Dear Priyan:

You asked: “How did I end up in this situation?“- let’s see…: you (32) were sexually attracted to a woman (37) in a bathing suit, in a public pool=> you had dinner with her the same evening, an evening with “lots of sexual tension“. You told her that evening that you “would like to seriously date her“, and she didn’t give you an answer=> a week later, she gave you an answer: “not ready to emotionally invest in a relationship, but, she would be willing to casually hook up“.

Next, you hooked up and the relationship fit the Friends With Benefits category (a relationship that is sexual but not romantic, no commitment and no strings attached. It can be short term or long term. The extent of emotional involvement in different FWB relationships is different because no two people are identical and therefore, no two FWB relationships is identical).

Next, “she wanted to cuddle and talk after sex… she started texting and calling me every day and even expected me to stay the night with her when she got sick“=> you told her that you were “not looking for anything other than sex from her“-

– I suppose that your initial motivation “to seriously date her” was.. not your true motivation when you had dinner with her on the same day you met her for the first time.. that it was something you said at the time while under the influence, so to speak, of all that “lot of sexual tension“…?

* It is possible that at that point, when you told her that you were not looking for anything other than sex with her, that her feelings were hurt.

Next, you started staying nights with her, even entire weekends and accompanied her on shopping trips during which “she made sure that I never touched her/held her hand in public and never introduced me to her friends or family“. When she left the country for 5 weeks, she regularly sent you amorous, romantic text messages and used a pet name for you. It is at that time that you “started developing feeling for her“- romantic feelings, that is.

Next, you told her that you had feelings for her, and her response: “she showed no emotions and asked for some time to think about it“. Next, she said “she didn’t feel the same way. She said she saw me only as a good friend and an awesome sexual partner and nothing else“.

When you brought up to her the romantic, amorous text messages she sent you when out of the country, she told you that “she thought she felt something when we were apart but those feelings went away after she saw me in person and had sex“.

Currently, the two of you still “meet for sex“, but she no longer sends you amorous texts and she no longer uses a pet name for you.

“Did I misread her cues and signals?.. Or was it my imagination that she felt something for me?“- I don’t think that you misread her cues and signals; that it was your imagination that she had romantic feelings for you. I think that she really did have romantic feelings for you.

“Or did I do something that made her lose interest in me?“- possibly when you told her, after she clearly expressed a romantic need for you, that you were not looking for anything other than sex with her. No doubt that such a statement would offend many women.

“How do I let this go and deal with the pain?“- I am sorry that you are dealing with pain. If the two of you were able to be very honest with each other, that would help the two of you!

Maybe you can show her how honest you can be, and that will motivate her to reciprocate your honesty.

Here is what this honesty I am referring to may look like, as an example of what could be true to your situation (I don’t know what is true because a very honest conversation between the two of you didn’t yet take place): the two of you met in a pool, sexual tension was high on your part, maybe more than on her part. During the first dinner, fueled by sexual tension, you told her that you seriously wanted to date her (but meant that.. you seriously wanted to have sex with her). Scared of having her feelings hurt yet again in the context of a traditional relationship (as I am guessing happened many times in her past, particularly being that she is 37), she wanted to protect herself by placing the relationship in the FWB box.

Next, she wanted out of that box (yet, not ready to leave it), but when you told her that for you, she belongs in that box (that you were not looking for anything other than sex with her), you kind of added a lock to that box.  You eventually developed romantic feelings for her and told her about it.. but she heard- and answered you- from within that box.

What do you think…?

anita