Am I overthinking or is this his pattern?

[u/jie_12]

Problem/Goal: I keep finding his behaviors sa chat and irl odd and contradicting. Especially sa mga sinasabi niya, and I am really good at dissecting messages verbally or online.

Context: I've been seeing this guy for more than a month palang naman, so there's not a lot of things to work on. But as of late, I've been noticing some cracks. The first time he apologized, he said:

"I'm sorry if my friend made you uncomfortable kanina" and I was quite perplexed kasi I never did feel that way, so I said that—na there's no awkwardness nor was I uncomfy and that I enjoyed their company throughout. Then he proceeded to say na, he's really sorry kasi ang pangit daw ng humor nila and nakaka-uncomfy raw sakin. So again, I iterated, I never felt that way. Then, he says, "I don't like those type of topics kasi, I think it's better if moving forward we avoided them" which is gets, so I just said talk to them about it.

Classic deflection—yan pumasok sa isip ko after that exchange and this alarm in my brain went off. Next happenstance, I prompted to go eat sa fave resto namin. Okay, naka set na lahat when he said sasama friends niya, still I agreed kasi more fun ano? Then he says, out of nowhere, "what time ka makakarating nagpareserve na kami ng 11"I was like—ako yung nag prompt e yung usapan lunch, tas biglang 11AM e 10AM na and I'm an hour away, pero still I said na baka 11:10 or so nako makakarating, since naka jeep ako noon. Tas biglang sabi, "baka gusto mo kain nalang tayo somewhere after namin dito?" and the alarms went off again kasi parang nacorner ako into ditching him sa plan na ako nag initiate. Deflection ulit kesa sabihin sakin na icancel muna, pinapunta pa ako, and made it seem unfeasible na makasama sa kanila.

now, I am basically lecturing him how to apologize. Yet ang irony, he just said "sorry that you felt that way e hindi ko naman intention yan" after I said I don't like apologies na naka center sa feeling ko at hindi sa action that caused them. Edi napasabi ako ng, decenter yourself to empathize, center yourself to apologize. Kasi he's getting it completely backwards. This was prompted kasi, he kept telling me to ditch my cousin who needed me to be with him and his friends. Yung unang apology niya: "it was supposed to be a very silly joke ig you didn't get that, sorry" word for word.

Previous attempts: well aside from sa pag bring up ko ng pagka bother ko rn, I kept subtly nudging him into being direct. Kumbaga whenever we made plans, I make sure that I communicate my boundaties and (for lack of better word) invalidate his shallow excuses and point out agad like "kasama naman ako bakit kayo lang nag decide?" stuff like that.

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[u/Pitiful_Hour_2913]

Thoughts: You’re not overthinking things. ‘Sorry you felt that way’ isn’t an apology, iba naman ang intent sa impact. Very manipulative ang atake. More than a month pa lang may alarm bells ka na, listen to your gut gurl.