Theck Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Quick question rather than anything else! Basic background: 31, have had a few short, disastrous relationships with clingy girls over the past few years that have made me wary about dating or opening up to someone. I work in an industry where I only have 2 or 3 employers in the whole country, and only 1 in the city I'm in. This is important! A new nurse started working there about 6 months ago and I immediately thought she was absolutely gorgeous. Eventually I started saying hello, chatting with her, etc etc, friends on Facebook, and she at least knew I generally existed. I was recovering from a back injury, not a serious or permanent one, but enough pain/discomfort for me to feel like I wouldn't be up for dating. So I couldn't ask her out at the start. Fast forward to recently, I'm friends with her at work still and we chat occasionally in the corridor or at lunch. Very hard to get her on her own though. She is without question the most attractive girl I've ever met and she seems like a really nice, fun person to boot. To me anyway, something feels different, something I haven't quite felt about a girl before. Anyway, after a LOT of hyping myself up, I asked her out for a drink after work. I did it fairly well, didn't show my nerves (although I was bricking it) and she told me she was 'kinda seeing someone' and changed the subject. Thats fine, I'll give up and move on, as always. No wait, that hasn't worked this time. I've asked women out in the past and been turned down countless times but I've always just gotten on with life. Hasn't seemed to work this time, I like her too much to just give up on her quite that easily. Since then, I've discovered that she is in fact single (saw her on Tinder, and overheard her saying her closest friends all have boyfriends and all that). Whether she was with someone when I asked, or trying to let me down gently I don't know. But my legs still go to jelly whenever I see her or talk to her, she has a very dangerous effect on me! We're still friends at work, that much hasn't changed, and always say hello and a smile when we meet in the corridor. Anyway, give up and get on with it is the general thought, but I'm buoyed by one of my work colleagues. He fancied a girl who said no initially... but when he asked her out for the third or fourth time, she said yes. Now they're engaged. But I've no experience whatsoever in 'persisting' and hoping she'll eventually say yes ('wearing her down' as my colleague said, choice words!)... and the fact that I work in the same building as her, but have no professional contact, muddies the waters a bit. Has anyone gotten any advice on how to proceed with this? Give up? Move on? Do I have ANY chance whatsoever? Obviously I'm very very interested in her... for once I want to go out with a girl I REALLY like rather than trying to force myself to like someone off the dating websites. If I do broach the topic of asking her out a second time, how should I do it? When talking about the local icecream parlor for instance, should I say "ok so when are you taking me there??", rather than "do you want to go there" or something like that? Throw the ball into her court? Any advice/suggestions/etc would be great. She is certainly nice enough that it won't be long before she meets someone and I'm acutely aware that the mere thought of her being with someone else makes me sick. So I need to do something, even if that something is 'give up'. I have no-one in real-life to talk to about this at all, hence why I'm throwing myself open to your mercies on here! Get me with this girl, or tell me to give up and move on! (Preferably the former!)
petsrule Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 From the sounds of it, all you can do is continue to be friends with her. Try inviting her out along with others from your workplace so it feels more like a work outing, then you won't be making her feel like she has to date you.
d0nnivain Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Somewhere in your friends' conversation ask how her BF is. If she says they broke up, ask her out. If she lies & says fine, you know she's using this fictitious BF as means of keeping you at arm's length because she doesn't want to date you but she values your professional relationship enough that she doesn't want you to ask her a Q which will cause her to hurt your feelings when she says no thank you.
GemmaUK Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 Somewhere in your friends' conversation ask how her BF is. If she says they broke up, ask her out. If she lies & says fine, you know she's using this fictitious BF as means of keeping you at arm's length because she doesn't want to date you but she values your professional relationship enough that she doesn't want you to ask her a Q which will cause her to hurt your feelings when she says no thank you. This ^^^ 100%
mike_89 Posted June 10, 2015 Posted June 10, 2015 As a man I can tell you this, don't accidentally become her "girlfriend". You can be nice to her and everything but if you do all the things friends would do together you will not end up in a relationship with her. Would you start dating a female friend you are not attracted to if she tells you she wants to? The best advice I can give you is this, make her feel > attracted < to you. People look for attraction in the first place when dating, everything else comes second to that. If she is not attracted to you, and you fail to make her feel that attraction, you have absolutely no chance, no matter how kind and nice you were to her. All women are attracted to different types of guys but there are some things that most women in general find very attractive such as looking clean and healthy (so work out a bit, make sure you don't look like someone who is sitting at a desk 7 days a week), being fun/social and being cute in a sort of way (like when you are protective of your little sister). Honestly the best advice in this is "just be yourself". Sounds cliché but it doesn't mean "go in without a plan", what it really means is: do not attempt to be someone you are not, in that case she will be attracted to your persona, not you, and sooner or later you will be yourself and she will lose interest because you are not who she thought you were.
preraph Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 She knows you want to go out. She said she has a boyfriend and declined. If she and her bf broke up, it is her move if she wants to go out with you. My guess is if she's on Tinder, she's not a shrinking violet who wouldn't be able to let you know she's now free. I think she was just telling you no and that you should leave it alone. In a work environment, you can't afford to be persistent after being told an unequivocal "no." 2
O'Malley Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 Chemistry can be a one sided thing. If she was in any way interested, she probably wouldn't have mentioned that she was seeing someone else. I think persisting in asking her out after she turned you down will just reinforce whatever opinion she already has of you...it won't make her see you in a different light. I think spending time and energy trying to get someone to reconsider isn't a good move. Best thing to do when someone, especially a coworker, rejects you is to honor their request and reframe your interactions with them. Just let her see the best of you and focus on meeting other women.
smackie9 Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 She doesn't want to date you, and please stop obsessing....women hate that.
fitnessfan365 Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 If you happen to run into her or she says hi to you, then it's perfectly fine to be civil. In general though, my advice would be to create some distance. Don't go out of your way to talk to her or have lunch with her anymore. Since you have no desire to be just friends with her, being around her on a constant basis will just make you miserable.
PogoStick Posted June 11, 2015 Posted June 11, 2015 If you're intent on taking the difficult road when she's not open to dating you then you'll have to get her spending time with you platonically until her attraction changes. You need to create that group or party environment that she wants to be a part of. In the process you can hope the time together makes her open to dating. So start organizing happy hours, club nights, whatever she might be into. It could even mean joining a volleyball league and getting her on your team. Get other people involved, make it popular and invite her to join when all of you go out. Seems like too much work to me!
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