When a man goes from super hot to pretty cold

Relationships Romantic Relationships
1

I am always trying to assess and understand how someone can go from super hot to pretty cold. Is it simply that someone loses interest and hence the cold?

My girlfriend started dating a guy who she met online for over one month now. He was aggressively pursuing her from the onset up through last week; constantly communicating how much he likes her, and how he loves spending time with her. It was all too good to be true, and I was beyond thrilled for her. Though, she was a bit skeptical at first, especially since she's been burned by men in the past, she finally accepted that he really liked her. Well, they became intimate over the past couple of weeks, after approximately 15 dates, which I think is great. Everything was flowing beautifully. Then, all of a sudden radio silence on his end, no one phone call or text or email..nothing all week. She finally called him yesterday and he never returned her call. Worried that something serious happened, she called him again and got a hold of him this morning. It's all quite bizarre and I now worry for her a bit. He told her that he's just been really busy and stressed this week. It's a bit suspicious and I worry that she may get hurt.

Has anyone experienced this and have any thoughts as to why men go so hot and then cold...I really don't understand it.

2

- maybe the chap is a player and loves the chase...when he is successful then he reverts to disinterest.? maybe the "romance" is wearing off and reality such as work issues are rearing its head? perhaps these days we tend to invest far to much trust in people far too quickly? even after 15 weeks ....or on the other side of the coin, maybe he has been busy.?! in saying all that he appears to have a problem with consideration already. your friend has choices too - or are they both really in such a place still of "unknowing?" - maybe your friend wants to have exclusive rights to him...? if so (in my opinion) intimacy has happened before both parties are ready to accept the honesty that occurs in relationships when reality steps back in. maybe she will be hurt again and perhaps it is because the lessons in life for her are not reaching her consciousness. people only hurt us if we allow them to. self esteem courses and all the other spectrum of assistance available out there is for use to change ourselves.

3

Hey Puppy,
Same thing happened to me, dating a guy for a few months, from the get go, he was thrusting a relationship in my face, then we finally slept together; bam no call back...I was gutted, but refused to call him. Months later he texts to say...oh he was so messed up in the head about his ex and bla bla bla...messed up my bum...that was so disrespectful.

This is the same guy who now called me last weekend to whine about his current girlfriend who he's "so messed up in the head about"...I told him to talk to his girlfriend cos she deserves better.

I finally told him today how much he'd really hurt me, by what he did and that he made me feel like a disposable dishrag and I felt used and completed disrespected. This is the negative influence that is back in my life that my therapist wants me to make a list about.

To be honest what that guy said to your friend sounds like a sly line to get out of why he wasn't contacting her. But if I were her I would give him some space to make up his mind. Maybe he is at a crossroads, so he has to make him his own mind about this either way.

The only thing your friend can do is either say...right fine we're done OR sit on her hands and wait it out. I do feel for her, cos it sucks to be in that place, where they make you all comfortable and then pull the rug out from under you.

So just be there for your mate and hold her hand for a while, hopefully it will be a stupid nothing guy thing, and he will be grand in a few weeks.

But this now is all coming from a female prospective. Guy opinions welcome:)

Hope your friend feels ok...boys really really suck sometimes.

Love to you
Moongal x

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Wow Ontheup, your comment is quite profound, thank you so much. I totally agree with you in that we get hurt if we allow others to do so, sometimes all of the signs are there, but we tend to ignore them and in turn get hurt. I am on the fence about what is going on with this guy, but my gut is starting to veer towards player. I really hate to think this of him, but after talking to my friend today, she shared with me that he has a dinner tonight so he can't see her and then double booked with her for tomorrow night. He chose his other option, rather than her. All of this is raising a bit of a red flag now especially following this week's events.

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Hi Moongal, thank you so much for sharing what happened to you previously and what you are going through now. You have written about someone coming back into your life, but I didn't know that this was the scenario. This guy is lucky that you even gave him even a moment of your time, because he doesn't deserve even that. I am so happy that you communicated directly to him how much he hurt you. Ugh, I am just so sorry that you ever went through that, but I can bluntly give you only this advice on the matter; run don't walk from him. He is not worth your energy, thought or time. I am always here to listen and support you in any decision that you make, but I don't want to see such a negative person slither their way back in.

I am so afraid that you experienced and feel that my friend is experiencing may be so true. I really feel like he backed off and away from her. If he just used her for sexual advances, then I will be massively disappointed in this guy. I have been a cheerleader for him and his actions. He was so consistent, attentive and sincere. He continued being so attentive even after they slept together and even more so.

I will stand-by and be there for my friend and will refrain from saying anything at the moment. I'll see what happens for them this weekend and go from there.

Thank you again for your invaluable advice and support. You are the best!

6

You said you were interested in a guy's perspective. Well I'm a guy - an older one. (Just turned 55) My perspective is not typical, but I'll put my two cents in anyway.

Relationships can be quite a challenge. You not only have to figure out what's going on with the other person, but you also have to figure out what's going on with yourself. A person's family and early experiences have profound effects. However this is rarely understood. (I could say ***a lot more*** about this.)

I could try to take a guess at what's going on with the guy your sister has been seeing, but it would just be speculation. I'd need a lot more information, including what his childhood was like.

I'd like to comment on a couple things:

  • "... sometimes all of the signs are there, but we tend to ignore them and in turn get hurt." Amen. Amen. Amen. That certainly was true in my life.
  • "...perhaps these days we tend to invest far to much trust in people far too quickly?" I can certainly be true of some people. I tend to be that way myself a lot of times. But some people are the exact opposite - they don't trust anyone, usually because they've been deeply hurt in some way.

Relationships can change dramatically after a couple has sex. I have personally found that once I've had sex with a woman the dynamics of the relationship change. It is hard to see things clearly when I am attracted to a woman, but after having sex it is much more so. I think it causes a subconscious tendency to minimize or even avoid recognizing "red flags". I think there is a lot of wisdom in the old-fashioned idea of waiting to have sex until both people are ready to make a lifelong commitment to each other.

I ran across a book titled something like Don't You Get Married until You Read This Book. It contains questions covering a wide variety of topics, many of which are things very few couples talk about before - and often even after - they get married. Most people walk into marriage with very little understanding of the person they marry.

There's been a lot of research into why people are attracted to each other. One notion is that we attract someone of equal but complementary dysfunctionality. Another is that we unconsciously choose someone who is like the parent that we had the biggest problem with an attempt to work out (usually unsuccessfully) issues we had with that relationship. That explains why it is very common for people to go from one bad relationship to another and don't recognize they are getting in the same boat again until after they are in the relationship, if at all.

Something I heard a speaker say which very much impressed me is

    Hurt people hurt people.

I try to always keep that in mind. I find it a very useful perspective.

Another thing I've heard is that people with dysfunctional backgrounds are drawn to what is familiar, even if it's painful.

I apologize if it sounds like I was getting on a soapbox.

7

Hey,
I do see what you are saying. And i am completely trying to work on me, cos I have been hurt in the past and I also did not want to open up to him for fear of being hurt, even in my mind I was thinking you will not hurt me cos I won't allow it. But his head was on his ex girlf all the time anyway.

And I do absolutely believe now in waiting for a good time into the relationship, knowing where you both are before you move toward the bedroom at all.

Maybe for where both us were in our lives it could never have worked out, but he still didn't need to be a nasty bast**d about it...I could never ever do what he did to another person, and he is still doing it, to his current girlfriend, trying to reminise with me about the good times we had, and that is not fair because I did care for him, but I have my principles....so he's kind of trying to get me to spark up feelings for him, while remaining committed but not committed to his girlfriend...responsibility has to lie somewhere.

I know i am attracted to guys who are a lot like my dad. Extremely hard workers, social, funny, stubborn, but could never show his love and it's like I have to fight to get it. I am trying to accept that, and I am trying to let my guard down and be more affectionate with guys, but I am scared, it's just something i have to work on I guess.

I think communication is a must on both sides for the onset, we get so caught up in "romance" and forget hey what does he/she want?

But men have to take some responsibility to this, when they are leading a woman on to believe this is a long term thing, and then suddenly dump her out of nowhere that is the lowest of the low thing to do. It took me quite some time to put my esteem back together and completely put me off trusting a guy with sex. So they would need to think twice. Because when it comes to sex for the majority of us females, it is double standards and sex is very intimate and special and we've kind of given part of ourselves to that person, from the guys point of view it doesn't seem to be, so it's something that needs to be considered.

Puppy hope your friend ok, he is begining to sound like the typical dirtbag. But like every dirtbag, he will live in his filth that he created. Just look after your friend.

Love to you
Moongal x

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wow, some very deep and real comments on this subject. i agree with them all in part but one thing i want to add is we are responsible for making our choices...no one forces us (generally) into doing things that we dont want to once we are adults...if we have suffered abuse hurt as a child we can choose to either use it as a lament of poor me or get help until we are function as responsible adults. regarding hurt... who said that we would live a life without hurt? and why do people look at hurt as a negative.? i know hurt is hard when it happens to me but it is also a strong indication that i made a choice based on false representation either through my ego or how someone else has presented themselves. getting to know someone before we trust them is a choice although i personally know several people who lived together for 20 - 30 years and still got hurt and let down. we perhaps should accept that another person has their own right not to continue in a relationship regardless of how the other person has viewed it. in other words there is no obligation to stay with someone even if we have been intimate. something to remember, i dont know what is in your mind even if we are best mates, brothers, sisters, parents, children, lovers, work collegues, judge, doctor...but we presume to be able to read someone by their actions and attentions on a physical level. yet sometimes our reading is what we project, not what is actually happening. a real safety net for new relationships is finding out what is their value system and substantiating it with fact..i.e. do they believe in God? do they go to church? are their beliefs just talk or reality? thats one way to foolproof our relationships with others. sex and intimacy as the fellow said up there is for absolute trust and integrity, certainly not to be bandied around as icing on a cake of mud, or a carrot to a donkey in the hope for long term commitment.
remember these are my opinions and comments written to maybe uncloud what ifs and what fors? and likely most people will not agree yet i have learnt to change into taking responsiblity for my life. i do this through my faith and am a work in progress...blessings to everyone if in pain that they may read this and find some small message that touches their consciousness. sincere regards jj

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While I am more than happy to take responsibility for my life. I feel my heart was taken advantage of in that circumstance. And he actally did agree that what he did was a lousy thing to do. It would be pointless to accept responsibility, if he felt he had done nothing wrong, but he knew he had, especially when before I made it verbally clear to him how much sex meant to me.

I have to say that whole experience has made me quite “aware” of men and while I would have been a person who really enjoyed sex, now I’m just like I don’t care much for it, because the last time I had I felt like crap after.

I have learned a true and valuable lesson in this experience and that is that I will never ever ever ever allow anyone to ever treat me like that…and as I always i would never ever treat anyone like that anyway.

So anyone else who has had this happen to them, I say try to mend and forget about them. Because there is a better person out there for you. So keep smiling.

10

Wow Building A Rainbow! I can't thank you enough for your truly profound and insightful comment. It's so incredible to have the man's perspective here. And I really want to focus on your comments on sex. I have to totally and completely agree with you. My friend regretted having sex with him so soon, even though they had already been out 15 times. I heard the regret in her voice and she really changed her tune about the entire relationship. Maybe this is something that he started feeling and reacting to, and thus withdrew.

I think that this is great advice that I will really apply and follow for a future relationship. The one really good solid relationship that I had was when we waited for a significant period of time, and we both knew that we wanted to be together for the long-term. Now, it didn't work out in the end, but that was my doing and my wanting to pursue my passion so I relocated. Anyhow, I know in my heart that waiting is the right thing to do.

Now, is there a timeline or is it just a feeling and a discussion between two people?

Thank you again Building A Rainbow....please keep sharing in the Singles section because I could use your brilliant advice.

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Oh Moongal, I am so sorry for what you had to go through, though I know that you are on your way to such a good strong positive place. I have seen men take advantage of good girls time and time again. Now, this is not to say that women don't take advantage of men, because I see that happening as well. But I am just focused on men taking advantage of women because of the topic at hand. All of these experiences really are very eye-opening. I have been on the receiving end of it, and it's so painful. Where a man knew exactly where I was in life and that I wanted a serious relationship, so they do and say all of the right things in order to get what they want (SEX) and then move on their merry way. I went through it one month ago and it was excruciatingly painful...he tore my heart out and stomped on it. He continued to send ridiculous texts just to toy with me and keep me on the hook.

So, now eyes are wide open and I will never allow that to happen. I am waiting and waiting and waiting to sleep with a man until I know that we are both on the same page.

12

Oh exactly it is a two way street. I have seen many a man been dragged along by a girl, "just because she can". At least the next time I have sex I know it will be with someone I am in love with and who loves me back.

And it would be ridiculous for a man to say well I didn't realise. Because they do. All my male and female friends agree on that one. It can be like a 180 degree turn, that just leaves you floored.

I would just hate any girl out there questioning themselves and thinking they did something wrong, because that's what i did for a year and just buried it. Outwardly I said he was a ****. But inside I was thinking what did I do for someone to treat me that badly.

That guy kept texting you ridiculous texts after that...I think they must all get that nonesense from the "guy handbook", wish they would take that handbook and smack themselves over the heads with it....repeatedly. It's like they want out, but they don't have the stones to just say it.

Here's a new theory for them, say it before there is any sex. Sorry about that, tiny bit of anger came out my finger tips there:)

Love to you x

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Sing it loud and proud Moongal! Oh yes! Pre-sex honesty would be so refreshing and so nice. The guy should say; I am just here for a good time, I have absolutely no intentions of being in a relationship with you, and this is not going beyond sex. Then, we would have the option to make an informed decision. It's just so wrong and so disgusting to me, how can someone lurk on a woman's vulnerabilities of wanting to be married and have children. That's what this guy did to me. He preyed on me and said exactly what I wanted to hear. Seeing as how he's in his late 40s, I thought that he meant it. I was the totally foolish one to have believed him. And, the saddest part of all is that he is business partners with a relative of mine. This relative knows nothing about what happened between us and I plan to keep it that way. So, I thought that I was in a safe place with this guy and thought that he would never ever take advantage of me mainly because of this business relationship. Well, guess scumbags come in all shapes and sizes. Ok, now my anger came through...sorry about that, but it did feel good.

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Oh it's grand, ah sure mine, had me all introduced to his friends, to be honest I think he lost the run of himself and then I kind have just followed.
I think women are so caring and compassionate that most of us couldn't dream of doing something like that to someone.

Well i am surprise at a man in his 40's acting so immature. We expect this to end at 25 but appartently it just goes on and on. I doubt what he did brings him any happiness and it is completely his absolute loss and I mean that.

Love to you
Moongal x

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I really couldn't dream of hurting someone intentionally or using them for any purpose whatsoever. When I love someone, I love them with all of my heart and am true and honest with my feelings. If I am not feeling the love, then I am honest with them about moving on. I try to be open and honest, as I like to treat others the way I would like to be treated.

I know that we will both attract the RIGHT ONE who will be a dream....I just know it.

16

Awww puppy I am so glad to hear your positivity and that you are embracing love.

i know you will too hun...you are so sweet and kind.

Love to you
MG x