I’ve found myself in many abusive relationships throughout the years, both friendships and intimate relationships. Id often ignore the fact people were taking advantage of me, invalidating my feelings, abusing me, or trying to guilt me into doing things I didn’t want to.

One huge issue I had was not being able to tell if a guy just wanted to use me for sex or not. I have always had a huge “ no hookups” rule because I’d get way too attached to someone and I was just looking to date. Right now I’m not so interested in finding anyone to date as I have a lot of health issues and mental issues I need to get straight first . But, I have been using apps to try and make friends and maybe find someone to one day possibly date (id wanna take things extremely slow and have a friendship first.

A few days ago I started talking to a guy and he asked me what I was looking for on the app and I said I was looking for friends and people to talk to. I also mentioned that maybe I would eventually want to date someone I meet from that app if the friendship goes well. He said that he was ok with that but the past few days ive recognized several red flags. For one he only messages me late at night and keeps having the same dumb excuse of he was “soooo busy” The last time that a guy played that “ soooo busy all day” card on me it turned out he had a girlfriend and was cheating on her. Anyways, another red flag is that he barely has anything to talk about and just keeps redirecting our convos to how I look. He has called me hot probably over 50 times ever since we started talking. He keeps mentioning how lonely and sad he is and how he wants intimacy asap because he misses having someone to hold. He clearly has other plans for me and isnt on the same page as me so I’m just going to back away from this situation.

 It’s extremely sad how you can communicate your boundaries with someone and they try and play these sly tricks on you thinking you’ll change your boundaries for them. I said NO dating and I want to take things SLOW. Not sure what part of that he doesn’t get. I’m never letting people take advantage of me again and I’m glad that I’m going into the new year already doing really well with the rules I’ve set for myself :)