22F talking to a new guy 27F after going for very bad guys in the past, please advise!
I (22F) got out of a pretty emotionally painful relationship a while ago and haven’t really spoken to men seriously since. The last relationship genuinely messed with my perception of what “normal” interest looks like. I got used to emotional inconsistency, mixed signals, feeling unwanted at times, overthinking constantly, and associating anxiety with attraction.
Recently I started talking to a guy for a week now, and I genuinely don’t know how to process it because he’s just… nice? 😭
He communicates consistently, remembers tiny details I mention, works really hard doing night shifts and another job, lives alone but still has a good relationship with his family and friends, and he isn’t weirdly sexual or pushy at all. He apologised because he said he’d reply to my messages and got busy at work and forgot, and he brought it up himself without me even mentioning it. He compliments my personality more than my looks and told me that the way I care about people is attractive to him. He also said he looks forward to me asking how he slept every day.
Instead of just enjoying it like a normal person, my brain keeps going into panic mode. One minute I’m smiling at his messages and excited to meet him, the next minute I’m convincing myself he’s desperate or love bombing me.
The thing is, I DO like him. I get happy when he messages me and sad when he disappears for a few hours. But because he’s emotionally expressive and attentive, part of my brain automatically reads it as “cringe” or “too much” even though logically I know he’s behaving more healthily than most men I’ve dealt with before.
I think my nervous system got too used to emotionally unavailable or toxic dynamics, so now stability feels suspicious and unfamiliar to me. Has anyone else experienced this after a bad relationship? Like your brain keeps trying to search for danger even when someone is treating you well?