[Cliff Notes version]
I was the best man in my friends wedding in June. I “fell in love” with the maid of honor and asked her out and we saw each other about 1.5 times a week for the whole month of July.
[/Cliff Notes version]
This is how our last date went:
July 29
5:00 pm She arrives at my house. (2 hour drive)
5:01We make out.
7:30 We go to a restaurant.
8:00 Hurriedly drive back to my house.
8:01 We make out. Make out isn’t strong enough. We were almost. . . well, you know.
Important Part 9:45 She tells me that she likes me very much and wishes she had met me some other time but since she was starting a new career in a new city that she was not ready to date somebody.
9:50 I tell her "Well, I guess you can get a 10 minute start on your 10:00 ETD
She had stammered through a similar speech exactly one week before but I had confused it for “I’m going to be really busy and I don’t want you to think we can spend this kind of time together when the school year starts.”
I call her a week later because we have mutual friends and I didn’t want it to be awkward when we were around each other in the future. We had a great 20 min. conversation. She called me back a few days later to see how my big hike (30 miles in 1 day!) went. That was almost 3 weeks ago and we haven’t talked since.
WTF?! Part
I just checked my messages. Today is my birthday and she called and left me a message telling me happy birthday and then her whole classroom oops, I just gave away her job** screams HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. BRUCE!!!**
Am I reading to much into it? I really liked this girl very much and was starting to get over her. Is she just trying to be really friendly? What the hell.
I left out a bunch so if you feel kind enough to help me out and need more info, let me know. Thanks.
Bruce_Daddy my friend…there is no rhyme or reason to any woman’s action. Ever. Don’t waste your time trying to understand, as you will just give yourself an aneurism.
She’s just screwing with you by giving you mixed signals. Retaliate. Leave her a vaguely affectionate voicemail message, then later let it percolate to her that you’re dating someone else (whether true or not), tell her how much you value her friendship, and so on.
WAG as a woman - she considers birthdays to be important things. She thinks you are truly a decent guy (but either not date material or doesn’t want to get too close because of moving to another city), and thus did not want to totally blow off your birthday.
Oh, and I’d recommend ignoring Giggle Gaggle’s advice, but that’s just my opinion. If she’d sent you flowers with a vaguely mushy note for your birthday, that’d have been a really mixed signal.
speaking from the woman’s side of the fence, i’d say it sounds like she’s still trying to be friendly. but having her entire classroom yell “Happy Birthday” to you seems like it’s meant to put the kabbash on any romantic notions that might accidentally have lingered in your mind.
pretty sure it was deliberate on her part. but then, no one ever completely knows what goes on the mind of someone else.
She’s trying to follow through on her “let’s just be friends” statement. Granted, this is not how normal friends act on a regular basis, but she’s still adjusting. Let it go, continue to be friendly but keep your distance. If she wants to date you again, she’ll have to say so directly.
IMO She still likes you, thinks about you, but doesn’t see how a long distance thing would work. INO Yeah, she wants to keep you in the “friends” bracket. Sorry.
Sounds like she likes you, and wants the friendship thing for a little while. But then again as a male we need to think about other scenerios. Namely, she obviously likes you enough to make out with you, to tell her class to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR.BRUCE - which no doubt she got heckled for when she hung up the phone. i.e. **Mrs. Make Out ** - has a boy friend OOOOOO!!!
Or maybe not. Anyway, she could be awaiting your response via a message on her phone. A nice indirect message may lead her to look your direction again. Plus, how do you know she’s not in other said city, waiting to see what you do, i.e. start dating another woman etc…etc…And if you don’t start dating another woman she may begin to think things like she wants to put a more vested interest into you…
Psychologically I can not and will not advocate playing mind games, so as a psychologist I must recommend the direct route in the end. Tell her you like her and would like to get to know her better [if you do of course] then see what she says. The you will at very least know where she stands and you both can get on with your lives.
As a happily married man for the past 7 years I must say my mentality on such things has changed over the years. I hope what I said was not too dated for todays trendy ladies.
Why do (some) men want to date women they don’t want to be friends with? If you don’t enjoy hanging out and talking with a person, surely dating that person is a very bad idea?
I see no reason to think she is deliberately playing games or sending mixed signals – for all we know, this is how she likes to commemorate all her friends’ birthdays. Of course, if you are sure you don’t want to be friends with her, you shouldn’t return the call.
See, this sort of thing is why I have so many problems figuring out what is going on in the female head.
Remind me how doing something special like having the whole class say yell “Happy Birthday” is supposed to to make me think the girl doesn’t like me anymore. Honestly. That makes no sense to me. Just calling and wishing a happy birthday, or a card or something normal and cheap, would be much more effective in letting me know it’s just friends.
I’m with Ashtar. Don’t try to understand. She said she just wants to be friends, so that’s the way you need to keep it unless she says otherwise. Or the hints get really obvious, like a giant heart balloon that says “I love you.”
Man, I feel for ya – my ex called me on my birthday, nearly ruining the whole day. (I was still very hurt at the time and nowhere near over her.) But then I realized I would’ve been hurt more if she hadn’t called – she was being considerate of our past.
So, very simply, the Saxman’s prescription (having weathered numerous epiphanies and breakthroughs over the last half-year regarding women) is thus:
Figure out a time you know she will not be home. (Like during school.
Call her house at that time and leave a message, “Thank the kids for the message, very sweet of you, hope all’s well.”
The ball is now once again in her court – you’ve done the polite thing (acknowledging her effort), and can continue to live your life unambiguously until she makes a move.
I dunno, I figure what she’s saying is that she’s in a new city and doesn’t have a lot of time to be a real girlfriend, but she still wants to be.
You do not tell a class of children to do something like that unless you’re prepared to have them all think that whoever they said happy birthday to was your boyfriend. She is obviously prepared to have her kids think that way.
Maybe she feels that long distance relationships are doomed to fail, but she really really likes you and wants you to know that. Maybe she knows that you two can’t spend a lot of time together, but wants you to know that she’s doing special things for you. Maybe she’s waiting for you to say “you know, long distance things don’t work out too often, but maybe we can do it.”
Really, what she did is not a friends only thing. I have no idea why people think that this has sent you into the friend zone. It hasn’t. If you like her enough to keep your feelings for her while you’re apart and let them start growing again once you’re together, just tell her that.
