Simon Phoenix Posted August 22, 2012 Posted August 22, 2012 Not sure this is the right place for this, but here it goes. A few months ago I started hanging out with the sister-in-law of one of my best friends. We had met twice before with no real spark, but she texts me out of the blue and we get together. It goes really well and we start going out quite a bit one-on-one, with the flirting escalating nicely over the course of six weeks or so. I fall for her sometime during this, get scared of my feelings and start overthinking, culminating in a drunken display of raw emotion and "eject, eject, eject" douchiness at the end of a prolonged date/bar crawl with her. Since then I've gotten what would be considered the classic "fade" from her. She backed out of plans immediately after my douchebag moment, didn't return a call a few days after that, then returned a followup call a few days after that wanting to hang out, only to cancel because the work outing she had before she was to hang out with me went late. After two unreturned texts and an unreturned call over the course of two weeks, I have gone no contact, which has lasted roughly three weeks at this point. No point in chasing something that currently doesn't want to be caught. Anyway, the reason I write this is because my buddy and his wife (her sister) are coming to visit us in two weeks and we have stuff planned with the four of us for two days, and maybe a bit of a third. She's planning one of the days apparently. Therefore, her "fade" has to stop abruptly, which makes me wonder if it was less of a "fade" and more of the "i have to think/I need space". She's a smart girl, upfront to the point of being blunt and has plenty of guy friends who she's likely had to have "the talk" with. Seems kind of weird for her to pull the "fade" on me when she knew that she'd have to see me again because of my relationship with other members of her family. I guess what I'm wondering is three-fold: 1. Do girls fade back to "have a think" regularly with a guy they'd still consider seeing in some way? 2. Do girls fade on guys they know they'll run into again? Seems like the fade would be a much better practice on a random guy you met that you have no connections to. 3. If she is definitely fading and not "thinking", can a forced correspondence like we are having serve as a tool to stop or even reverse a fade? Thanks for any help. At the very least I have a second chance it seems, or a chance to stop a fade and get actual closure if things don't work out the way I want them to.
flitzanu Posted August 22, 2012 Posted August 22, 2012 i believe you're HIGHLY overthinking this situation. you casually dated for a few weeks, sparks obviously didn't fly, and she slowly backed off. she backed off i'd say, so she DID NOT lead you on. my opinion is that she simply decided she doesn't want to date you, therefore she backed off. there's no higher meaning to this one.
Crila16 Posted August 22, 2012 Posted August 22, 2012 Ok. I'm a girl...and no. We don't step back to think about things. You turned her off. She must be older (not in her 20's I mean). As women get older, we tolerate less. We've been dating for years, and we tend not to put up with BS as long. It's been programmed into our heads. When a guy we like starts to act douche...we have a douche bag cut off switch. Henceforth, woman liking bad boys only really adheres to the younger generation who isn't sick of the BS yet. Txting once or twice isn't good enough. You need to actually pick up the phone and call her like a man. You need to ask her to please call that you recognized that you were being a douche and you would like to explain why, if she'd give you the chance. I don't know what exactly you did or said to her, but it must have been bad if she won't even return your txt. BTW...if you want to know what she's thinking...ask your buddy. He knows everything. The sister talked to her sister...and the sister talked to her husband (your buddy). Yes...he does know.
Author Simon Phoenix Posted August 22, 2012 Author Posted August 22, 2012 i believe you're HIGHLY overthinking this situation. you casually dated for a few weeks, sparks obviously didn't fly, and she slowly backed off. she backed off i'd say, so she DID NOT lead you on. my opinion is that she simply decided she doesn't want to date you, therefore she backed off. there's no higher meaning to this one. I'm definitely overthinking, but there were tons of indicators of interest from her end which I didn't either a) react to appropriately out of stupidity/insecurity/fear of whatever or b) didn't pick up on until after the fact (hindsight being 20/20). I didn't want to go into too much detail on that and bog down the post -- I have a much more detailed and ridiculous synopsis of the whole thing in another thread if you care to read it (I probably wouldn't if I were you, it's long). Everything was going great, even on the night where I flipped out, until I flipped out. I don't think she led me on, I agree there. But we went out enough, and we have enough ties outside of our interaction, where a "hey dude, I'm not feeling it" would have been appropriate other than fading or backing away. And her personality type is one that wouldn't seem to have a problem saying that to someone. Like I said, at least I get a chance at a better most recent impression/proper closure.
Author Simon Phoenix Posted August 22, 2012 Author Posted August 22, 2012 (edited) Ok. I'm a girl...and no. We don't step back to think about things. You turned her off. She must be older (not in her 20's I mean). As women get older, we tolerate less. We've been dating for years, and we tend not to put up with BS as long. It's been programmed into our heads. When a guy we like starts to act douche...we have a douche bag cut off switch. Henceforth, woman liking bad boys only really adheres to the younger generation who isn't sick of the BS yet. Txting once or twice isn't good enough. You need to actually pick up the phone and call her like a man. You need to ask her to please call that you recognized that you were being a douche and you would like to explain why, if she'd give you the chance. I don't know what exactly you did or said to her, but it must have been bad if she won't even return your txt. BTW...if you want to know what she's thinking...ask your buddy. He knows everything. The sister talked to her sister...and the sister talked to her husband (your buddy). Yes...he does know. I figured I had turned her off. I guess I just didn't realize that she was probably on at one point, which contributed to the events that caused this whole dumbass saga. She's 27 actually. And I did call her a few times (I actually hate texting but she's much more of a texter than a caller) -- I just didn't want to be the guy that was blowing up her phone and force her to even run farther away from me. But I probably could have been more aggressive in making this conversation take place. I just wanted to not be the needy guy, or at least show that I'm not the needy guy. As far as what I did, I basically just got pissed about a couple of things that she had nothing to do with that happened during the night and, combined with too much alcohol, started ranting about "how I screwed it up" and how "I was a bad person". Just acting like a tool really. I didn't snap or yell at her, but she tried to comfort me (while obviously confused) to no avail because I was in full retard mode. As for my buddy, I've talked to him twice about it. I'm sure he knows what's going on, but I don't want to pit him against the wife (who is very protective of her younger sister) and ask him for specific info. He hasn't told me anything in the vein of "let it go, it's over", which I'm sure he'd do if that's the info he had. He said that he thinks that she was freaked out, but not in a way to where she hates me. And he suggested that I either a) just hang out with her like I had and try to work my way back up or b) just go all in and tell her how I feel. He's confused by her reaction (at least that's what he tells me) because it's something that goes against her personality and all that he knows about her. I've been trying to not get the couple too involved -- it already is awkward for them since they were the ones who encouraged her to seek me out. Like I said, I do get a chance to see her again soon. I was hoping to just try to be me (the me prior to the stupid, jackass drunken outburst), but perhaps I should take your advice and actually talk about the night in question with her and try to explain/reconcile it. I apologized for it the next morning, but haven't brought it up since because I've barely talked to her since. But if I want to have any shot of a relationship with this girl (even as a friend, which is what I thought she was going to be in the first place), I should probably do what you say. Thanks for your input. Edited August 22, 2012 by Simon Phoenix
Crila16 Posted August 22, 2012 Posted August 22, 2012 Ok well good. You get a second chance. It's true...your buddy would have told you forget it, it was over if she was really that done with you. You DID freak her out. She DID get turned off. That's just coming from a girl's point of view, especially if she didn't know you that well and her feelings hadn't fully developed yet. Though...if you had really done something so horrible, she wouldn't be coming to hang out with you soon. She'd find a way to avoid you and beg her sister not to put her in an uncomfortable situation. Anyway...You need to stop overanalyzing the situation. When you see her, time will have passed and you can talk to her. It was smart that you didn't blow up her phone, otherwise you really would have freaked her out. Good luck and I hope it works out.
Author Simon Phoenix Posted August 22, 2012 Author Posted August 22, 2012 Ok well good. You get a second chance. It's true...your buddy would have told you forget it, it was over if she was really that done with you. You DID freak her out. She DID get turned off. That's just coming from a girl's point of view, especially if she didn't know you that well and her feelings hadn't fully developed yet. Though...if you had really done something so horrible, she wouldn't be coming to hang out with you soon. She'd find a way to avoid you and beg her sister not to put her in an uncomfortable situation. Anyway...You need to stop overanalyzing the situation. When you see her, time will have passed and you can talk to her. It was smart that you didn't blow up her phone, otherwise you really would have freaked her out. Good luck and I hope it works out. I'm hoping to get the overanalysis out of my system now so I can be normal (or relatively normal) when I see her in a couple weeks. This conversation definitely helps. I got in trouble by trying to guess where she was coming from and letting it get into my head, along with my own insecurity about attachment. I don't fall for people easily and stay detached emotionally, but I fell and even though I was enjoying what was going on, I was definitely paranoid that she'd pull the plug or I'd do something to cause that. And lo and behold, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. This one hit me like a lightning bolt because I had no intention of dating her coming in, part because I didn't think I'd see her like that and part because she's out of my league, even though I'm generally not a believer in the league system. I've been trying to figure out where she was at prior to my outburst (slowly building attraction, wanting to get serious and getting frustrated at my pace, just wanting to be friends) and am pretty sure it was option one, but at this point it doesn't matter. Everything that happened prior to the outburst is null and void -- basically if her mind was a computer, our good stuff would in the trash, but not permanently emptied. Anyway, I'm rambling again, but I basically have to stop thinking, guessing and trying to manipulate situations to get the best possible outcome and just act natural. It went great when I was acting natural and it'd be awesome if I could get back to that. But for right now, the goal is to just to get another experience besides the outburst one on the record. After that, who knows. Thanks for your help and well wishes.
Author Simon Phoenix Posted September 1, 2012 Author Posted September 1, 2012 Mini-update on this one. Actually texted her yesterday. I wanted confirmation on some tickets that she was supposed to get us for next weekend, asked my buddy about it and he said he didn't know and I should get in touch with her. So I did. She texted me back right away, answered my question and then asked me how I've been. I told her, asked how she had been and we had a brief text conversation which I didn't drag out. Today she texted me out of the blue offering me tickets to a sporting event tonight (she is a sales manager for a professional sports team). I couldn't go and denied them, but at least the "fade" is over and has me optimistic for next weekend.
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