Her mixed signals and flaking have made me lose a lot of interest in her.

[Flameheart]

Hey everyone. I'm gonna try to sum this story up as best as I can, and because I think it's a good story to tell to hopefully help people who are going through the same thing to know how things like this end up. I met this one female co-worker of mine last April and I'll give some footnotes of my experience with her.

 

- She's a very pretty woman (was 29 at the time I met her, 30 now). Very smart, we have a similar sense of humor, and I found her to be intriguing compared to a lot of women I've met. We clicked pretty well and flirted/bantered constantly. I'm an introvert, so talking to her brought out a lot of confidence in me that I didn't realize I had before. I don't date much since my last relationship, so this was all good practice for me at the time. She had gotten the job because it was right near her apartment, so it was an easy 2 minute walk for her to the store.

 

- I found out that she had a boyfriend which she hinted she was unhappy with, so I did the right thing and backed off from the flirting, but remained cordial. Eventually a week before I found out she was being transferred to another store, she stopped talking about her boyfriend all together after awhile and started initiating a lot of flirting again, so I took it as a sign of interest, and on her last day, I made my interest known, to which she was super excited about. She gave me her number/e-mail and told me to give her a text, giving me huge signals of interest. I wasn't expecting to even go that far with her to begin with, so this was all cool from my perspective.

 

- We set up a coffee date, and it's pretty fun (by this time it's October 2016). Midway through the coffee date, she drops mention of her boyfriend, and I know immediately that I need to back off again. I treated it as just two friends meeting up right when she said that and that was that. At the end of the night, I walked to the front door of her apartment building (to which she was literally shaking, as I got the sense from her body language that I was going to make a move on her, which I had *no* intention of doing knowing that she had a BF), told her I had a good time, and went off on my way.

 

- As I said, I backed off, knowing that trying to date a woman with a BF = bad news. I didn't message her for a week, and all of a sudden she makes her way into my store just to see me to talk. At this point, I assume (and rightfully so, as I found out later), that she had dumped her BF, as she came up giving me the same signals she gave off before. This time she was really ramping up her compliments to me, and she talked about wanting to meet up again. We set up a date, and I figured I'd roll with it and see where things stand between us.

 

- She couldn't meet up for the day we had planned, but she immediately rescheduled with me for another day and we met up for coffee again. This time, I get another red flag. She talks about how she met up with this former co-worker of mine who worked around the same time that she was there. He had flirted with her back then as well, but I didn't think much of it at the time; mainly because I wasn't being self-conscious about the idea of competition, since all I cared about was my interactions with myself and her. I went into things knowing that I felt I was the best out of everybody, with confidence. But yeah, this came up as a huge red flag to me, but despite that, it was a good time. She excitedly expressed interest in meeting up again, but I knew deep down it was better that I backed off again since as far as I knew, she still never made it explicitly clear that she left her BF, and I had no idea what was going on with her and the other guy.

 

- When I backed off, I didn't get any messages/responses of the sort from her wondering where I was, and I assumed that she had lost interest. I didn't see her again until January 2017, when I saw her shopping at the store. She excitedly ran up to me, we caught up, and she mentioned how we should meet up again. She started listing off the days she was free, and I mentioned that I'd like to see her again as well. I figured with this third meet-up I'd ask her upfront what her intentions were so that I could get a solid answer of what her status was. We set up a date, and when that day came, she flaked. She didn't respond to my text, so I just let it be, knowing it's better not to chase after her if she didn't really know what she wanted.

 

-I didn't talk to her for a month. I see her in the store again shopping and she acts like nothing happened (another red flag I noticed). We make some small talk and she mentions how she got her personal trainer license and wants me to stay in touch, as she really wanted me in her life. After she left, I immediately hear one of my co-workers talk about how that previous co-worker and her dated (during the time she was hitting me up), and got pretty serious. The minute she told that former co-worker of mine that she wanted a serious relationship though, he ghosted her. I won't lie, I did get a little bit frustrated with this (I'm only human); I understood her desire to date people, but it felt really strange that she was testing the two of us to see who would be a better fit for her. I didn't confront her about this and moved on, but she ended up getting in touch with me again and talked about how much she cared for me. She ended up crying while telling me this.

 

- I made a second attempt for us to meet up (I try to give all women I'm interested in three chances at least), and she flaked again. I didn't talk to her for three months or make any attempts to reach out to her. I ended up seeing her in her car as I was walking home. I purposely tried to avoid being in her sights, but I think she ended up seeing me somehow. I get a message from her on Snapchat, to which I don't respond to, as I never use Snapchat, and by this point I was getting really frustrated with the push/pull tactics of hers. A few weeks later, I'm walking in front of her apartment building door (I have to do so in order to get to work), and as my luck would have it, she popped right out and ran right up to talk to me. She had this huge smile on her face as if she had got me right where she wanted me.

 

- We make some small talk as I'm walking in to work, and although I tried to cut it short and enter through the dock area of the store, she insisted on staying with me. She talked about how she got transferred to a third store and got promoted. I told her I was happy for her and she talked about how nice it was to see me again and that she really missed me. The next week, I decided to give her that final chance. We texted a bit more and it seemed like she expressed interest in seeing me again, saying that we should "catch up." I usually try to go for a meet-up as soon as I can to reduce the whole texting endlessly thing, so I agreed and that we should shoot for Wednesday. Haven't heard from her since then and she's flaked on me again, so that's the last straw for me.

 

Now, I will say this; she is legitimately busy, and I have seen her work ethic first hand. She gets super into her work and is a perfectionist, which I give her a lot of props for. But, her actions have stopped being consistent with her words, and she's clearly using me for an ego boost/attention when she needs it. I have been dating other women casually during all of this, so I'm not too beat up about this and I make the right moves to move on, but I'd be lying if I didn't find her to be frustrating in terms of her behavior whenever she re-enters my life. I'm quite certain that her push/pull approach happens because there's someone else out there she actually wants to be with over me, but the unfortunate thing is that I can't really escape her like I want to because the chances of my seeing her at work or going to/from work are quite high.

 

Because of all of this, I've decided to be cordial when I see her and end the conversation ASAP. I don't have any intention of asking her out again, and I don't really feel I did anything wrong by any means. I'd like to think that I was misreading signals, but the way she's done things has been hot and cold. I've been confident whenever I approach her, but I think a lot of her underlying issues (not knowing what she wants, being flaky, seeking attention, etc.) have really killed any enthusiasm I have for seeing her again. I've come to the conclusion that she admires a lot of qualities that I have and finds me attractive, but she doesn't like *me.* Part of me wishes it had all worked out, but sadly, life doesn't work that way.

 

Ultimately, I'm not ashamed that I went through this. It helped me out a lot in terms of knowing what I want from a woman, and it's given me a lot of clarity going forward. You live and learn, and sometimes stuff like this helps us know who really wants to be with us and who doesn't.

[preraph]

No reason you should be ashamed. You set some boundaries, which is good, and she is messy. She's wanting attention and very persisten, while clearly still hung up on or engaging with her ex. If she's this persistent but flaky with you, think what he must be going through trying to get her out of his life. She's just messy and flakey. You did the right thing pulling back.