Dear jwhy:

You are welcome and thank you for your kind words!

About her tendency to go quiet- it is a good thing, if the purpose is not to say anything “in the heat of the moment”, so “to not cause unnecessary pain”. But like you said, her going quiet in the context of a LDR caused you unnecessary pain, so it defeats the purpose, doing the opposite of preventing pain.

In Jan 2019, you texted her that she was your favorite person, and you interpreted her response (“this would be high on the list of her personal accomplishments”) to mean a No to a romantic relationship. I agree: you made a quick, untested assumption, and you should have asked her what she meant by it. I also agree that you “should have gone the next step and asked her what she thought would happen had I done so” (moved to the mountains with her).

The best way to avoid basing your choices on wrong assumptions is to test your assumptions by asking questions and evaluating the answers you receive. (A non- answer is an answer. An indirect answer is also an answer, it gives you valuable information, even if it is a dishonest answer).

It reads to me that she had some romantic interest in you, but that interest was not strong enough to stop her from moving to the mountains; not strong enough for her to consider moving back to your city, or any city; and not strong enough to give it more long-distance time (so that you move to the mountains with her later).

It would have had to be a very strong romantic interest for an intelligent, independent woman to change her plans to move to where she wants to move to; to live where she doesn’t to live.. all to accommodate a romance. So it doesn’t surprise me that her interest was not that strong.

anita