BINGO!
Sounds like you have good instincts :)
But this is not the case for every woman. That's my point.
For example ' he told me he loved me first I didn't even respond because he knew I loved him back. Its just a natural flow.' Now see ... this would NOT be the natural flow for every woman. No. I think for a LOT of girls .. they would have immedately said they loved him back and started gushing or they would have been the first to say 'I love you' and the list goes on. That would have been natural to them though.
Even what you said 'The relationship where I had to ask "where is this going" I honestly already knew it was going no where but I let the ...' See a lot of girls are not AWARE of this either. So they ask these kinds of questions and when things go south .. they will feel hurt and not understand why the guy reacted the way he did.
All women do not have natural instincts as far as how to handle themselves with men ... so basically they have to learn this stuff.
(Hey, on another topic, if we all had good instincts .. then women would not get stupid drunk at a Frat party because instinctually, they would know they have a good chance of being raped. Nope ... they would never get JUST AS DRUNK as the guys because she would know that.. GUYS ARE ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT XXX ... so don't put yourself in a position where they can easily do this to you. Of course, rape happens even when you are locked in your home .. but you get my point ... )
I digress:
- Some women grow up with loving parents and watched how they interact with each other so they figured out these things
- Some women have a natural instinct about men (Helen of Troy for one) :)
- Some women watch their gfs and over the years .. they start to figure out what they are doing wrong so they ask questions and/or read books etc and learn.
- But for A LOT if women ... they don't have a clue. They will think they should just tell the guy HOW THEY FEEL etc stuff you see in movies which pretty much upsets the applecart and the guy flees. So then they are once again 'hurt' and saying 'I don't understand men' or 'all men are dogs' etc.
So for the zilionish time .. this is not a 'game' it is more like a 'dance' .. it is the natural flow of things IF you are intuned with this flow. If not ... it feels like you are not being yourself, you are being fake and you are playing 'mind games'.
But when you learn to adapt these principles to you who you are ... they becomes a part of you and you ARE being yourself.
(I tell my little nieces the same thing ... because their mother (my sister) is messing up with the loser men in her life so I worry the girls will model this bad behavior and ALSO be unhappy in love!) Just wanna SLAP my sister.)