Back in 1991. I met a girl, while in uni in Japan. Fell madly in love with her. Slight problem - she had a boyfriend. Bummer
At the time (and actually for many years afterwards) I was definitely in the ‘nice guy’ mold. So I didn’t give her the full-court press. We hung out together quite a bit, because we really were good friends. In fact, she often slept over, just the two of us, even. No hanky-panky (although I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been so ‘gentlemanly’). I wasn’t disappointed at ‘only being friends’. But I was also … not hurt. Sad, maybe? I don’t know what the emotion is. But I knew then and now that I was deeply, madly in love with her.
After a couple of years, I needed to move back to the States. And then I realized what that meant, and I did give her the full-court press, knowing that she had a BF at the time. I know, not nice of me. But I knew the guy, and he was a wishy-washy dork. But of course I was turned down. But we still remained friends, and in fact she stayed over my last night, helped me pack and everything. No hanky-panky, btw.
I moved back to the States, we mailed once or twice, and then, in between moves on my part (I went to Europe, then to HK and on to Tokyo), we lost contact. I only knew where she lived at uni (nearby apartment), and didn’t know her home address, etc. She knew my address in NY, problem was I wasn’t in NY anymore and mail wasn’t forwarded to London.
10 years pass. I of course dated other girls, after a while. Like the poster above, I stopped being so ‘nice’. Not that I don’t treat women with respect, I am still polite, etc. You can be polite and respectful and still let a girl know that you are interested in her as a female, not ‘just a friend’. Girls worth talking to understand that you can find them attractive and still have more than ‘I want to jump your bones’ on the brain. So yeah, I found it a lot easier to date women, and I dated several, fantastic, wonderful women.
But she was always in the back of my mind.
Last September, I get an email. Asks if I am the Sxxxx from uni in Osaka 10 years ago; she saw my name in the paper and was able to track down my email address (good detective work!).
By now, I was in NY again, not Tokyo. No matter. After a few months of emails - friendly, going over old times, etc., I popped The Question - would she like to come to NY to see me? I gave her an out - hey, you’ve never been to NY, I can show you around, we haven’t seen each other for 10 years, we can get drunk and re-hash old times, etc.
So she flew over. And we spent the next week walking about New York, talking. We laughed, we sang, we held hands, we slept together - still no hanky panky, but hey, I have waited 10 years, I’m a patient guy. And after a week, we woke up and she had to fly back to Japan. She cried and cried and cried.
And she told me how that over the past 10 years, she had kicked herself because she knew deep down that if she got too close to me emotionally, she would fall in love. And she kicked herself for not doing something, anything, that would have pushed us together. She broke up with her boyfriend at the time about five months after I left Japan - and sent me a letter, with some pictures of her - but I never got that letter. Could have had a very different 10 years if I had gotten that letter…
So we are at the airport, and she is crying. Says she still doesn’t understand what it was we were supposed to be. In fairness, here I was, living in NY, she was an only child from small-town Japan, and she has hardly ever left the town she was born in. We both have 10-year memories juxtaposed over each other as we are now - we have both changed a lot - she is even more beautiful now, if possible; I of course have less hair on top and a bit more gut a bit lower - but personality wise, I guess we changed in linear fashion, if you will - because being with her now is no different from what it was like being with her then. So much is the same - but so much is different, and we have been in completely different worlds.
She flew back to Japan, and we wrote back some rather chatty emails for about a week.
And then she wrote a long (long!) email telling me that she realized that she loved me. She had loved me for 10 years. And how sorry she was for taking so long to realize that we should have been together.
So I did the only thing I could do. I flew her back to NY.
She got in last Thursday, and no sooner had we gotten back from the airport to my apartment than we had ripped off each other’s clothes and engaged in some of the hottest, Honest to God Vulcan mind-melting, earth-shaking, religion-changing, neighbor-waking, Richter-scale measuring sex I have ever ever been a part of. Actually, this has lasted the better part of the 5 days, and - although I didn’t think it possible - it is actually getting better. Thank god I am moving into a permanent apartment next month, because we have gotten some really weird looks in the elevator…
So sometimes finding that special person takes time. Sometimes getting both people to realize it takes time. She rather shyly commented that a) she probably wouldn’t have stayed over at my house all the time 10 years ago if she hadn’t felt completely safe with me, but that b) if I had put the moves on her and given her a taste of what we were doing now, she would have dropped ‘the pencil-dicked dork’ (her words!) like third period French. Not that that was the reason she would have dated me; she understands now that she needed an impetus to move, and I, being the ‘nice guy’, wasn’t providing it; she, being rather shy by nature, didn’t now how to provide it.
Moral of the story? I don’t know. We found each other again really only by a fluke. Should I have put the moves on her 10 years ago? I don’t know. I finally asked her - and she said , “look - sub-consiously, I was practically begging you to do something - I was sleeping in your bed with you, in my underwear and one of your shirts. So while I respected the fact that you kept your hands to yourself, I was probably hoping you would do something”.
Doesn’t help much, does it? We were very good friends, but I had a major crush on her from the start. I was turned down; not because she wanted us ‘to remain friends’. Because she had a BF at the time that she wanted to be loyal too. Fair enough.
Should guys be ‘nice’? I don’t know. I think we should follow our hearts. Right or wrong, most women still wait for the guy to make a move, so it is up to the guy, in most cases. If you truly have a crush on someone (not just lust), I think they will realize that. And they won’t be upset or offended if you push a little.
We sorted it out eventually, though. :}