Weird night...are my values skewed?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, last year I developed a friendship with a girl from work, but couldn’t quite bring myself to establish a romantic relationship with her. As she tells it, I “rejected” her. But we remained friends, and have met up once a month or so for low-key stuff like drinking coffee or watching an old movie.

Tonight, after a month of barely catching sight of each other, she wanted to do something different: dinner and drinks. When I picked her up at her apartment, another guy from work was there with her, shook my hand, and ran off to the subway. At dinner, I finally came out and asked a simple question. “Is he your boyfriend?” “Yes.”

“Then why the f@#%,” I didn’t actually ask, “is he okay with you going out with me?”

Dinner felt like an awkward date; the awkwardness was mostly me trying to figure out why I was there. Then she took me to a swanky bar at the top floor of a fancy hotel. We had a couple drinks and both loosened up, but not to the point that I was going to ignore the whole boyfriend thing.

I just thought it was extremely weird that her boyfriend is okay with me and her going out on what would look like a date to any outside observer. She used to like me, I used to like her, and halfway through a martini I wasn’t exactly looking at her with brotherly eyes.

So, either she (not to mention her boyfriend) sees me as a harmless eunuch who can engage in date-like activities on a Saturday night without threatening her relationship, or she’s a drama queen who wants to see sparks fly.

Third option is she’s an earnest person who’s so confident in her own boundaries that she thinks she can show me a night on the town without possibly infringing on her new relationship. She’s claimed to never have cheated on any of her boyfriends, and somehow I believe her. But I’m wondering if I’m weird for thinking that this whole scenario is out of bounds for someone in a committed relationship.

If I were in his shoes, I would say, “oh hell no, it’s you and I who are dressing up and going out Saturday night.” And would that be barbaric? Old-fashioned? Am I missing something, or am I just hanging out with the wrong people?

Sheesh.

2

I should add, this girl has nothing but male friends, so I don’t find it weird that her boyfriend’s comfortable with that angle. What I felt weird about is that the whole night screamed “DATE!,” from the close talking, to the clinking of glasses, to the statement, “we should get married if I’m 30 and single.” Just bizarroland.

3

Huh. Yah, that seems a bit weird - but the fact that this woman made a point of introducing you to her boyfriend seems like it may well have been calculated to assure one (or both) of you that this wasn’t a “date” thing, or at least not one that would threaten her current relationship. Even the “if I’m thirty, we should get married” thing might make sense in that context - if she thinks of her current relationship as something that isn’t likely to last that long, then this comment isn’t a threat to that relationship. Does that make sense?

Bottom line: My view of relationship stuff is that if everybody knows what’s going on, and no one is getting hurt, then it’s all cool. It sounds like this was the case here - so, while this was certainly a bit weird, I wouldn’t say there was anything wrong with it. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong, though, with you finding it too awkward to have a good time. So - if you had fun, and she asks, go out again. If you didn’t, then don’t. And you could always ask her, “hey, your boyfriend is cool with this, right?”

4

I’m unclear on whether or not you’d LIKE it to progress to something more romantic.

Who made this statement?

5

I’m certainly attracted to her and feel close to her, but I know I wouldn’t have the laid-back attitude about other men her boyfriends clearly require.

She did. She’s 24.

Mr. Excellent, I think the reason I had a good time is that it felt like such a romantic date, which is why I panicked and tipsily posted to the Dope. Unfortunately, probably not a good reason to say “yes” again.

I know in every romantic comedy there’s a clueless boyfriend who needs to be supplanted by the protagonist, but in my life I’d prefer to have my dates with girls who are fully single. Sigh.

6

Actually, no, it doesn’t seem like the case here – the OP, for one, doesn’t know what’s going on.

Sounds to me like she’s playing games, and you’re a piece in one of those games. If you don’t want to play games, stop hanging out with her. If you do – fasten your seatbelt, I’ll bet actual cash money it will get more weird before it’s over.

7

Another possibility is that he isn’t her boyfriend at all, just another friend she recruited to pretend to be her boyfriend so you would feel jealous and/or competitive and suddenly decide you’re romantically interested in her. If that’s the case, it seems to have worked. I’m not clear on exactly when you started regarding her as mate material, but from your OP it seems to have coincided with the introduction to the “boyfriend.” First you say you couldn’t bring yourself to establish a romantic relationship with her; enter boyfriend and half a martini and you’re viewing her with less-than-brotherly eyes. Am I off base?

8

The simplest explanation might be that she simply doesn’t view dinner and drinks as being a romantic event. She may see it as hanging out with a male friend.
I would expect that her boyfriend feels the same way: “It’s just a friend, and I trust her, so no big deal”. Maybe he has to work on Saturdays or something.
After all, if she was thinking of you in a romantic way, she wouldn’t have wanted to wait a month in between “dates” probably.
She probably assumes that it has been clearly established that you are buddies by your prior outings (since it sounds like you had been having platonic coffee with each other for a while before this) and so it’s safe to do things that could be construed as dates but arent necessarily so with you without any confusion.

Offering to get married someday if we haven’t found anyone else is totally the kind of thing I’d talk about with a guy who I viewed as a platonic friend, not a boyfriend. With my boyfriend I actually tend to avoid the topic of marriage because I don’t want to pressure him at all.

So my interpretation is: This chick thinks of you as a buddy, which sucks if you still have feelings for her but really isn’t surprising if she told you that she felt you had rejected her and you didn’t do anything to correct her impression of that.

So if you’re okay with being Just Friends, stay the course. If you’re not okay with that, it sounds like it’s time to talk to her!

9

Add in “she’s a natural flirt who is always going to say things that make you think ‘whoa!’” Like the thirty and single comment.

At any rate, she has very broad boundaries and really doesn’t understand that other people may have narrower boundaries.

10

Well, the long story is that she liked me first (about 6 months ago) and I just wanted to be friends. A few months later I started having feelings for her, and when I brought her flowers she sweetly accepted them, but informed me that she was casually dating this guy.

I didn’t entertain any further romantic notions until this week, when she went on and on about how much she missed spending time with me, and how we’d have to have dinner on Saturday night. Then she called me up to tell me that she was also going to take me out for drinks at one of her favorite bars in New York. So, at that point, I was thinking, “hey, maybe something’s happening here.”

Obviously, any hopes were dashed when this guy came out the apartment door with her. I suppose I should have extrapolated that he was her boyfriend by now, but she never talks about him. For various reasons, though, I don’t think she’s lying. They meet up after work a lot, for instance.

I’m with twickster; I’ll have to excuse myself from any further potential drama. Even if she’s not purposely playing games, my anxiety doesn’t know the difference.

11

I’d say that that’s the best choice for your sanity, given how you feel. Personally, I wouldn’t find it weird, since I’ve gone out for drinks with several women when we were both dating others, and when one of us was single. But that’s how I feel, and you should act on your own inclinations.

12

Been there, done that. She’s testing the boundries and enjoying the power trip ( how many guys can I make dance on the head of a pin). You can play, or not, but it will probably come to naught. Depends on how badly you want this chick. Boyfriend is already behind the curve IMHO, but you may join him there if you accept a second date under the same circumstances.
If you’re looking to get laid, it’s a toss up, if you’re looking for Ms. Right, she ain’t ready yet.
On a friend’s night out she pays her own way, or at least offers to, on a date you foot the bill. I understand things may have changed a bit, but that’s what it was like in my day.

13

Another possibility- he likes to be a cuckold, and they both got off later on that night on the thought of you and her being together “behind his back”. People are strange.

14

I vote for “sees me as a harmless eunuch who can engage in date-like activities”. I’ve been cast in that role.

15

With only this to go on:

…it seems to me that she was interested in you, you “blew” it, you said “let’s still be friends” and she is doing just that. Now that you can’t have her, you’re all hot and bothered over it and forgot that you liked her as “just a friend.”

Did you expect her to sit around and wait for you? Sometimes I wonder if that’s what guys mean when they say “let’s just be friends” … like “well I want to fuck a lot of girls and I can’t do that if you’re around but if I get to the bottom of the barrel I want you to still be in my radar so I can fuck you too.” Sounds harsh, but perhaps she’s decided that’s how this “friends” game works and that’s how she’s treating you.

If you’re “friends” with a person and that person gets an SO you accept that and keep doing “friendly” things with them. Why can’t friends have dinner and drinks?

16

I’m with twickster. I’ve seen a lot of that before.

17

From the perspective of a female third wheel, maybe she figures you are a “safe” male to hang out with since you said you wanted to be just friends with her, and was teasing you?

(Context: I was video game buddies with a bunch of people I’ve known since middle school, the only girl among the group, but I and the pals always thought of me as “one of the guys”. Then one of my friends started dating, and my mother pulled me aside–I was kind of socially retarded then and didn’t pick up the fact that he was dating–to tell me that I shouldn’t hang out with him in case I gave his GF the wrong message. I was all like “STFU, we’re friends, I’m not going to stop being friends with him because he’s dating”, and the GF knew both of us well enough to be cool with that, so in the end it all worked out. Every once in a while we still like to have a chuckle over this.)

18

Yeah, I had this conversation with a guy friend a while back. It seems like women will forever hold that initial “rejection” against you. People change their minds. When I first got to know her, she scared me a little. Once I felt comfortable enough around her to try to date her, it was too late, she’d already been rejected and couldn’t let it go.

And yes, two friends can have dinner and drinks, but I wish I had correctly perceived what was going on in advance. Because I didn’t know they were officially an item, and because it was Saturday night and we were planning to have the sort of evening we’d never had before, I went into it thinking this might be a date. I almost brought flowers! That wouldn’t have gone over well.

And I wish she had told me a long time ago that she had a boyfriend. I mean, you’d think she’d bring him up in conversation once in a while. Maybe she thought it would be a touchy subject for me, but I think it was definitely worse that I didn’t know going into last night.

Anyway, I figure when I calm the hell down, maybe find an open-minded girlfriend of my own, I can have dinner and drinks with this girl, and we’ll be on the same level.

Of course, if I really give off a “harmless eunuch” vibe, that might never happen.

19

I don’t think it’s necessarily resentment. She just moved on.
I’ve been very smitten with guys who didn’t share the feeling. After they rejected me, my feelings for the guy slowly died with time as I accepted the rejection and looked for other guys. In a handful of cases, the guy who rejected me later reconsidered but by then it was too late - not because I held a grudge about getting shot down, but simply because the feelings just weren’t there for me anymore.
Wouldn’t it be a bit psycho if she had clung onto those feelings just in the desperate hope that you’d eventually come around? :slight_smile:
Timing is everything in relationships. Sounds like you two just didn’t get the timing right.

If I were you, I wouldn’t be too drastic about cutting off ties, since you were fine being Just Friends with her for so long until this one little misunderstanding. Maybe by the time she’s ready to hang out again you can be back in that state of mind.