ubcs Posted September 16, 2013 Posted September 16, 2013 Long post, sorry for the rant I have a friend in college who after my freshman year I started to develop feelings for. This has honest to goodness never happened to me before in my life. Even throughout high school I never developed a crush, so this is a completely new concept for me. She is a generally quiet, introverted person. We'd developed a sort of "playfully antagonistic" relationship that often came down her lightly hitting me (childish I know, but that's just sort of who she is), that most people we knew including her closest friends and confidants always considered to be pretty flirty. This puts our relationship in a weird place when compared to the other people she considers friends - with her closest friends she is warm, cuddly, tells them everything, etc. and with her general friend group she is relaxed, cordial, and willing to talk. With me, however, she generally doesn't speak much to me in a non-competitive context, or open up much about her private issues in person as she might with her other friends. She also generally doesn't seem to be as "excited" to see me as she is with her other friends, and tended to try to avoid being along with me in a one-on-one situation. However, I was the sort of "go to guy" for leading a maybe three times a week dinner for our group of friends at a campus dining hall, and she would go to every one, even if it was only us two and only one other person. Additionally we had an awkward experience near the middle of the semester. She told me she was trying to flirt with me, then said just kidding. I let her know how upset I was about this, and she started apologizing profusely, which is something that is extremely unlike her. When I explained the next day that I was willing to forgive it but that things like that were hurtful to me because I'd never dated or flirted with anyone before and I thought she was very attractive, she said okay (pretty much literally, she can be big on one word answers) and tried to move on and forget about it and not talk about it. However, things started to change after that - she wanted to hang out with me more, even in a one-on-one situation. I didn't make a move then because of what had just happened, but there were several incidents including resting her head against my leg or sharing a pillow while watching a movie, and a moment where there was an uncharacteristically physical episode when we were sharing a couch - any touching at all is different seeing as we don't even hug after coming back from summer or winter break. She would sometimes text me saying along the lines of "I'm bored," but with a really cramped dorm room I really didn't want to invite her over to sit around a small laptop screen, although the one time I did she was happy to come. She would still avoid talking about any sort of personal feelings or anything. Eventually this episode subsided, and I started talking to her closest friends about their opinions on the situation, and they agreed that her behavior was oddly flirty. She had gone back to her more distant ways, however, and with finals coming up I decided not to push it. During the summer, she started contacting me a lot more. A lot of the times in the past I was the sort of initiator of any sort of conversations we'd had, but she began messaging me, often about little personal things she was excited about, eventually getting to the point where we'd talk every night over facebook, and if conversation died out she'd awkwardly try to start it again. I thought this was a good sign, because she wasn't talking like this to anyone else except the people she was closest with. An even better sign was when she basically asked if she could stay in my apartment (over that of her closest friend on campus) for a few days until she could move in to her own. At this point, everyone I asked about it figured that I was basically a go - including her closest friend. For the record, she continued speaking with me after I offered to let her stay in my apartment so it's not as if she was trying to butter me up. Once we got back to school, about three weeks ago and she was staying in my apartment, things turned distant again. She'd speak with me every morning and every night, just like normal, but while we were out during the day (band camp) she wouldn't say a word to me. For (maybe) some context in this, she does take medicine for ADD that noticeably wears off at night - which was the most common if not the only time she'd contact me over the summer. Once she moved back into her own place, that basically continued, except she continued to text or message me about the little things for the next week or so. I figured she might just be awkward around me because of her feelings (she is a pretty awkward individual, as am I) so I decided to lay my chips on the table and ask her out after talking with several people, all of whom agreed I was in a good spot. I asked her to watch her favorite movie in a "dating" context. I asked if she wanted to watch the movie together in person, but didn't clarify whether it was a date because we were walking to classes. Later that night she contacted me and asked me to clarify. I do and she said yes and told me she could be weird in dating situations like this so she wanted to take it slow. I agreed, and so when we watched the movie I didn't make any sort of romantic overtures toward her and decided to just watch the movie and play it cool. When I asked her if she wanted to do it again she said that she didn't know, told me that she didn't like how I spoke to her friends about my feelings for her, and then proceeded to not talk to me for two days until I confronted her (over text, she had been avoiding me in person) and she finally told me that she wasn't interested but didn't know how to tell me. When I told one of her friends what happened they said that she had told them that I was "incredible," but that the date was awkward and she felt no attraction toward me. We've met in social situations with plenty of other people around (board game night, several dinners) and it's kind of like we're back to normal - argumentative, familiar - but outside of those two situations she barely looks at me. It seems to me as if she's trying to pretend that it never happened, but it's definitely cast a shadow over all of our interactions. In fact, it seems as if she's avoiding me, no longer going to hang out in places she once did. She's stopped messaging or texting me, but responds in a generally friendly, if weirdly distant, fashion if I talk to her. I understand the need to give her space, so I haven't been contacting her much about it, but it's freaking me out. I really don't want to lose this friendship so I don't know what to do. I''m not sure if she legitimately isn't interested in me in any fashion other than a friend or if it was just that I went about asking her out poorly. Any insight would be great. TL/DR: Longtime friend, two year friendship, common consensus was that she was being flirty with me. Asked her out, watched movie, she avoids me then told me she isn't interested in dating. Friendship has seemed strained for the past week. Not sure if "friendzone" or just a really poorly handled date. Kind of panicking, also just need to rant. Questions: Do you think that she was interested for a time and then I missed my chance, or was I just misreading the signs? She doesn't have a very wide circle of friends, so there most likely isn't someone else she is interested in. Rebuilding a friendship is obviously not something can be done unilaterally, but is there anything I can do to help facilitate the process? Would asking her to start doing things with me and a group of friends be a good idea or should I give it a few more weeks? Is there any good way get someone who is uncomfortable talking about feelings with me to talk about feelings with me face to face instead of forcing an avoidable conversation over facebook or text? The only information I've gotten over what's going on in her head has come from secondhand sources, so I'd really like some insight into what she was thinking, but I don't want to make things any worse between us. Finally, and somewhat ashamedly, are there subtle ways to let her know I'm still interested in her without becoming too pushy or intrusive? (Much later down the line, obviously, and our friendship definitely comes first.) Thanks for any sort of help, and I appreciate it if you took the time to read through all of this.
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