This didn’t happen to me. It happened to my friend Siobhan who got a big lesson in the “high maintenance” romance department.
She met this guy called Nicholas at a dance club and they went home immediately after and had sex at her place. This then turned into one of those glorious romantic weekends where you go out for eggs benedict, buy a bottle of wine and then spend a second night together. By the time Monday morning rolled around Siobhan was pretty thrilled when she called me to proudly pronounce, “It’s a relationship!”
The problem is that what initially appeared to be devotion to her is actually clinginess and insecurity. She ended up fielding his phone calls no matter where she went because he just seemed to have so many problems all of the time. Sometimes what seems like devotion is just narcissism.
The worst part was that he would call her at work. He would call her to describe his morning bowel movement and how he was scared he would get cancer. He would tell her about how he was scared about getting cancer too like his mother.
He would also call her at night. If they spent one night alone he would have a nightmare about something. Or he would hear a song or see something on television that would remind him of some kind of trauma from his past. Watching one bad movie past midnight could have this guy on the phone talking about his ex for hours. He would also call her whenever he had insomnia and then also call her from his work during the day to complain about how tired he was.
The weirdest calls she got were about his epiphanies. These would be his revelations that his entire life was about to change. He would be sitting somewhere and “see this bird” or “hear this woman in front of me say something” and then he would have a transcendental experience. He would call her and say, “I know after seeing (or hearing that) that it is an omen and things are going to be different from now on.” He would never say how they would be different which of course would be kind of scary if you were in a relationship with someone. He would just say they would be different and then hang up on her and then she would be focusing on him on all day.
Siobhan had to get rid of this guy because ultimately she was going to get fired if she spent much more time ducking into the washroom to return his personal calls in the workplace.
The moral of this story is “Don’t Date The Walking Wounded.” Just because they need you doesn’t mean they love you. There are some really narcissistic people out there. Really, any relationship that they could have would be more about them then about the two of you as a couple. Siobhan found this out the hard way.