I just happened to meet this girl at an inopportune time, a time at which she may have feelings for another guy. But that’s to be expected, girls like her (cute, popular, and outgoing) aren’t single. Period. They spend very little time between relationships. Sure, it would have been ideal for me to meet her at a juncture between relationships, but I didn’t.
So that leaves me the option of finding a girl who has zero friends so that there’s no possibility of her chasing after someone or being chased after, or me settling for a girl I’m not really all that attracted to or interested in. But you (and I) seem to think I deserve better. This girl is the kind of girl I want to be with. And (at least right now) she specifically is the girl I would like to be with. Screwing myself? Maybe, but I don’t want to settle. It would take a girl at least twice as amazing as this one to take my mind off of her. I’m not just going to go out and look for a “runner up.” That wouldn’t be fair to me OR the girl I ended up with.
I think you should be cautious here. It does sound like you run the risk of being used as a “back up plan” or getting caught up in the drama of her problems with Mr. Bad Boy…however, I definitely would not say to just walk away from her at this point. If nothing else, I’m sure you can learn something about how to be comfortable interacting with girls from hanging out with this one, and that might help you further on down the road when you do find the girl who’s crazy about you.
Dear Soapbox Monkey: Sounds like everything’s right on track to me. Ever play on a sports team? I have.
You don’t always get on a team and become a starter on the first day. Usually you have to beat somebody else out to be the #1 guy.
Same deal here; just pull out all the stops, hit it with your best effort and beat the guy out. You’re right there, handy. He’s a long way off. Big advantage your way.
Sometime this week or weekend at the latest, do as I suggested above: “Show up at her place with a bottle of wine, two wine glasses and a positive attitude.” If you want to add one red rose to your list of items to show up with, that’s OK too.
Grab for the brass ring now. There’s not very many of those Brass Ring Girls out there.
As romantic as that sounds…she’s only 20, so not of legal drinking age and therefore I don’t know if her mom will approve of me bringing it to their house. Nice gesture though. Maybe I can save that for her birthday.
Weeeeeell tonight might not happen after all. She is apparently having a depressive episode right now, centered around quite a few things (that I won’t disclose here). I’m trying to convince her other wise, but even if I do get her to come out I really wouldn’t feel right about trying to make a move while she’s feeling like this.
Ugh this is frustrating. I was looking forward to this.
I can see there’s no point giving you advice now. You will learn like we have all learned - the hard way. Good luck with this relationship (I do mean that), keep coming back and asking us questions, and don’t start hating all women.
So last Thursday we had plans to hang out. I talk to her and find out that she’s meeting with a professor after class at 4. Cool, no biggie, she’ll talk to me when she’s done. I don’t talk to her again until she comes on AIM and tells me that she feels really depressed and just wants to shut herself in her room. Apparently this isn’t an uncommon feeling for her. She apologizes profusely. Alright, no problem, we can hang out again some other time.
Friday we talk for most of the afternoon on AIM and she may be going with her friend (the girl from PSU who’s home for break) to see Harry Potter. I tell her that if those plans fall through I wouldn’t mind seeing it with her. Her friend doesn’t get home until really late and any plans fall through and so I go to the bar with a friend from work. Next day I talk to her and find out that she ended up going over to her ex’s (about 3 boyfriends back, from high school). Apparently they “hung out” and ended up falling asleep while “cuddling.” Though when we did hang out last Tuesday she told me she could never date him again because he cheated and she knew it wouldn’t be worth her time, though she said that she’s never loved a guy as much as him and will never stop having feelings for him. Whatever.
So then it’s Saturday. She says she might be going out with her two friends, but they don’t have any definite plans yet. I inform her that my friend Paul’s fraternity is having a party and they can feel free to come over if they can’t find anything else to do. By ten her plans have fallen through and she leaves an away message that she is horribly distraught and has gone to her best friend’s for the night. I text her but she’s not in the mood to talk about it.
Sunday night I apologize for being such a bother because I think I’m coming on too strong, but she reassures me that I’m not a bother and that she still wants to hang out, but since she’s not much of a plan-things-in-advance kind of girl, we agree that we should just play it by ear when it comes to hanging out. I said that maybe I would give her a call Monday (yesterday) to see what’s up. I called when leaving work and got no answer, and no call back. On AIM she says she went out shopping with her two best friends, which is entirely understandable considering that one of them is on her one week break for Thanksgiving. Today she said she has plans with an old friend she hasn’t seen in a few years.
This is what I knew would be frustrating about trying to start something with such a popular girl. She just doesn’t seem to have the time for something new in her life (considering that I wasn’t able to sweep her off her feet the way the guy up at PSU almost did), either that or she ends up having anxiety and depression issues. Now, my paranoid mind starts thinking that maybe she’s just avoiding me, despite how much she tells me she still wants to hang out. Am I coming on too strong? I get the feeling I should just be more patient and accept that it might be a week or two before we could see each other. But at the same time if I don’t ask, she may make other plans in the meantime. Could she be trying to avoid doing something with me?
This really sounds like some failed attempts I’ve had with women.
I had one woman tell me that 40min was too far to drive to go out on a date, and I was the one driving! I offered her everything I could to make a date easy and pleasant on her side, but she never had time, even when that time was just 2hrs for dinner. She was happy to talk about going out and even having sex, but she never had “time” for me.
My wife, OTOH, had no problem breaking dates with other guys (she was doing the internet dating thing at the time, and had numerous dates lined up), skipping free theater tickets, etc. in order to spend time with me.
One of these ladies liked me and wanted to be with me, the other… not so much.
This is crap. What, it’s impossible for her to tell her friends she’s got a date Friday night and can’t join them for whatever random event they have going? Bah!
No woman is so popular that she cannot make time to go out on a date with a guy she likes.
What Cheesesteak said, in large, blinking, hot pink, underlined font. She’s just not into you. I said I wasn’t going to give you any more advice, but reading this is just infuriating - SHE’S PLAYING WITH YOU! YOU DO NOT HAVE A FUTURE WITH HER! CUT YOUR LOSSES AND MOVE ON!
When a guy likes a girl, and a girl likes him back, they do stuff together, easily and naturally. They both make it happen. And there are no exes or potential boyfriends at other colleges involved. If you want to agonize over drama and heartbreak, she’s the girl for you. If you want a sane, healthy, fulfilling relationship, keep looking.
I haven’t asked her out on a date. I’ve asked her to casually hang out. I’m considering just laying it out there and asking her on an official date just to see if she wants to see me or not.
Speaking as someone who is in exactly the same boat as you (reading your posts, I find our situations are almost completely identical in a very eerie sort of way) this is the best advice I can give, I hope it helps: I think you should set a deadline as to how long you are going to keep trying with this girl.
Personally, I try about three times before I give up. I’ve gotten the “I’m busy” treatment before and it’s the most frustrating thing in the world. If you ask three times over a period of two months and she is “too busy”, there is either two explanations for it, neither which is good. Either she’s just making up lame excuses OR she actually is too busy to be in a relationship, which means it still isn’t going to work.
Also, for the love of god, don’t get your hopes up man. If you assume it’s going to work out and it doesn’t then you’ll be terribly let down. Try to operate under the assumption that it probably won’t happen. Keep trying a couple more times, but don’t expect anything.
You mention PSU, that’s Portland State University, right? Well, here’s another suggestion. Oregon borders Nevada, and Prostitution is legal in Nevada. If you want to experience sex without going through the stress of trying to form a relationship, you may want to consider that. I am at least. I’m saving up for a possible trip sometime next year (but this all depends on whether I suceed with a possible romantic prospect or not).
It’s really strange. I do both. Part of me constantly doubts myself and thinks “there is no way this will happen” and then the other part of me imagines how great it would be if it did work, so while not getting my hopes up, I end up really depressed anyway.
PSU is Penn State University. And no offense if that’s your thing, but if I had to sink to the level of prostitution in order to get human affection I might very likely kill myself afterwards. That would be a low point of my existence. I want a relationship. I want something real. Going to a prostitute would constitute an absolute inability to find any woman who thinks I’m worth a damn and deserving of being loved. My confidence and self-worth isn’t that low.
Of course, that’s not neccesarily true. Lots of married men go to prostitutes as well. Sometimes sex is just sex. Sure it’s not the whole picture, but it’s better to get part of the picture than none of it.
To someone who’s never had it (or at least for this person who’s never had it) sex is in no way “just” sex. I know people say “oh, once you’ve had it, it’s no big deal” but if you haven’t had it, it’s a very big deal. At least to me. I want it to be with someone I care about. I turned down a sure thing just this past February because the girl didn’t give a shit about me and I didn’t have feelings for her either.
This is the advice I would give my son: Ask her to hang out with you this weekend. Don’t be all clingy or make any sudden moves like proposing the second she gets off the bus, or out of the car or taxi or anything like that. Hang out with her, show her a good time, get to know her. Take her out to a nice dinner and tell her that you’re interested in exploring a deeper relationship with her but don’t, for the love of God, say anything like, “Ya know, if things don’t work out with what’s his name I’m always here for you.” That will shoot you directly from “possible romantic interest” to “just a really great guy friend who was a little creepy once.”
And don’t stop checking out all the cute girls on your college campus. It’s been a few years since you’ve seen this chickie in person. You never know, once you get to know her a little better she might turn into “just a really cool girl friend” and that has it’s benefits too.
I don’t think things are going to work out for the two of you Soapbox Monkey. Some of the other posters are right - when we ladies are interested in a man, we will make plans to spend time with him, break plans with friends and be available to see that man when we can. Saying she wants to just play it by ear suggests to me that she isn’t trying to make any plans to see you because she is not interested in you very much. You are the back-up guy. You keep making excuses for her failure to call you back or make plans with you. Why? You shouldn’t have to do that.
Also, the recent mood swings are worrisome. I would think that if these mood swings are something she experiences frequently, you might find yourself in this position more often than not. It sounds like she’s a bit on the dramatic side. If that’s ok with you, it’s ok with me, but those kind of people burn me out. I don’t like being around people who are always shutting me out because they are depressed.
Lastly, I think that it’s dangerous to be pining for a girl you know is sleeping with another guy when your self-esteem doesn’t seem to be in the best shape. You told her you were sorry for being such a bother and she assured you that you weren’t. I don’t know a single girl that would say “Whew, I’m glad that’s out in the open. You were kinda creeping me out and I didn’t know what to say.” We always say “No, no…you aren’t bothering me! You’re a nice guy, I do like you!” It’s hard to tell someone you aren’t interested when he (or she) so obviously is. Plus, the attention isn’t terrible, if the guy doesn’t go overboard. I don’t think she’s intentionally stringing you along, but I don’t think she has any romantic interest in you at all.
Just my opinion, I hope things work out in the best possible way for you.
I keep expecting this to end and then end up surprised when it doesn’t.
Me: Oh, about hanging out? I won’t bother you about that anymore. Her: No don’t even worry about it. Me: I was just getting the impression that you aren’t that interested.
I mean, I’ d love to hang out and be friends but I want it to be because you want to and not because I pester you about it. Her: No I do want to Me: Yeah? Her: Yeah. Me: Well I’ll let you decide a time if you want to, cuz it seems like i’ve been asking everyday and even if I’m not being bothersome I still feel like I am Her: You’re not, but it sounds like a plan.
So it’s completely in her hands now. Either the girl is straight up lying to me and nothing will come of this (in which case simply for lying she’s not the kind of person I’d want to be with), or she really does want to hang out sometime. But I’m going to try to get through this with an I-don’t-give-a-damn-either-way attitude, and start leaving my options open.
I know that if she were romantically interested in me she would make time in her schedule, but we’ve met face to face only once. We haven’t even really gotten the chance to get to know each other in person. She has other friends she wants to make time for also.
AND the thing with that guy at PSU ended about a week and a half ago. They had something of a falling out and now he is ignoring her completely and her two best friends are telling her she needs to move on.
