God...I
hope you don't. Ugh. This is really long, so I'll slap a tl;dr on the end.
Anyway, lend me your aid. I'm a 16 year-old man/boy hybrid who hasn't had a relationship in...a while. I've had the opportunity, there are two fairly attractive 14-15 year-olds who have pursued a relationship with me, but I really do not care for their personalities...at all.
I know I'm not the best looking guy, but I also know I'm not terrible looking. My last girlfriend was drop-dead gorgeous, but for some reason I'm having trouble with getting another one. What's the problem?
Here's the situation: there are the two freshmen/sophomores, a f/s I know would say yes if I asked her out but I'm not interested, a fellow rising senior who would say yes, except she is in a long and serious (actual-serious, not high-school-serious) relationship, and a pretty, smart, funny, etc etc girl who just got out of a year-long relationship, but seems to be taking it in stride. And therein we come to the point of this post.
She's always nice to me, never aloof, if I arrive in a group of people she will single me out, wave and smile, but I don't slap hyperbole on that; I'm fairly certain that's just a reflection of her thinking I'm not a bad kid. However, I haven't really gone that "deep" with her, if you catch my meaning; we've never had a real, one-on-one conversation, and the most we connect is in a group conversation or in the occasional internet correspondence. I feel that, in particular, is a pretty big hurdle; maybe the biggest.
Now, the thing is, I really don't think that she sees me in a dating manner, but I don't know that she doesn't because I've never really had an intense, personal conversation with her, so I can't get a bead on what she thinks of me at all. It's a confusing situation for me, and seeing as how she is considered quite a "catch", as it were, the idea of her liking me (at best, an average fella...break even on personality most of the time, ahead on intelligence, behind on looks, this from a series of brutally honest friends) is rather optimistic, but fuck, we can dream, can't we?
Anyway, that specific case apart, there are a couple recurring problems I notice in myself.
1) I always overanalyze everything. Every motion, every word, that doesn't seem to fit into the flow of things, I take as the absolute verdict on someone's feelings for me. I am increasingly aware of this problem, but it's still a difficult one to face.
2) A bunch of factors come together to make me a little less "dateable". For example. despite being 16, I have a pretty youthful appearance, and no one has guessed my age correctly that I can remember...ever. They always peg me as a freshman or sophomore, and while youthful appearances may come out ahead later in life, they don't do a lot of favors for me now. Also, my natural personality isn't very boyfriend-ish, I think. I'm goofy, and erratic, and while I tried to temper that to make myself someone else, that worked out much, much worse for me, so I'm approaching normal.
tl;dr: Teenage boy has relationship/self-esteem problems; likes teenage girl, knows her as more than an acquaintance but not enough to even come close to telling if she could ever consider liking him.
Posts
You like her? Get to know her, let her know you. Simple as that.
Meh, yeah, ok.
That's all I needed I guess.
It falls into problem number one: for some reason, I assume there's some kind of a time limit here, so I feel the need to find out ask her out get the answer all of it right now now now oh my god.
I even came to that realization earlier...guess I forgot.
I'm going to leave the thread open until tomorrow morning just to see if anyone has any related anecdotes or advice...I always like reading them, even if they don't apply. I guess I'll lock it after that....it is a bit of a selfish thing to invite an entire thread on :P.
Soonerman kind of said it all, leave your doubt behind, it's highschool and no matter what happens you'll probably never have to see this person ever again in a year or so. So chat her up, move from aquaintence to friend or a point where you will feel comfortable expressing your feelings. Do so. If they are reciprocated then ++ to you, if not, return to line one and don't sweat it.
I disagree with the "calm down" piece, partially. I think it's stressful to not have a girlfriend in high school sometimes. It can be excruciatingly lonely at times and leave you ill-prepared for more serious relationships.
I think you should calm down in the sense that this is normal, but you have these worries for a reason. Pursue a relationship if you want to. If you truly don't want to - then don't.
Do what you feel like doing right now. The ball's in your court and you have at least two decisions from girls coming up to you and just asking you to date them it sounds like. Maybe dating one (or both, not at the same time necessarily) will help you when you see a girl you really do want to date. Have a bit of fun and be grateful that you have girls that like you; not everyone has that blessing.
But as meatflower pointed out, it's only high school, the "youthful appearance" stage will pass. It's only high school, so as SoonerMan said, calm down. I just say - calm down to a healthy extent.
Hit Edit, then Go Advanced (or Edit again) to get to Advanced Edit which will let you change the title.