Relationship Woes and Advice 21: Time To Go Bar-Hopping

[Objection]

"Nuclear Option"? What does that mean in this context?

If I remember rightly, it means cutting off literally all contact with her forever. For official purposes, she no longer exists.

[rogueboy]

Ok, aftermath question for you all. As some of you might remember, I asked out a girl (call her N for the sake of identifiers) about a month ago, and she turned me down. Based on that exchange (which was via email, for various reasons, I know that wasn't the best option), I had been under the impression that we both felt our friendship was important, and would remain intact (nothing explicit was said regarding the latter, although the former was). Flash forward a couple weeks, and C (a mutual friend) and I discuss the fact that we should have another game night soon, since we haven't had one in a while and we all got through a stressful piece of our grad careers recently. Well, today, while playing soccer, I ran into M (yet another mutual friend), who asked if I was going to N's place tonight for a game night. Long story short, I hadn't (and still haven't) been told anything about this game night aside from that.

Which, possibly because I overthink things, has led me to wonder whether or not N has some reason for not inviting me. While I obviously would have preferred a yes, I absolutely respect her saying no, and thought I had made that clear to her.

We've both been busy with research and (for me) teaching, so we haven't seen each other much, although the times that we have seen each other and talked, there hasn't been any animosity (or annoyance, or anything else) that I've noticed.

I guess my questions are thus:
1 - am I overthinking the game night lack-of-invite thing?
2 - should I simply give her time to allow any awkwardness that I might not be noticing disappear? Or should I mention this to her? If I bring it up: in-person, or should I go with email/gchat to mitigate possible awkwardness?

I thought I had managed to avoid this part this time around

[NoobForHire]

So, there's this girl (of course, why else would I be posting here?)

Spoiler

Show

We've been friends for a couple months now, and I reeeeally like her, and she knows this. She does have a boyfriend, but she complains about him a lot and has talked to me about breaking up with him multiple times. She's also said that she would date me if she wasn't with him.

For a while now, she's been hinting that she wants to do the no-no with me. Finally, about two weeks ago I asked if she actually wanted to. She said yes.

But the four or so opportunities we've had (Being in my last year of high school, I still live at home. Because of that, parents need to be gone.) she has had some excuse.

So I guess I'm asking if she's serious or just leading me on. For both the sex thing and just for dating.

[AtlanteanTroll]

Odd text convo. Asked girl if she wanted to make good on the raincheck from earlier in February. She asked if it would be as friend or as date. I said date.

This happened.

Spoiler

Show

She: "Im kinda not looking for a boyfriend or anything right now so I'd prefer it to be just as friends. So sorry. :-\ I can't."
Me: "I sort of figured as much."
She: "Yeah."
Me: "It's sort of a relief on my part. At least you know that between Church and I, and whatever others I have no clue of that surely must've tried, whenever you do feel like it, there are people who are interested... Even if they may all be buffoons in your eyes. :)"
She: "lol. Thanks, AT."

I guess that last thing I said was odd. But it just felt ... right, like, in my heart.

General question (which probably has no answer, as no two people are the same), does asking someone out when they aren't looking for a BF hurt them if they ask again when they *are* interested?

[Triscuitable]

I believe that it may add a layer of awkward feelings to the askee, but besides that, I don't see how that could have any negative repercussions.

[Grinner]

General question (which probably has no answer, as no two people are the same), does asking someone out when they aren't looking for a BF hurt them if they ask again when they *are* interested?

It would be that if that decision proved detrimental in the future, causing regret, or if they became embarrassed about the repeat attempt.

Honestly? Don't worry about it. It sounds like it went over well enough. At least she understood what you meant.

[Coidzor]

Atlantean Troll: Depends upon how on the fence they were about the other person to begin with, how the person asking them out and handling the rejection, whether the person asking them out had known they were actively not looking and whether that's actually that much of a sticking point for them(generally isn't really one, but would be one more black mark against a person they thought was ugly or otherwise subpar), and how they announced that they were on the market again.

There's a few ways that I see it generally going down. First up are the three where she's already made up her mind and nothing can be done, barring something catastrophic or otherwise worldchanging, and those are the people who she'd never consider or whom she has already rejected either internally or externally on all pertinent levels and especially the visceral, the people she'd probably have just said yes to in the first place even if she wasn't looking because damn, and the people who she would actually pursue actively herself regardless of situation.

The people who actually could be affected by this are those who she'd never really thought of or that she was undecided/on the fence on the subject of such people. And it could either repel her, get her to start considering the person in order to get categorized at all, or attract her/be something she'd file away.

tl;dr: Some people are already ME GUSTA and others are DO NOT WANT, odds are heavily in favor of a given situation falling under the ??? label though.

[Vella_Malachite]

Hey guys. Quick one - I have a query (not NSFW, but I don't feel comfortable posting it on open boards). Does someone have an open PM box?

[Glass Mouse]

No, no worries. It's just too early in the morning to go into my sob story.
"Nuclear Option"? What does that mean in this context?
Here's my thought process so far (excluding the half-hour of complete shock):
Well, it's rude to just ignore somebody. Looking at things objectively, though, she's the last person who deserves my civility. Also, today is her birthday. So I'm not sure whether I should be nice to her, or whether replying to an email with such basic social interactions as, "Hey, it's been a while. How have you been?" would upset her.
So when in doubt, ignore the problem and hope it goes away, all the while actually not ignoring it and instead actually kind of freaking out about it. That's what I've been doing so far.

If it's not too late, just delete the mail. Or read it, then delete it (just in case it's an olive branch or another kind of closure).

I know how easy it is to fall in that kind of "ignoring", but in my experience it's usually a sign that you need to do something for yourself and throw out all "should"s.

And it being someone's birthday should never be a reason to do something you don't want to. If she's reckless enough to send an email to someone she had a messy relationship with on her birthday, she should be able to handle if it doesn't pan out well. You can be friendly, polite, detached, not answer, or even be rude, depending on her mail and your relationship, and her birthday shouldn't factor in.
I understand not wanting to be cruel or rude when there's happiness to destroy, but if someone kicks a hornet's nest, they're just asking for it.

Of course, I'm a total cynic about birthdays, so my perspective may be a little off.

If I remember rightly, it means cutting off literally all contact with her forever. For official purposes, she no longer exists.

Pretty much. I've been reading way too much Doctor Nerdlove, it seems

So, there's this girl (of course, why else would I be posting here?)

Spoiler

Show

We've been friends for a couple months now, and I reeeeally like her, and she knows this. She does have a boyfriend, but she complains about him a lot and has talked to me about breaking up with him multiple times. She's also said that she would date me if she wasn't with him.

For a while now, she's been hinting that she wants to do the no-no with me. Finally, about two weeks ago I asked if she actually wanted to. She said yes.

But the four or so opportunities we've had (Being in my last year of high school, I still live at home. Because of that, parents need to be gone.) she has had some excuse.

So I guess I'm asking if she's serious or just leading me on. For both the sex thing and just for dating.

No matter what, if she's that willing to fool around with you behind her boyfriend's back, she is not girlfriend material. Seriously. Planning sex with someone who is not your boyfriend is just crossing all kinds of lines.


Edit:
@Vella: If I can be of any use, feel free to write

[DeadManSleeping]

Hey guys. Quick one - I have a query (not NSFW, but I don't feel comfortable posting it on open boards). Does someone have an open PM box?

My PM box is always open. I'm not popular enough to keep it filled anyway

[Vella_Malachite]

Thanks for the advice guys, problem sorted and fears assuaged.

[NoobForHire]

No matter what, if she's that willing to fool around with you behind her boyfriend's back, she is not girlfriend material. Seriously. Planning sex with someone who is not your boyfriend is just crossing all kinds of lines.

I do see what you're saying, and I've kinda been feeling that way. I do, however, think that attention should be drawn to the fact that she does want to break up with him; he just hasn't given her a reason to.

At any rate, thank you for your advice.

[DeadManSleeping]

The only "reason" you need to break up with someone is "you don't want to date them anymore".

If she's that desperate for a reason, she can just tell him she's planning on having sex with someone else, and let HIM do the breaking up.

[Glass Mouse]

I do see what you're saying, and I've kinda been feeling that way. I do, however, think that attention should be drawn to the fact that she does want to break up with him; he just hasn't given her a reason to.

1) She says she'll break up with him. Benefit of doubt and all that, but you don't know until she does.

2) You don't need the other person to give you a reason to break up. If you don't love someone or don't want to be with them, that's reason enough.
This could, however, just be ascribed to immaturity and not malice.
(edit: yeah... what DMS said)

I don't know what her deal is, but there are a few red lamps going off in my head. Of course you know her best, but be careful, all right?

[NoobForHire]

Fair enough, that all makes sense. I'm probably wasting my time, so I'll just kinda sit back and see what happens.

Once again, thank you for the advice.

[DeadManSleeping]

Ok, aftermath question for you all. As some of you might remember, I asked out a girl (call her N for the sake of identifiers) about a month ago, and she turned me down. Based on that exchange (which was via email, for various reasons, I know that wasn't the best option), I had been under the impression that we both felt our friendship was important, and would remain intact (nothing explicit was said regarding the latter, although the former was). Flash forward a couple weeks, and C (a mutual friend) and I discuss the fact that we should have another game night soon, since we haven't had one in a while and we all got through a stressful piece of our grad careers recently. Well, today, while playing soccer, I ran into M (yet another mutual friend), who asked if I was going to N's place tonight for a game night. Long story short, I hadn't (and still haven't) been told anything about this game night aside from that.

Which, possibly because I overthink things, has led me to wonder whether or not N has some reason for not inviting me. While I obviously would have preferred a yes, I absolutely respect her saying no, and thought I had made that clear to her.

We've both been busy with research and (for me) teaching, so we haven't seen each other much, although the times that we have seen each other and talked, there hasn't been any animosity (or annoyance, or anything else) that I've noticed.

I guess my questions are thus:
1 - am I overthinking the game night lack-of-invite thing?
2 - should I simply give her time to allow any awkwardness that I might not be noticing disappear? Or should I mention this to her? If I bring it up: in-person, or should I go with email/gchat to mitigate possible awkwardness?

I thought I had managed to avoid this part this time around

Wow, sorry I missed this.

I'm not sure if your social circle does things differently, but generally, this is how invitations are handled.

A: Hey, are you going to event?
B: I hadn't heard it was happening
A: Okay. Now you have. Are you going or not?

Even if you aren't "invited" to something, you can be perfectly welcomed. I've been to game nights I wasn't invited to by any of the hosts, yet everyone was pretty happy to see me.

If I were you, I wouldn't discuss the awkwardness, but I'd start trying to talk again. If your friendship is important, then be a friend. Bother her over your favored mode of communication just because you haven't talked to her in a long time. It's acceptable, and I can say with certainty that it feels nice to be missed.

[rogueboy]

Wow, sorry I missed this.

Glad you came back to it, even if it was a bit delayed. A whole, like, 18 hours after I posted

I'm not sure if your social circle does things differently, but generally, this is how invitations are handled.

A: Hey, are you going to event?
B: I hadn't heard it was happening
A: Okay. Now you have. Are you going or not?

Even if you aren't "invited" to something, you can be perfectly welcomed. I've been to game nights I wasn't invited to by any of the hosts, yet everyone was pretty happy to see me.

I've done that on occasion. Part of the reason I didn't this time was that I had no idea when it was (and I know that N is usually working on Saturdays, so it could just as easily have been 5ish as 8ish). The other reason I didn't press M about it was the whole overthinking thing that I tend to do, especially when something catches me off-guard like that.

edit for clarity of the above: M didn't offer anything beyond "oh, really?" when I told her I hadn't heard about it yet, and I was too distracted by the fact that I hadn't heard about it (and my tendency to overthink such things) to ask her about timing and such. If she had offered an invite... well, I don't really know what I would have done. As it was, I ended up playing dnd via skype with some friends, which I've been wanting to do for a while, so it wasn't a night of sitting at home lamenting things, or anything like that.

If I were you, I wouldn't discuss the awkwardness, but I'd start trying to talk again. If your friendship is important, then be a friend. Bother her over your favored mode of communication just because you haven't talked to her in a long time. It's acceptable, and I can say with certainty that it feels nice to be missed.

Fair enough, and it makes sense. I've started realizing that I tend to come up with stupid, screwy ideas if I let myself overthink things, so I'm trying to avoid that by getting input from others - I'm just slightly limited on sources for that input, since I'd just as soon keep certain things from becoming known by certain circles (like our mutual friends and coworkers, in this case).

[Mindfreak]

Hey guys...
I think a girl likes me but...I really, really suck at recognizing the body language that's proper.
So...help please?"

[Coidzor]

Well, what makes you think she likes you?

How does she act around you?

What does she say to you?

What kind of tone of voice does she usually use with you? Especially when she changes tone from addressing someone else to addressing you?

[Sturmcrow]

Hey guys...
I think a girl likes me but...I really, really suck at recognizing the body language that's proper.
So...help please?"

Does she look at you a lot?
Do you catch her looking at you and she suddenly looks away?
Does she initiate physical contact frequently?
Does she seem to find ways to run into you?
Does she play with her hair when she is talking to you?

[DeadManSleeping]

Hey guys...
I think a girl likes me but...I really, really suck at recognizing the body language that's proper.
So...help please?"

It's often difficult in life to be certain if someone is interested in you. The real question you need to ask yourself is: what do you intend to do about it?

[Form]

Hey guys...
I think a girl likes me but...I really, really suck at recognizing the body language that's proper.
So...help please?"

Well, you can either obsess about it for a long time without getting a definite answer or you can take a little initiative and see what happens.

[Castaras]

Well, you can either obsess about it for a long time without getting a definite answer or you can take a little initiative and see what happens.

"Hey, you seem like a cool person, wanna hang out sometime?"

Go from there.

[Shadow of the Sun]

I don't know if this particularly fits here. It sort of involves relationships, and it involves woes? But I don't think you guys can give me any advice, although compassion is enough.

Well!

It appears that I have a crippling fear of being involved in anything sexual. Now, I still have a sex drive, still find people sexy, still...alleviate...that sex drive, and hell, sometimes even do sexual roleplaying. But as I recently found out, an actual sexual situation with an actual person?

I have a panic attack. And lingering anxiety that lasts for days. In fact, I vomitted over it during the last half hour or so.

The reason for this is, in fact, very obvious; I was molested as a child and as such I've probably got some form of sexual post-traumatic stress disorder.

So I'm going to need to see a therapist.

Again.

*sigh*

[Grinner]

@Shadow of the Sun: More power to you, then.

I will mention that a fear of sex seems to be a common one, particularly with those for whom sex is an alien thing.

[John Cribati]

Well, seeing a professional is what we'd have advised you to do anyway, but we can tell you that in addition to speaking to said therapist, you might want to make sure that any significant others know of your situation and how uncomfortable you feel about the subject. Maybe find some way to... work around it? Like the Curtis/Alisha solution from Misfits.

[bluewind95]

Does she look at you a lot?
Do you catch her looking at you and she suddenly looks away?
Does she initiate physical contact frequently?
Does she seem to find ways to run into you?
Does she play with her hair when she is talking to you?

Not all of those are necessarily due to a girl liking a guy (I would daresay none of those necessarily are). The ones I bolded, I tend to do. I don't look at people's eyes when talking to them, so sometimes I look at them when they're not looking to see what color they are. Or just to study their expressions more carefully. If they look back towards me, I'll turn away again.

The last one is more a sign of nervousness than liking people, I think. I keep playing with my hair *all the time* when talking to people. Or even if I'm not. It's just a nervous habit.

[Castaras]

Agreed. I find it difficult to make eye contact also. And I look at people a lot in general - in fact, I'm more likely to avoid looking at people if I like them. >.>

Easiest way is to go up and ask. Not "You girl, you like me, wanna bone?" (unless that's how you and her work, then more power to you! Much easier to deal with. ) but more "Hey, coffee/lunch/icecream?". Then talking.

[noparlpf]

I make it a habit to consciously maintain eye contact with people when talking. More so than normal people, actually, according to one friend.

[Serpentine]

It's actually a bit uncomfortable when there's too much eye contact... I think I find tending to move one's eyes around and touching base with the other person's oftenish is the best way.
In Indonesia, if you look someone in the eye when you're talking with them, it means you don't trust 'em.