Hey guys,

I’m hoping that I am posting in the right forum, but if not, whoever can move this into the correct forum please do.

There is a girl I know ( we’ll call her S ) who I have known almost 5 years in March, and I feel I am at a stand still.

I met S by accident. I was mainly going to meet a friend of hers who I was set up on a blind date with, only to find out she already had a boyfriend ( super long story, but the moral of the story is it you’re going to set someone up on a blind date, make sure you talk to the person on a daily basis ). I still came and met up, and S was with the group. I got to talking with her and sent her a friend request on Facebook and we talked more. At first she wasn’t my type, but the more I talked to her, I don’t know but I just grew to like her more. This was a huge milestone for me because prior to meeting her, I was still hung up on my ex girlfriend who I was finding it impossible to move forward from.

At some point S became distant for whatever reason and we didn’t talk again until January 2014, when she messaged me out of the blue and asked if I would be interested in going on a blind date with her friend. I was irritated but initially agreed, only to tell S later on that I was more interested in getting to know her better, though not saying I wanted to date or anything ( one of the mistakes I made with my ex was going out with her after only knowing her for a month ). She immediately shot me down, saying “no thanks” and I was crushed, but then begin to think “well what’s the point in even being connected with this person?” I never bothered to talk to her until she ( again ) messaged me out of the blue in July 2015 and sent me this message:

”Hey Tim,

I know this is coming out of left field, but you had a Facebook status a while ago commenting on reconciling with friends and it resonated with me in regards to our interactions. I was kind of terrible and disrespectful to you in years past. I apologize for not communicating honorably with you. Would you maybe was to grab coffee (on me) and restart being friends?”

I agreed, mostly because it’s not common for someone to apologize to me, and also because I don’t hold grudges. I know that she was going out with someone so I didn’t think anything of it. We ended up walking around a local university for a couple hours and I decided to ask her how things with her and her boyfriend were going and she told me they had broken up months ago and explained how horrible he was. She then talked about how she wanted someone who would be committed to her, even if things got rough, and he wasn’t into wanting to work things out. This striked me because I felt the same way about being in a relationship. Of course, feelings started to come back. I asked her if she wanted to hang out again but of course, she was busy and such. I ended up not talking to her again until April 2017 ( not because I was mad, but because life ended up becoming insanely crazy and I had to deal with that ).

I went to a local Street arts festival and while I was on my way back to my car I ran into her and a couple of her friends. She said hey and I said hey back as we walked closer and was going to give her a handshake but she immediately gave me a hug. It weirded me out because I never knew her to be like that, but it was nice nonetheless. We talked for a bit and she was bringing up things we had talked about 2-3 years ago, which also surprised me.

S sent me a message in July out of the blue asking how I was doing and we talked for a bit. A couple of weeks later I came across her on Bumble and swiped right for her, and apparently she swiped right on me and we connected. This was the second time this had happened ( first time was in 8/2016 ). We then scheduled a time to meet up. As we talked, I asked her about Bumble and was seeing if she felt a certain way for me, to which she responded “I’m really not good with dating apps but when I’m on there, I always swipe right for my friends.” Kind if bummed me out at first, but then when I spoke with other people about it, they thought differently and were like “Dude, she’s into you. She probably is too shy to say anything.” So I kept pursuing her, but kept in mind that it would probably be more as friends for the time being ( which I was fine with ). We met up at a local event another time and she sent me a personal message wishing me a happy birthday and talking about whatever. I then sent her a message wishing her safe travels to Dubai and she responded with this:

”Tim! You’re so kind. Thank you for the well wishes. You’re welcome to text me, though my response time may be just as poor. *** *** ****
Send good vibes my way for travel. It’s a long haunt this time around.”

It blew my mind, because I never asked for her number so I felt like “ok, she must really be interested.”

Fast forward to a month later, and I ran into her at another event and I asked about her trip and when it was time to part ways I asked what her schedule was like the next couple of weeks, and she told me “I’m going to be kind of busy with work stuff “ ( she works for the Health department and with being gone for a month almost, I figure she had a lot of catching up to do so I didn’t think much of it ) and I said “we should hang out soon when things wind down.” She didn’t really respond with a yes or no.

Shortly after that, my Grandma was in end stage kidney failure and I was attending to her until her untimely passing in mid October. S sent condolences to me when she heard. I didn’t talk to anyone for a month, and when I felt comfortable talking to people again, I messaged S, and I noticed she seemed rather distant this time around. One text exchange, I asked how her weekend was and she responded with “I got dumped this weekend but it had to happen.” I was surprised and bummed. I apologized that she had to go through that but inside felt kind of hurt. I brought this up to my sister in law, who had this to say:

”She clearly is into you but seems a little unsure how to tell/let you know. Though I will say the way she’s talking about everything reads a bit desperate. The over-explaining: she *wants* you to know she’s single/available, she wants you to know she was looking for something a bit more serious, she wants you to make the next move but she’s unsure, and she really wants it to happen sooner rather than later. But it comes off a bit tacky and desperate, like, “Hey, please please please do something but you BETTER do this the right way (my way).”

I took her advice to wait a week to see if she wants to get together and hang. I texted S to see how her weekend looked, and she didn’t respond. To be honest, she doesn’t say anything to met until I text her to wish her a Merry Christmas ( but I figure this was because you don’t be rude and not saying anything to someone when they wish you a happy holiday. I learned this from my ex, who responded back to my Merry Christmas message, only to dump me a couple days ).

So with all of that info, what do I do? I wanted to try and be her friend, but it shouldn’t be this hard to connect with someone, and if they don’t want to connect back, they should say something. I want to ask her how she feels and what her intentions are just so I know what to do, but I don’t know how to approach her. All I know is this: I hate having to go through this cycle all the time with S. I want to know her on a deeper level because she seems to have an interesting story, but if she wants to be nothing but Facebook friends, I want her to tell me so I can dedicate myself to someone else.