find it a bit odd when people judge you on things that you do when you're single and assume that you're going to be the same in a relationship.

A lot of the stuff that I do when I haven't got a girlfriend is out of boredom and loneliness. I'm doing this for a start. I spent months this year playing a video game to occupy my free time and take my mind off problems and stuff. I actually remember saying that the idea of that game being "fun" was a bit absurd because if I was really having fun I wouldn't be sitting in my bedroom on my own typing. Would I rather be playing geeky games than spending time with a woman? Christ, no.

On the other hand, how can you tell that I wouldn't put some daft game in front of you if you were my girlfriend? Well, you probably couldn't if you just knew that I was doing that and didn't actually get to know me. It seems like a prejudice. "He's a geek." "He's a drunk." "She spends all her time watching soaps and stuffing her face with ice cream."

Sometimes I watch a lot of TV but I don't usually even put it on if I have female company and that's not just out of politeness. I would just rather have a chat with a lady than watch TV but that's not always an option. There are loads of things that I would rather be doing with my time than the things that I'm doing just now but they're not much fun on your own.

This comes up here all the time. Some people even try to say that you can tell from someone's forum posts what a relationship with them would be like.

It's like we're supposed to be searching for that perfect compatible person that you wouldn't change anything about, or it's no good. But here's a newsflash. You can't act like you did when you were single when you get into a relationship.

So what if someone goes out and gets horribly drunk every weekend when he's single? How is that an indication of what he would do when you've got him under your thumb? So what if he spends all his money on whatever he likes when he's not got any responsibilities?

Would it be reasonable if I got a girlfriend and kept trying to chat up other women and I objected that my girlfriend was trying to change me by telling me not to do that anymore?

Why are some things alright when you're single and others aren't?

What is it reasonable to expect your partner to change and when does it become abusive control freakery?

What if they actually want to change? What about the fat person that comfort eats because they're lonely, or the person that drinks for the same reason?