- Sep 26, 2016
- 29
- 42
- 38
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Republican
So, I met someone via mutual friends about 5 months ago. I thought he seemed like a nice guy, although we didn't have a lot of conversation at that point. Eventually, we began going out about once a week starting at the end of January. We live about two hours away from each other and we both have pretty busy schedules, with him driving public transit for a college town several days a week, and me working night shifts three to four nights a week as a university security officer (different town). He's pretty much had to do all the traveling to get together, as my car wouldn't be able to make frequent trips to his town. He's had a few other prior short-term relationships while I have never dated or had a relationship.
We were both pretty awkward when we were seeing each other for the past couple of months and were learning as we went along. I'm not really the greatest at carrying the conversation and am pretty introverted. He had more stories to tell about his adventures as a transit driver, although his language was kind of salty and had some f-bombs thrown around, which I wasn't too thrilled with. He is certainly more extroverted and outspoken than I am.
We hadn't really had the talk about what we were looking to get out of dating and our values in deal breakers. I finally brought up the topic when I was chatting with him a couple of nights ago, as I wasn't sure what his faith beliefs and values truly were. He seemed pretty liberal based on his Facebook content, which in and of itself probably isn't much, but as I am fairly conservative, having major philosophical differences would be pretty stressful for both of us, and I wasn't sure about his faith beliefs, even though I suspected he was a non-believer. In answering my questions, he did say he's not religious, so not really a believer.
I told him I am a born-again Christian and need a partner who was and basically said the differences in our faith beliefs would not work in the long run. I also said I would still value friendship even if a relationship didn't work. He said he appreciated my honesty and wished me well in my endeavors, but in having my suspicions confirmed, I didn't want to lead him on, but I kind of feel bad letting him down like this when he probably caught the feels a little more than I did, and I know he's dissapointed about it. Most of the time I take longer to establish an emotional connection to someone, and it makes it tougher to let someone down when they're more emotionally invested early in the relationship and something that can't be reconciled pops up.
We were both pretty awkward when we were seeing each other for the past couple of months and were learning as we went along. I'm not really the greatest at carrying the conversation and am pretty introverted. He had more stories to tell about his adventures as a transit driver, although his language was kind of salty and had some f-bombs thrown around, which I wasn't too thrilled with. He is certainly more extroverted and outspoken than I am.
We hadn't really had the talk about what we were looking to get out of dating and our values in deal breakers. I finally brought up the topic when I was chatting with him a couple of nights ago, as I wasn't sure what his faith beliefs and values truly were. He seemed pretty liberal based on his Facebook content, which in and of itself probably isn't much, but as I am fairly conservative, having major philosophical differences would be pretty stressful for both of us, and I wasn't sure about his faith beliefs, even though I suspected he was a non-believer. In answering my questions, he did say he's not religious, so not really a believer.
I told him I am a born-again Christian and need a partner who was and basically said the differences in our faith beliefs would not work in the long run. I also said I would still value friendship even if a relationship didn't work. He said he appreciated my honesty and wished me well in my endeavors, but in having my suspicions confirmed, I didn't want to lead him on, but I kind of feel bad letting him down like this when he probably caught the feels a little more than I did, and I know he's dissapointed about it. Most of the time I take longer to establish an emotional connection to someone, and it makes it tougher to let someone down when they're more emotionally invested early in the relationship and something that can't be reconciled pops up.