Me, the girl I want, her boyfriend, and kissing frogs (explained inside)

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, backround: I moved into the local area in September, and immediately found common interest and a slight attraction to a woman I work with. Over time, I’ve come to know better and better just what an amazing person she is, and I developed sincere feelings for her.

The Catch: She has a boyfriend, who lives 700 miles away, who she’s faithful to, who she’s spent a grand total of 18 days with in the 6 months of the realtionship. Aside from that glaringly obvious problem, as far as I was aware, their relationship was great, and he is a nice guy.

My Resignation: She’s a great person, and rather than destroy myself and our relationship, I acquiesced to the state of things, and that having her as a close friend is better than the alternative, not having her at all.

The Set-up: While persuing a hospital gift store, she got all giddy over a pair of stuffed frogs, sewn together at the hand and foot, which made little kissy noises when their lips were pressed together. Being the perceptive fellow I am, I made a mental note, and when she was not present, I bought said frogs. After some consideration, I realised that though she’d like them just fine from me, she’d love them from her SO. Being that I had never met him, nor had any contact with him, I decided to be sneaky and nab his number from her cell phone when she wasn’t looking. I planned to call him, present him with my assistance in a heartfelt Valentines day present that would most definately make her day, and carry out the necessary footwork, if he’d send a little note I could attach to the gift.

The Result: I called him and presented him the idea. He responded with “I’m not sure I should give her a present like that, it might give the wrong impression.” He then went on to tell me how she wasn’t really attentive to the fact that it was a long distance relationship, and it was a hard thing to deal with. He gave me a distinct impression that he was planning to break up with her. He went on to say that i should give her the frogs myself (if it would send the wrong idea from him, what would it say coming from me?) Whether this news was beneficial to my personal attraction to her or not, I DID NOT want to know this info. It now puts me in a very difficult position with her. As good friend I should tell her. As a past admirer, I would expect she’d take this information coming from me as either spiteful or meddling. And with the negative mood she’d be put in, she may also take offense to my going behind her back to conspire with her beau (even if it was done with sincerely good intentions).

My Question: What mess did I get myself into? Was I right to call her bf in an attempt to help him get her a nice V-Day gift? What should I do about the information I now posess? What should I do about ym feelings for her that are now rekindled in light of her probable availability?

2

If I found somebody snooping through my address book for any reason whatsoever, I would at the very least never speak to them again, and I would look to see if I could have charges pressed. She may feel the same way.

3

Yay…

In any case, I know his first and last name, and the town in which he lives. Grabbing the number from her cell was just a matter of convenience. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a little snooping by my friends if their intentions are good. Thats just me.

4

Agreed that no good can come of telling her, unless you consider restraining orders and freaked-out women to be ‘good.’ Trust us on this one.

I can’t pass judgment on what you did, as we all do things in the heat of passion which seem like a good idea at the time (“I’ve called him fifty-four times today and he hasn’t picked up the phone, so I called all his friends to see if he was out with them and he wasn’t so now I’m worried that he’s with another woman so I’m going to write him this letter telling him how he’s wrecked my life …”). As long as the person doesn’t ever find out, it’s usually not a big deal.

What to do with the frogs: Give them to her with a cute, non-commital kind of card (‘I couldn’t resist getting this for you’ or something) so she won’t wonder. Random gifts for no apparent reason can be a little creepy, but it’s not hard to make it seem innocent.

What to do with the information: sit on it. It looks like if you just wait it out things could turn out quite well for you. Don’t mention the break-up until she does. (No saying “So, are you still with him?” with a knowing look.)

If she never mentions it to you, there’s not much you can do. But if she has any feelings for you she will tell you that they broke up, and there’s your opportunity. If you’ve given her the frogs, she will reconsider your motivations in a new light.

5

Dummy up, my friend. Say nothing. Do nothing. Let her relationship take its course and put the frogs in a box on a shelf until YOU can give them to the right girl at the right time.

6

Snooping bad. Keep mouth shut. Whatever happens happens, but if you want to stand a chance, that info must not be shared with her.

Oh, and never do that sort of thing again.

7

Jon - BIG SIGH Jon, Jon, Jon Shakes Head - Please re-read this quote from yourself.

Sounds like you still have genuine feelings for the woman, and whether or not you want to realize it, this quote from you tells me that you’d rather live vicariously through a man 700 miles away, then take initiative all on your own.

Let the relationship take it’s course…but I’d say the guy who is 700 miles away will certainly tell his GF you called him. Now how is that going to look to her…?

Do you honestly think this woman does not know you have feelings for her? Are you that good at fighting off your own feelings that you’d rather keep them bundled up in the past rather than in a loving relationship of your very own?

Sounds like the woman will be single soon anyway, so why not just wait…I know valentines day is coming soon…but it is not your valentines day with this girl, it is someone elses…

8

I also have a friend who would love these, is there a tag with a maker’s name on it?

9

Never, ever, ever snoop through a friend’s, or anyone’s, stuff again. If you get caught, you and whatever relationship that was going on is fucked. So just don’t say anything and wait. If things between you and this girl and her (soon to be former?) boyfriend are like you say, you should have nothing to worry about in a short amount of time.

10

Oh, she knows. I’ve been nothing if not completely honest with her, which is why this is really frustrating me. I do have genuine feelings for her, but I doubt I have any desire to live vicariously through him. I just know my friend has been depressed because of the separation lately. I honestly was just looking for a way to lift her spirits.

Talking to my mother, sister, and several friends, I haven’t gotten such an appalled response to the phone number thing. I just chalked it up to normal friend sneakiness, i.e suprise parties, getting friend/relative help on gift ideas. I really don’t see the harm.

11

Speaking as a long-distance-relationship-having person, I wouldn’t be at all angry if one of my friends used my cell phone to get my boyfriend’s number in order to coordinate sneaky gift-giving.

I’d be pretty surprised that one of my friends actually used the telephone, though.

12

I don’t think getting the boyfriend’s number from her cell phone was a big deal. I do think it’s very weird to buy the frogs for her but then try to get the boyfriend to give them to her. It either looks like you like her romantically but are too chickenshit to step up and say so, or you’re a friend who feels it’s his job to fix her relationship for her. Either way, it gives the impression that you’re too into her to be able to just be friends, but not confident enough to make her want to date you.

As for what to do from this point, make a choice. Either pursue her romantically, or truly just be friends with no hope for anything more. If you decide to pursue her romantically, give her the frogs and tell her about buying them for her, trying to get her boyfriend to give them to her and then realizing that actually you want to be her boyfriend. If you decide to just be friends, give them to her and just say that you remembered how much she liked them so you got them for her. Don’t mention calling her boyfriend unless she brings it up. In neither case should you tell her your impression of her boyfriend’s views of their relationship.

13

The way I see this, being honest is the only shot you’ve got at getting out of this clean. If you don’t 'fess up, and the boyfriend tells her about the call, you’re going to look like manipulative asshole. If you 'fess up, she might be weirded out by you getting his number, but you at least get points for being honest. If the boyfriend tells her you called him, she already knows, and will be disinclined to believe any outrageous, stalkerish stuff he might try to tell her you said. If he doesn’t mention you calling, he ends up looking like a dick.

If I were you, I’d take the frogs to work and say, “You really seemed to like these, so I tracked down your boyfriend to see if he’d like to give them to you for Valentine’s. He didn’t seem real keen on the idea, so I decided to get them for your myself. Enjoy!” and then either get to work or move along to other subjects. You get points for consideration and thoughtfulness, without painting the boyfriend as an insensitive jerk (badmouthing the boyfriend makes you look like you’re pushing an agenda instead of trying to do something nice for a friend.) Keep it light and casual, just like you would if you’d happened across something your mom or sister or best guy friend would really like and bought it on impulse.

You don’t say shit about any hints the boyfriend may or may not have been dropping. You don’t know for sure that he was dropping hints, and stirriing that turd ain’t gonna do you or anyone else any good. Trust me, if they stay together, you’ll be the asshole for saying something. If they split up, it won’t be because of anything you said or did, which will be all to the good if you hope to have a relationship with her in the future. If they split up and he says he was dropping hints when you called, you can say quite honestly that you weren’t sure what he was getting at, and that you agonized over it before deciding not to jeopardize her relationship over nothing more than your speculations at what he might have meant. I probably woudn’t mention exactly how you tracked down the boyfriend’s number unless she asked, either.

14

First, a question: Did you tell the boyfriend how you’d gotten his number? If not, never mention it and let both of them assume you looked it up in the normal way. If you did tell him, she will almost surely be told. Even if the guy didn’t think there was anything to it when you spoke, it’s the sort of stuff that gets blurted out during breakups. So you just have to hope she doesn’t take it the wrong way.

If it was me, I’d wait to see how things end up with the two of them. But then again, I’m a coward when it comes to relationships. I’d probably wait, only to have her find a new guy before I made my move. So your best option is probably to go for it. Give her the frogs. Tell her that you just had to get them for her after seeing how much she liked them. At that point, she might decide for herself that the long-distance relationship isn’t going so well.

Heck, someone much more bold than you or I would probably give her the frogs as well as tell her about calling the boyfriend. Stay away from speculating that he’s going to dump her and just say that he told you he didn’t want to give her the frogs. She can think about what that means on her own.

That last option is really taking a chance, but then again, the guys who really take chances tend to have better lovelives than I do. A whole lot better. Just be prepared for losing her as both a love interest and as a friend, as it is a real possibility.

15

Eh, I’d be touched if someone did that for me so I don’t think it’s too weird.

However, I would completely shut up about it. Don’t say a word about what the boyfriend said, it’ll be embarrassing for her. If HE says something to you and she confronts you, you can fess up and say that you knew she liked them but you thought it wasn’t an appropriate gift coming from you.

One last thing: If she knows how you feel about her and she hasn’t already dumped her long distance, somewhat ambivalent boyfriend for you, that’s a pretty good clue to the future.

16

The Devil’s Grandmother, GANZ makes the frogs. They are really cute now that I took em out and looked at em again. Hopefully you can find them somewhere.

To those who think what I did crossed a line, that sentiment is what drives me crazy about relationships today. Old plays, television shows and movies even up to today show people going to “stalkerish” lengths to show their feelings for eachother, and its only accepted because its fantasy.

I’m not sitting in a candle-lit shrine drooling over her pictures, or parking myself outside her window waiting for her lights to go out. I’m just someone who wanted to do something to make their friend really happy, and went out on a limb to do it. That some people would rather believe that a “normal” person wouldn’t have that sort of drive to make another person happy just because really saddens me.

I guess I’ve been a hopeless romantic for a while. I’ve always gone above and beyond, and most times it makes a huge (positive) impression. There have been a few rare instances when it was taken wrong and I got labelled a freak, or a weirdo, and that really hurts.

If one of those times I gave up and tried to conform to the lackadaisical “act disinterested and ambivalent” approach to inter-personal relationships it seems everyone thinks is the norm, I would have missed my last girlfriend telling me that nobody has ever done something so nice for her, or hearing my close friend tell me that if it wasn’t for me she’d probably be dead by now. I’d miss the silent appreciation in my best friend’s voice every time we talk, because he’d never get so sentimental as to tell me how grateful he is I went out on a limb for him, cause he was hanging on by the skin of his teeth.

I’d like to see everyone try as hard as I do, but I’d settle for not being told I go too far.

17

I understand what you mean jon, the last girl I was interested in before my girlfriend, I called her once, she said she was busy doing homework, so I said maybe we’ll talk later, called later that night, parents answer and tell me “never to call this house again!”. That really freaked me out.

Eh, meeting people is difficult.

18

My view? Give the frogs to her in a causal manner.

If you don’t like telling her about how you got the boyfriend’s number and the conversation between you two, write it all down. Seal the envelope, and send it to yourself via registered mail.

19

I think I may be able to help you with this one, jon_pi.

When I went away to college, I moved about two hours from my hometown. I had been in a relationship with the same guy, off and on, for five years. We decided to continue the relationship even after I moved away, but it was difficult. Things had been going downhill between us for some time and the distance only exaggerated the problems.

Meanwhile…

Once in school, I made a good guy friend. He was the sweetest guy in the world and we had everything in common. He also made it perfectly clear that he liked me as more than a friend. None-the-less, I remained loyal to the boyfriend back home and he respected that. He never made a move on me, never pressured me to break up with my boyfriend and provided a much-needed shoulder to cry on when things weren’t going well.

Fast-forward…

My guy friend had a plastic model “Ickes” (Does anyone remember that Nickolodeon cartoon “Real Monsters?” Ickes was the purple guy with the big ears.) that I absolutely coveted. Unbeknownst to me, he called his mom, who lived many hours away, and had her buy one and ship it to him. He left it in my room with a note that said, essentially, “I know how much you love this, so I got you one. You can stop drooling over mine now.” It was just a present from a friend, and I loved him for it.

Fast-forward again, several months…

Things deteriorated with the boyfriend back home and I dumped him. My guy friend remained a friend throughout the appropriate “mourning period.” (Probably about a month.) Then one day I looked at him and remembered that Ickes model and realised that he’d been there the whole time. We dated for two years. It ended, but not TOO awfully, and we’re still friends.

So…

What I’m trying to say is basically this- Is she a good friend? You say you’ve been open with her about your feelings. Have you been really and truly open, or have you just hinted around?

If she’s really a good friend, and you have been open with her, then I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Tell her that you bought her the frogs because you knew they’d make her happy. Then tell her that you second-guessed yourself and worried that it might seem inappropriate. Explain that you thought the gift might best come from her boyfriend, but you wanted to surprise her, so you called him. You can even tell her how you got the number, if you would feel better about it. (Although if you didn’t mention that part to the boyfriend, I’d just tell her you looked it up. You did, really. She doesn’t HAVE to know where exactly.)

I wouldn’t mention any of the “break-up hints” that you got from the phone call. Just tell her that he wasn’t into the idea and said you might as well give them to her yourself. (See, you even got permission, so to speak. Nothing under-handed there.) Leave it at that.

If things don’t pan out with the boyfriend, she’s guaranteed to remember your sweet gesture. Maybe nothing at all will come of it, but at the least she’ll know what a great friend you are.

Naturally, all of the above is my own opinion, based on my own experience. Please don’t hold me responsible for the outcome, should you take my advice.

20

Thanks hyperjes. If your story is any indication of how this will work out I’d be more than happy. Right now I’m downright sick to the stomach.

She’s back from her trip this morning, and from what I can tell, even though the boyfriend told me he was going to call her, she seems to know nothing. He honestly does seem like a nice guy, so I wouldn’t be suprised if he kept the call a secret, since he knew I was being secertive in calling him.

It is kind of hard though… She’s her normal happy, bubbly self, and I’ve just got this dead sink in my chest, because I’ve seen signs of whats coming. Its entirely unfair to her, and just a drain on me. For her sake, I hope I misunderstood everything.

She’s going away for Valentines Day, on another job related trip. I’ll probably give her the frogs when she gets back, with a nice friendly card.