Being with local scene feels like being back in high school?

[this.is.me]

Was not sure if this was the best place to post this but it was the best I could choose.

I should probably explain what I mean a little more, and why this is starting to bug me. So although I am in a major city the scene is just only so big and there are only so many places to really go, and only so many of those places that really fit what your looking for. I have not been involved very long but with a small group you meet people fast and while I am far for knowing everyone the type of events I like to go to the and places I like to go and mostly familiar faces.

Now recently I had a little breakup with a Dom and it was not as clean of a breakup as I would have liked it to have been. I don't want to go into all the details but it was only of those breakups that in a vanilla situation you would probably be avoiding each other at all costs for a couple months. However with so many shared friends thats just not really possible. It just reminds me of back in school when you broke up with someone but you still had to see them everyday and all your friends were talking about it the second you left the room.

I am really trying to be an adult about this, which is why I am posting here instead of wording this differently and sending it to him as an email. I don't want him to avoid places I am going to be because I don't want to have to then avoid where he is. I also really just do not want to talk with him because I am still a bit emotional about it, so other than a hello I really don't want to interact with him. This is I guess harder than I thought it would be because I get messages from him telling me he won't be going to things (I know he wants to go to) because he thinks I will be there. Considering he ended things that just makes me even more uncomfortable.

The last couple days, when I knew it was over but it wasn't really official yet, I had gotten really emotional with him about me not wanting him to 'leave' me. While it was all true, like I said I am trying to be an adult here so I am getting back on my feet and enjoying life...I have been dumped before it sucks and it is part of life. I just found out he is telling people that I am completely not over him (which yeah I still hurt a bit but I have fully excepted it is over) and I won't leave him alone or some calling or texting him texting him. He has a reputation for saying this about everyone he has ever ended a relationship with so no one is really taking him very seriously I just really feel like I am stuck in a teenage breakup and don't know that most appropriate way to deal with this.

I really want to tell him I think its really disrespectful of him to be spreading around information I told him in confidential (since I did say some very person things) to our friends and the while he really did hurt me I am not going to be making any attempts to 'get him back' and am moving on. However, I feel like sending him a text like that (or worse a voicemail) is just going to make things worse. I just want it to fade away so that hopefully we can just be on friendly terms again, since we will continue to run into each other.

How would you deal with this? I am not dropping out of the scene for a few months, which I have seen others do, but I refuse to let myself be the person making a party uncomfortable for others because of us interacting strangely.

Last night I was talking with someone dealing with a similar situation, and failing just as miserably on how to deal with it. By the end of the conversation we felt like dating anyone in the scene was more trouble than it was worth, just keep everything D/s relation and keep vanilla activities with the person out of it, but considering in the long run I want more than just some play partners it seems like this is a necessary evil I am going to need to deal with.

So massive group of people on the internet, help me out! Please.

[Austerus]

Ok, so bad news first: you're going to have to communicate with him. Good news: you can (and should) do it over email rather than phone conversations.

Compose (but don't yet send) an email letting him know that while your feelings are hurt you respect the fact that this is the end of the relationship and that you accept that. Let him know that you're not going to go stalker on him. Explain to him that while the relationship is now over you did at one time have an intimacy that caused you to share personal information that you would not otherwise have shared, and make sure he understands that it's important to you that he behaves as a gentleman and does not break that confidence. Don't threaten, but remind him that you'd like to be friends sometime in the future and that you'd have a hard time remembering warmly someone who treated your intimate confessions with callous disregard.

Do not avoid the topic of social events. Let him know that while you would like to be friends eventually it would probably be easier for both of you if you attended separate events for a while. Ask him which are important to him, and whether he'd be willing to trade off events with you for the next couple of months while you both take some time to recuperate. Let him know that outside of communication for social scheduling you'd rather not hear from him for a few months. Ask that he not call or text you for the next three months, promise to do the same, and offer to have a talk after three months to see where things stand and how you both feel about moving forward.

After you compose the mail, save the draft but don't send it. Come back to it the next day and read it from top to bottom, and edit it to remove the parts that sound combative, needy, or wheedling. You may want to take this step a few times. Don't send the mail till you can open it, read the whole thing, and not find something cringe-worthy.

Depending how much you trust him you might also want to approach a mutual friend (or friends) who has both of your respect and is hopefully also a respected member of the community. Explain to the person that while you don't need any particular intervention you would value having a witness or two to the communication, and ask if he/she/they would be willing to be Ccd on the mail that you send. If you can find a person (or people) who are willing to do that and who are well respected in the community then it will put him in a position of needing to negotiate in better faith and stick more closely to the deals he makes with you to avoid losing standing in the eyes of the witnesses. They will then also, presumably, see that you are handling things in a mature way and be able to counter any social allegations he makes in the future of harassment. This method may make it more difficult to be friends with him in the future, but having a respected witness or two might go a long way to preventing future flare-ups or unnecessary damage to either of your reputations.

Don't send him text messages. Don't call him. Don't meet him face to face. Always work through email, and always take time to cool down and to edit before you send responses.

[denuseri]

Time to be strong.

I would simply break any and all contact with him period, no texts, no Hi's no how are yous, no phone calls letters emails etc, screw being friends with him, especially if he is going around spreading lies.

And then let him suffer from a distance while he watches me go out and have fun with everyone and anyone else I pleased in the local scene.

Your real friends won't think any less of you and the others are not worth your effort.

[Austerus]

I got the feeling that rather than spreading lies about her, he had been spreading true things that she told him in confidence? If that's the case it seems worth an attempt at communication to nip it in the bud.

[this.is.me]

It is sort of a combination of both. The stuff he is telling people is based on conversations we had but he is blowing things up making them sound a lot different. No one who knows me seems to believe a word coming out of his mouth, the reason a friend even told me this was happening was because she thought it was so funny he would make something that stupid up...because its just no me. He is trying to make it sound like he amazing and perfect while I am needy and emotionally unstable. So it is kinda taking a conversation out of context. For example I had a really bad week and was just ready to quit my job, we were in a relationship so I confided in him how upset I was and broke down crying a little bit. Now when he tells the story its that the only reason I still have this job is because of him and without him I would have just quit. Had he not been there I probably would have just had the same conversation (with probably the same outcome) with a friend instead.

[this.is.me]

Well against better advice I did sent him a short polite and to the point text. Less words I use less likely I am to say something stupid. Not sure why I expected anything else then him saying he didn't do it.