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Molly's Lips (girl thread)
To Desire
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Well, first off, I'm an alt, as I'm somewhat paranoid about privacy due to a recent work flare-up. But that's besides the point. And pardon for the longwindedness, though I imagine it's somewhat standard in threads like this.
Two years ago, I moved to where I am now after a long post-college period. I'm happy, have a good job, living with some of my best friends from college. Honestly, I've never been in a better situation personally.
Save for this. When I came here, in the circle of friends that already existed and I ended up joining, there was a girl named Molly. First time I saw her, I was kind of struck by how cute she was. I kinda got interested, and for two years it's been snowballing to the point where I can't stop thinking about her.
The problem lies in that despite repeated efforts to talk to her, the one on one conversations we have are very short and unsatisfying. I know a lot about her from group conversations, and from what I've learned she's a pretty interesting, funny, and otherwise fantastic girl. But all my attempts to talk to her one-on-one have been rebuffed with short answers or other uncommunicativeness.
So, simple conclusion to draw. She's not interested in me, right? But that doesn't seem to be the case. Whenever I more or less stop talking to her (or rather stop trying to talk one-on-one) she seems to give a sign that she may still be interested. Asking me questions out of the blue when we're with a group at a bar or somesuch, paying me private compliments (via email), catching her looking at me, that kind of thing. I actually made a concerted effort to avoid talking to her, and it seemed that she showed more interest in me during that time than when I was seeking her out.
Add to this that she seems to have a reputation for not dating. She's definitely interested in guys, goes on speed dating things with friends, and she seems to genuinely want a relationship. But she's really never in one. She's got a nickname among our friends: "Forbidden Island." Where no man goes. (Not a negative thing, she uses the term herself.)
I've been kind of OK with this status quo for a while. Dated a few other girls, been in a bona fide relationship, too. But it's getting to the point where I'm having trouble controlling my interest in this girl. I'm dreaming about her. I base what I'm wearing when I go out around whether or not she'll be there. I'm very self-conscious when she's around, always aware of her presence, standing a little straighter, sucking in the gut a bit when I know she's looking. To the best of my knowledge, neither she nor any of my friends is aware of my romantic interest in her. I don't want to make into something that gets gossiped about and starts affecting everyone's interactions with us. But it's getting to the point that I just need help to deal with this. I nearly told it to a friend last night after a lot of drinking.
I don't know what to do in this situation. There's a very good chance that if I tell her I'm interested in her, she'll reject me, and at that point that would be crushing. But the alternative is playing this game, which stresses me out to no end and keeps cultivating this unrealistic image of her. I'd kill to have a good one-on-one conversation with her and start building a more solid friendship at least, but it never happens despite my efforts.
So, I'm at my wit's end. Rock and a hard place. Any advice that you can offer, PA, would be immensely valuable.
Two years ago, I moved to where I am now after a long post-college period. I'm happy, have a good job, living with some of my best friends from college. Honestly, I've never been in a better situation personally.
Save for this. When I came here, in the circle of friends that already existed and I ended up joining, there was a girl named Molly. First time I saw her, I was kind of struck by how cute she was. I kinda got interested, and for two years it's been snowballing to the point where I can't stop thinking about her.
The problem lies in that despite repeated efforts to talk to her, the one on one conversations we have are very short and unsatisfying. I know a lot about her from group conversations, and from what I've learned she's a pretty interesting, funny, and otherwise fantastic girl. But all my attempts to talk to her one-on-one have been rebuffed with short answers or other uncommunicativeness.
So, simple conclusion to draw. She's not interested in me, right? But that doesn't seem to be the case. Whenever I more or less stop talking to her (or rather stop trying to talk one-on-one) she seems to give a sign that she may still be interested. Asking me questions out of the blue when we're with a group at a bar or somesuch, paying me private compliments (via email), catching her looking at me, that kind of thing. I actually made a concerted effort to avoid talking to her, and it seemed that she showed more interest in me during that time than when I was seeking her out.
Add to this that she seems to have a reputation for not dating. She's definitely interested in guys, goes on speed dating things with friends, and she seems to genuinely want a relationship. But she's really never in one. She's got a nickname among our friends: "Forbidden Island." Where no man goes. (Not a negative thing, she uses the term herself.)
I've been kind of OK with this status quo for a while. Dated a few other girls, been in a bona fide relationship, too. But it's getting to the point where I'm having trouble controlling my interest in this girl. I'm dreaming about her. I base what I'm wearing when I go out around whether or not she'll be there. I'm very self-conscious when she's around, always aware of her presence, standing a little straighter, sucking in the gut a bit when I know she's looking. To the best of my knowledge, neither she nor any of my friends is aware of my romantic interest in her. I don't want to make into something that gets gossiped about and starts affecting everyone's interactions with us. But it's getting to the point that I just need help to deal with this. I nearly told it to a friend last night after a lot of drinking.
I don't know what to do in this situation. There's a very good chance that if I tell her I'm interested in her, she'll reject me, and at that point that would be crushing. But the alternative is playing this game, which stresses me out to no end and keeps cultivating this unrealistic image of her. I'd kill to have a good one-on-one conversation with her and start building a more solid friendship at least, but it never happens despite my efforts.
So, I'm at my wit's end. Rock and a hard place. Any advice that you can offer, PA, would be immensely valuable.
To Desire on
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Edit: It feels much better to get a "no" and finally get relief from the unknown than to be constantly wondering and hoping.
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
1) She's leading you on, getting amusement via a "come here, now go away" kind of push-and-pull. Indeed, as Fireflash said, that's trouble.
2) She's possibly potentially interested in you, but shy.
3) This is her indiscernible way of flirting.
All three of these can be resolved, and the situation determined, by asking her out.
If she's leading you on, she's going to shoot you down or backpedal if you ask her out. You'll know at that point for sure, and can back away/won't be subject to it.
If she's not leading you on, asking her out should make the situation more direct, cutting through any shyness or other situations that are resulting in this confusing situation.
Hopefully this helps.
But it's complicated by a few things:
1. I'm terrified of the rejection. Regardless of the girl, I don't take it well. And for something like this that I've built up, it could be pretty bad. This is a pretty small concern in the scheme of things, but it stays my hand. I know I can overcome it for this, but it looms large. In addition, I'm worried about a potential rejection changing the dynamic of the group I'm in. It happened to me once before, and it's not something I'd like to repeat.
2. I can't find a situation in which I can actually get enough time alone with her where I can actually physically ask her. Either she or I is surrounded by people most of the time. And when I do get a moment, largely the pleasantries is all that we can do. I don't want to email her, because that just seems... I dunno, cowardly?
I realize I'm essentially making excuses, but the fact is I'm really anxious about it. It feels like there's a lot riding on it.
It's also possible that's not the case. I don't know either of you.
There are also other factors to consider. I'd think long and hard before potentially weirding out your social circle over this crush of yours. There will be repercussions if you attempt to initiate a romantic relationship and it fails for any reason. If you decide that you have a good chance of actually making something work long-term with her (are you sure you do? It seems like you haven't really talked with her one-on-one) then maybe those repercussions are just something you deal with.
Besides, if you ask her out and get shot down she already has a nick name amongst your friends as the "forbidden island" so if you do get turned down you really won't look that bad if you laugh it off and don't get all pissy.
Being rejected is tons better than pining away after her because you get over a 'no', but a 'maybe' won't go away. Call her up and ask her out. That's really the only way you'll figure out where it can lead.
This situation is causing you anguish presently. This won't magically change if you do nothing about it. So you have 3 options.
A) Man up, talk to her and deal with the results, wether good or bad.
C) Keep waiting, keep feeling bad. Continue obsessing over what she's thinking while gaining absolutely nothing good in return.
Battle.net: Fireflash#1425
Steam Friend code: 45386507
This fits what you've described. When you're seeking, its a no go because she doesn't want anything more than that. When youre not seeking, its okay, and will remain okay as long as you toe the line.
Enjoy the mild flirting, keep your options open. Odds are excellent that this thing isn't going to go anywhere.
This is also a large fear to me. I've done it before. I actually showed an email exchange I had with Molly to a female friend who's not connected to the whole situation. I was confused as to whether the comment Molly had sent me was flirting or not. My friend replied "Um... that is very clearly flirting." So I don't think it's entirely in my head.
Though I don't think she's as shy as I may have given the impression of. She's in a field that pretty much relies exclusively on networking to get work. She's talkative with friends, even in one-on-one situations with them.
And the rejection fear is more than feeling bad. It also carries the danger of being unable to move on from it. That's happened before. I'm getting better with it, but still.
If she says yes, celebrate.
If she says no, it'll only become awkward if you let it. You seem concerned that it'll get around to the whole circle of friends, and it might. But if anyone asks you about it, just let them know it's no big deal, even if you have to pretend. Tell them you think she's cute and wanted to get to know her better, but if it ain't in the cards, well there's plenty of more fish out there. And unless this circle of friends is entirely filled with people that lack social graces, that should be that.
Well, I have flirty friends who I have no romantic interest in, and know the type. This doesn't feel like that. It's not overt, it's infrequent, and whenever I respond in any fashion, she clamps down. If she was flirting to get attention, wouldn't she be at least mildly responsive?
Sounds like you know what you need to do. You just need to do it.
And no, there's not a lot riding on it. It's just asking a girl out.
Stop making excuses.
I was crazy about a girl like you are. After two years of being exactly how you are now, I manned up and asked her out, and got rejected. It sucked for two days. After a week, I was fine. After a month, I had moved on.
You're being dramatic and stupid. If she says yes, great. If she says no, why would you want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you?
You can hem and haw all you like, but some perfect solution to gauge whether or not she's interested without letting anything on isn't going to fall out of the sky.
ASK. HER. OUT.
Flirting comes in many different flavours. They don't all taste the same.
Clearly, you want to see an opportunity here. Being that (a)you're already anxious about it, (b)your crush isn't going to magically dissolve anytime soon, and (c) you're going to regret the not asking for years, I don't see much point in dissuasion and why don't you just get on that then.
If she says no, then that would be very bad. I'm horrid at letting relationships go. I'd pine over her. I don't really have a good knack for meeting girls, either, so at least finding another attraction or flirtation to distract me would be difficult. And that could lead to a bigger problem down the road. I guess I want to know how to preemptively deal with that before I'd feel confident asking her out.
EDIT: Somehow missed two posts. The goal isn't whether to ask her out or not, it really looks like if the best (or perhaps only) option. It's figuring out a way to do so that results in me not fucking up a friendship.
No. No. I'm sorry, this is bullshit.
I am so tired of this situation, and it pops up all the time. Guy pines after/lusts for/puppy-loves Girl. Girl might have romantic intentions for Guy, she might not, but they definitely have some sort of a social relationship.
A friendship is when two people enjoy each other's company, when they like to be with each other and get along alright. Sure, you two have that, but you're also hiding something from her. You're hiding the fact that you want to be more to her than a friend. You're basically lying to her about your intentions in the hopes that over time you two will become closer and then one day she'll realize what a great guy you are and she'll fall into your lap and you won't have to put anything on the line for your relationship. If you think that attempting to basically worm your way into her heart (A) can be classified as a "friendship" and (B) is a respectful and honest way to treat this girl you have feelings for, you are flat-out wrong.
It's not this faux-friendship that you're afraid of losing. It's that you want to be as close to her as you can, and you're afraid that if she rejects you that you won't have anything left with her. But you know what? You don't have anything now. No, you say she's a friend, that's great, but it's clear that you don't like her for her friendship - you like that you can take all these things that she's doing and convince yourself that she is into you, and until you confront her about it you can basically do this in perpetuity, because she'll keep toeing the line between friend and flirt and you'll keep overanalyzing everything she does.
Grow up and man up. Maybe she likes you, maybe she doesn't. Best case scenario, she is overjoyed to be with you and you two have a wonderful and mature relationship. Worst case scenario, she's not interested, and you learn the true measure of her character and take a step towards understanding the basis for mature relationships. But the worst possible thing you can do is to maintain this fucked-up relationship, because you're going to keep getting more neurotic and crazy about her and she's going to keep not knowing that anything is going on.
Limed and partly bolded for cold, hard, delusion shattering truth.
I did so because I have been where you are. Just suck it up, ask her out, or get over her. Life's too short to not do any of those things, and it really does make you look like a dick at the end of the day.
There's hope in that you acknowledge your fear of rejection. But it's starting to scab over with your "I don't want to ruin the friendship" excuse.
You never see her outside of your circle? That's fine, try and wait for an outing when you're sorta alone with her, like pool or whatever. You don't have to be completely isolated from everybody else or anything; just ask her out when you have her undivided attention. Kinda like when you're just hanging out with people and the group conversation kinda disentegrates into multiple conversations between other people. It's safe because you basically have a private conversation, and everybody else is having their own conversations. The only person or persons who are going to hear you are people who are marooned from conversation for whatever reason. Or are creepy stalker killers.
If you never have said attention, that's generally means there's a lack of interest. People who are in to you may seem shy or whatever, but they always give you their attention. It's this and the fact that your personal conversations with her are "unsatisfying" are red-flags. You have no chemistry with this girl. Not even basic chemistry it seems. If there is no chemistry this thing is basically dead in the water.
If you want to know what I did in this and other similar situations? There was no chemistry. So I got over it.
Oh, hey I'm making a game! Check it out: Dr. Weirdo!
Damn, Shank, I didn't know you were all smart and shit.
There isn't some magic secret to asking women out and getting over them if it doesn't work out.
Pull her aside and ask her if she'd like to go on a date with you. If she asks why, just tell her she's cute and interesting and you're interested in her. For the love of god do not go into details about this slowly building crush you have.
i say ask yourself why you're putting yourself in this situation where you're dependent emotionally on someone else's inclinations.
Not in 2 years? ok then, so why do you care so much?
what's so great about her, what actual purpose does she fulfill in your life that makes her decisions so important to you?
Continue to date other people, let go of your conception of this person because that conception is not her, and consequently your feelings directed towards "her" are not really you, both are mental projections in your head.
You say you've learned about her mostly from group conversations and others, more than from one on one interaction.
In this kind of setting, lots of people come across as talented, interesting, charismatic. Because hey, people are.
That's how attraction works. Nothing wrong with that. Just don't mix up being impressed with anything beyond that- attaching further significance, or any kind of value to your perception of someone. Don't mix it up with how all these things you like about someone can make you happy.
Courtship tends to be based on mutual attraction- any kind of relationship between 2 people develops organically.
So don't ask her out. Don't avoid talking to her either. Just ditch this binary value system you've developed in your conception of her. Because seriously, you don't know her that much and you know what automatically follows from that? You don't like her that much, she just represents something to you on a subconcious level and you experience that physiologically and emotionally.
that's what makes it so hard. dependency. the association of emotion with fact and situation. awareness is the first, and maybe the only step you need to take.
there will be more emotional difficulty, but eventually, if you make an effort to be aware, it will pass and you will be free of it.
I host a podcast about movies.
Not necessarily because I think she's into you and just shy, but because I think you need to move on and stop gloryfying the girl. If she says yes, then awesome, go on a date and maybe get to know the girl.
If she says no, then you move on.
Especially to Shankill: There's wisdom in what you wrote, harsh as it is. The truth is that my attraction to her is inordinate, and that probably means that in my head she's taken on far more significance than a simple potential girlfriend. I don't know why that is, or how to stop that. I know it's definitely not fair to her, because at this point it's not even about her.
I want to resolve this in such a way where even if she rejects me then that means it's not the end of things with her. I'm not even talking in a romantic relationship sense. I think that there's truth in that I can't really be a friend to her with all this shit in the way. Asking her out, or more specifically finding out her feelings towards me, would go a long way in breaking this down one way or another. That would really be the best way to move forward, I think.
But the rub comes in the following:
Very simply: I don't know how to do this. I have always had trouble with this. There's only one real situation in my life where I can think of where this happened, and it took both a large distance between us, 5 years, and her having simply inhuman reserves of patience. With Molly, I'll be seeing her several times a week, and simply repressing the feelings I have will lead to depression and anger that I'd have to constantly hide. And with that, I can't build any kind of friendship with her. And that's also unfair to her, and unhealthy for me.
This doesn't seem wise. It's just a different type of deception. A deception to spare her, but that's essentially what I'm doing now anyways.
So, you won't ask her out because the fear or rejection and the awkwardness later in her company is too terrible to imagine. But, you won't not ask her out because you can't stop thinking about her and it's unhealthy to act this way.
There is no secret code for finding out if she has feelings for you without her finding out you have feelings for her. Ask her out. Deal with the result. Welcome to adulthood.
The sooner you learn this, the easier life will be.
To "you're talking yourself out of it". I want to do this, and I probably will, as I said before. It makes sense. The situation as it is now doesn't have a good chance of improving. And it's the best (or only, really) way of gaining more information.
My request in that case then is how do I deal with potential fallout. What advice can I take to keep myself from making the situation worse after the fact? "Man up", "Deal with it", and "Move on" are pretty damn vague. I don't know how those phrases translate to thought processes or behaviours.
Why don't you take this one step at a time and see what happens? I'll give you a hint, swearing/crying/pouting if she rejects you is a bad idea. Ask her in passing so that you have an "out" if she says no. You don't want to pull her aside then come back to your friends like a dork afterwards, which I can see happening by the way you're building this up like it's some kind of marriage proposal.
1) Friends all out
2) Molly happens to be not talking to anyone at the moment and others aren't focusing on her
3) "Hey molly, you wanna maybe hang out sometimes, just the two of us," you say.
4) *awkward* "Oh.. well... we'll see maybe sometime," she says OR "Yeah that would be great!"
Either way, you continue normal behaviour.
Is this all spelled out enough by now?
Self enquiry. There is no hard and fast way. It's not like there's some cache you can clear and then you're back to normal.
The real problem is you having these epic feelings for someone you don't know all that well.
Whether you choose to make it a grand date, or a cup of coffee to chat, or a movie you think she'll like, something to get 1 on 1 time. If there is not enough time to safely do it in person, a casual facebook message asking if she fancies a coffee and going shopping with you for some item on which she'll be a far better judge of style than you....
Here is the downside. I know roughly the feeling you describe. Eventually, I never manned up but our lives seperated, I realised she only liked the attention. Had no interest in me. No interest in retaining contact. If I'd asked her straight up I think I'd have discovered that a lot earlier and wasted a lot less time and effort.
Think of it like a plaster/band aid. Remove it quickly or slowly, it is just going to hurt.
they want to be chased and never commit.
i hope the situation is different for you, but any way you look at it, you need to make progress because right now you are just on a treadmill.
I swear I just saw that in fourier (sp?) analysis.
the result can be obtained easily through residue integrals. Fourier is for approximating functions, not for evaluating limits, or in this case, a limit of a sum.
I host a podcast about movies.