I have a church friend who likes to send me photos of her food, her walks, everyday life, her room, her activities, etc. She and I are about the same age, both in our 30s, single.
I’m not sure of the motive. She hasn’t expressed romantic interest. Yet this seems out of the ordinary. Are some women just especially share-y about their personal life with platonic friends, or is this a hint?
To state the unstated part: the motive is that she wants to talk to you more. It is sometimes difficult to just send someone a text or call them and say “Hi I want to talk to you” without some pretext. So if she cooks a cool meal, or sees something cool out on the town, that is a handy pretext. So she sends you a picture of it as a thing to chat about, because she wants to chat with you.
Some people certainly are like that with platonic friends, but, you know. If one had to guess, that ain’t it.
She’s an international arms dealer and thinks you may be on to her, so she is trying to throw you off the scent. If she sends you a Valentine’s Day card, she’s really getting worried. Be sure to check it for anthrax.
Ordinarily this is the type of stuff you’d post to everyone on social media. If she sends it to just you, then I agree she definitely wants to talk with you more specifically.
In normal times I’d probably test by asking her to go do something together, and then see if she treats it like a date. I’m not sure the protocol in pandemic times on Zoom or whatever.
Others would probably be more direct. But I’ve always been hesitant (like you) with stuff like this.
I had a friend start to do this. To be honest, I loved the attention (and she was an excellent photographer). And I figured, hey, she knows I’m married, I’ll just treat these like no big deal.
Suddenly one day it all stopped. Not a single “Just walking the dogs and saw this cool bird.” for a week. I asked her about it and she texted back “Oh, no reason. Got busy I guess.”
A few hours later: “You have GOT to meet Jean-Paul. You guys would really get along! We’ll be at the pub tonight if you’re around.”
I did get along with Jean-Paul… (she and I are still friends, she and J-P, not at all…)
But in the OP’s case, interested but shy (hard to believe, eh?).
I’m sticking with my international arms dealer theory.
… or, she might think of you as a safe person to open up to because you are many miles away, like a pen pal who you share things with that you don’t tell the people near you…
Doesn’t “thousands of miles away” rule out romantic interest?
Maybe she’s just lonely, what with the pandemic and all. Since I stopped going out or otherwise getting together with friends over a year ago, I’ve never been so eager to chat with neighbors or maybe an acquaintence I’ll run into at the market. In that sense, I think my intentions were misunderstood on one occasion.
What? No. It might make most people think twice, or not think at all, but since the birth of the internet people have gotten romantically involved while thousands of miles apart. It makes proceeding to the next level much harder, but I personally know (entirely over the internet, no romantic interest involved) a California woman who ended up in Australia through a relationship started long distance.