Vent + Sad = Insanity

[AWHuman?]

Hello Reader,

I had to vent this and it's really long, I'm sorry, I just don't know what to do or how to feel anymore.

Basically I met this girl. I met her two-years-ago, she was the new student around. We got to know each other as acquaintances and kept it at that. About last November (or October, I wasn't really paying attention) she was acting much friendlier than usual such as laughing at lame jokes, poking me, or giving hugs. I originally had feelings for her as a friend, but you know...I just kind of rolled with it and flirted. I started to actually to develop feelings by then, heck I even started to hang out with her more than usual. Around early January I started to have some trouble with my heart (physically) since my mentality and paranoia of losing her or her losing interest of me suddenly popped in my head. So on January 19 of this year, I told her that I liked her, which was a bit stupid since I just said "I like you" and didn't really give a explanation as to why. Well she rejected me and states that "I don't like you in that way, but we can still be friends." Which ment that from now it will be awkward.

It's been about two weeks since then. My friends have been a great help with my recovery, giving me tips and listening. Sure I had a terrible broken heart, cried once in awhile for three days, barely ate because I didn't have the appetite, couldn't sleep properly, and couldn't keep up in school (I'm working on that). But despite that, I wish to maintain our friendship because I care (even for the past rejections I care). Past rejections were more for their looks (because I'm a shallow male), this one was very different since I emotionally liked her. So sometimes I would say a few words with her like "Hi, how's life?", "Toy Story 3 was in 3D, it couldn't have been in 2D".

Okay so here's the main point. Two days after I told her, I apologized for making our friendship awkward. Which she says that's not true. I said that she's avoiding me and I understand that for good reasons, which she responds that I'm avoiding her...really? So after that talk I continue to try to mend our friendship as stated above ^. But she keeps avoiding me. Yes it's possible that I may seem clingy (because before I told her I was a bit paranoid), however I'm just trying really hard to maintain our friendship. If it's because she doesn't want to hurt me, then that's absurd. If its because she doesn't want me to keep liking her then she should have chosen her words more carefully when she said no.

I don't even know anymore, I feel like giving up. Yeah it will take time to mend a friendship, but it's even harder if she's avoiding and it's making me extremely frustrated. My mood changes from depression to anger once in awhile because I think of this. I just want our friendship back. I'm losing my head because of this. If you read the whole thing then I'm really grateful. I really need help.

 

[Lonesome Crow]

Oh damn dude...I hate that ****.
**** it...ask her to hook u up with one of her GFs...or if she has a sister or cousin.

 

[Mary Mary]

I don't know that much about David DeAngelo or what he's peddling, but this article rings true:

http://www.datingtips4men.com/a_secret_women_know.html

The guy in this article sounds just like you.

---

Basically, this girl let you hang around her because she's either an attention whore or she genuinely liked you intellectually. However, her primal self, which I talk about often, did not like you; but when you were friends, her primal shelf did not see you as a threat and stayed dormant. However, when you approached her romantically, her primal self woke up. Her primal self not only has a function of selecting mates (governing sexual attraction) but also defending the female against unwanted sexual attention.

For women, reproduction comes at a very high cost, especially before modern medicine when women often died because of it. Consequently, I believe women are programmed to have an aggression response when they are confronted with unwanted sexual attention. However, in modern times, that response is muted and instead of trying to scratch your eyes out or bite you, she just felt hostility and wanted to retreat from you.

DO NOT INTERNALIZE THIS. Human attraction is governed by subconscious, unevolved processes that make no sense for enlightened humans living in an industrialized world; however, they were hundreds of thousands of years in the making, and they're not going away anytime soon.

The key is to just simply understand it and learn to work with it.

 

[AWHuman?]

I don't know that much about David DeAngelo or what he's peddling, but this article rings true:

http://www.datingtips4men.com/a_secret_women_know.html

The guy in this article sounds just like you.

---

Basically, this girl let you hang around her because she's either an attention whore or she genuinely liked you intellectually. However, her primal self, which I talk about often, did not like you; but when you were friends, her primal shelf did not see you as a threat and stayed dormant. However, when you approached her romantically, her primal self woke up. Her primal self not only has a function of selecting mates (governing sexual attraction) but also defending the female against unwanted sexual attention.

For women, reproduction comes at a very high cost, especially before modern medicine when women often died because of it. Consequently, I believe women are programmed to have an aggression response when they are confronted with unwanted sexual attention. However, in modern times, that response is muted and instead of trying to scratch your eyes out or bite you, she just felt hostility and wanted to retreat from you.

DO NOT INTERNALIZE THIS. Human attraction is governed by subconscious, unevolved processes that make no sense for enlightened humans living in an industrialized world; however, they were hundreds of thousands of years in the making, and they're not going away anytime soon.

The key is to just simply understand it and learn to work with it.

---

Hi Mary,

Thanks for the article, actually it really did ring true lol. But now I'm even more confused as to what to do since if it's her instinct now to stay away, then how do I get her to be a friend again? Should I just give up about doing anything or keep pursuing in mending our friendship? Wish life came with a manual...

 

[Mary Mary]

Just for your sake, I'd consider why you still wanted to be her friend. If it's because of your romantic feelings for her, then it's probably not going to end well if you try to be her friend. Also, be aware that when we feel rejected by someone we have romantic feelings for, it can set up an intense motivational state:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706150611.htm

It may be better to let this pass before you try and be her friend, too.

However, if you decide that you really want to be her friend for intellectual reasons, give it time. It's probably best to wait until you're dating someone else.

 

[AWHuman?]

Just for your sake, I'd consider why you still wanted to be her friend. If it's because of your romantic feelings for her, then it's probably not going to end well if you try to be her friend. Also, be aware that when we feel rejected by someone we have romantic feelings for, it can set up an intense motivational state:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706150611.htm

It may be better to let this pass before you try and be her friend, too.

However, if you decide that you really want to be her friend for intellectual reasons, give it time. It's probably best to wait until you're dating someone else.

Well it's been a week. At China it was Chinese New Year so I didn't see her a good 8 days. I don't know, I don't mind if we returned to being friends, romantic feelings could linger forever. But I value our friendship on a greater degree to say that I will not act all 'lovey dovey boyfriend behavior'. I think the thing that's been driving me crazy as a friend is how she kind of treats me as if I were some disease. Not to some strange degree like she'd back away, but she would acknowledge me and go...away. Only when our friends are around she would freely (to an extent) talk to me. That's why I feel like giving up, I feel she doesn't really want to be friends again.

 

[Mary Mary]

Just for your sake, I'd consider why you still wanted to be her friend. If it's because of your romantic feelings for her, then it's probably not going to end well if you try to be her friend. Also, be aware that when we feel rejected by someone we have romantic feelings for, it can set up an intense motivational state:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706150611.htm

It may be better to let this pass before you try and be her friend, too.

However, if you decide that you really want to be her friend for intellectual reasons, give it time. It's probably best to wait until you're dating someone else.

Well it's been a week. At China it was Chinese New Year so I didn't see her a good 8 days. I don't know, I don't mind if we returned to being friends, romantic feelings could linger forever. But I value our friendship on a greater degree to say that I will not act all 'lovey dovey boyfriend behavior'. I think the thing that's been driving me crazy as a friend is how she kind of treats me as if I were some disease. Not to some strange degree like she'd back away, but she would acknowledge me and go...away. Only when our friends are around she would freely (to an extent) talk to me. That's why I feel like giving up, I feel she doesn't really want to be friends again.

I guess she's just not convinced that you're past her romantically. Maybe some of the others might have advice that they can give you, but you may have to give up at this point. You can revisit after several months of no contact. I'm sorry to hear about this. I know it's tough.

 

[floffyschneeman]

Hi

I think if you instantly want your friendship back, you would make her feel that you are over her. By then she would feel comfortable hanging around with you again as friends. But if you're still not over her, you should give both yourselves some time away and mend back the friendship when both of you have moved on. but not talking to her in the same degree of comfort as before does not mean your friendship is screwed up. sometimes to save a friendship, you have to allow each of you to grow up separately.

My lesbian friend told me she liked me before, I didn't talk to her for a year and was very mad at her. I guess I was immature then. but I couldn't control my feelings. I did not want her to like me and I only want to hang out with her if I made myself sure that she was over me. there were times when we became friends again but I wasn't still not comfortable enough to hang out with her alone. I wanted someone around us. But after those years of being apart, I feel guilty about it by the way, we are genuinely, honest to goodness friends now. I can even joke to her about her lesbian adventures which at that time being angry with her, I could not do. before, it was as if I want her to like guys so that I would know for sure she would never like me romantically. Also one of the good things that that one year of not talking has brought us is that gave her time to get over her feelings and that gave me time to mature up and understand her and the world better.

As for your friend though, I think it's nice of her to still try to talk to you despite the awkwardness, I bet she is making an effort to mend your friendship too. I hope it will go well with the both of you. but just remember that friendship comes and grows naturally, so you don't have to fret about it that much

 

[brickinthewall]

As a person who has been through something very very similar my best advice would be to just try and forget about it. I know it sounds hard and painful but you will eventually get over it (I hope), meet someone else and move on. If you are still having romantic feelings for her it might put you through so much pain you can't imagine , especially if she will think you've gone past it and it's safe for her to tell you everything about her romantic life.

I stayed friends with the girl I love and I can definitely say it has not helped. First of all because still being involved with her meant I couldn't simply forget about her. Romantic feelings never went away and I pretty much spent my life being miserable 24/7. It all culminated at a common friends party where I saw some prick kissing her. Safe to say I had to leave before I decided to permanently implant a beer bottle in the guys head (it hurt so much because I knew the guy and he was a total prick).

The way I see it you have 2 open doors now , one says Exit the other says Suffering. My personal advice would be to take the first before it's too late.

I know it's not the easy answer , but on the long run I believe it is the best solution , you will meet someone else sooner or later anyway.

Best of luck to you and take care!

 

[Sling]

I don't know that much about David DeAngelo or what he's peddling, but this article rings true:

http://www.datingtips4men.com/a_secret_women_know.html

The guy in this article sounds just like you.

---

Basically, this girl let you hang around her because she's either an attention whore or she genuinely liked you intellectually. However, her primal self, which I talk about often, did not like you; but when you were friends, her primal shelf did not see you as a threat and stayed dormant. However, when you approached her romantically, her primal self woke up. Her primal self not only has a function of selecting mates (governing sexual attraction) but also defending the female against unwanted sexual attention.

For women, reproduction comes at a very high cost, especially before modern medicine when women often died because of it. Consequently, I believe women are programmed to have an aggression response when they are confronted with unwanted sexual attention. However, in modern times, that response is muted and instead of trying to scratch your eyes out or bite you, she just felt hostility and wanted to retreat from you.

DO NOT INTERNALIZE THIS. Human attraction is governed by subconscious, unevolved processes that make no sense for enlightened humans living in an industrialized world; however, they were hundreds of thousands of years in the making, and they're not going away anytime soon.

The key is to just simply understand it and learn to work with it.

---

This isn't a criticism of you, just to warn you; I'm just going to sound very blunt because this is a subject that I feel warrants it. I don't like all of this primal-animal instinct argument. There are plenty of good reasons why a relationship can turn awkward when one person wants something different from the other that don't require you to consider women to be unthinking hamsters who respond to stimuli like diodes on a switchboard.

Women may be animals the same as men, but they are still capable of making reasoned decisions, and should be held responsible for their decisions. How do I know? Because I've been in the same exact situation. I was once the target of "unwanted sexual attention", as Mary Mary puts it, from a girl who I really liked as a friend - but I wasn't interested in a romantic relationship with her. I freaked out and shut her out, it got really awkward, kind of like AWHuman's girl. But that was when I was 18, and I've since learned how to behave more maturely. I am able to think and reflect on the situation and alter my behavior based on that. So if I, a guy, can do it, so can girls.

But Mary Mary does make a point I agree with - you should not internalize this incident, you should not assume that all the fault lies with you or that you should have done something different to make everything work right. Maybe the girl is being awkward or touchy around you now, possibly because she feels uncomfortable about your feelings being so different from hers. Conversely, it could be that she doesn't feel awkward, but maybe she was allowing you to have a little space because she didn't want to seem like her presence was rubbing her rejection in your face while your feelings were still kind of raw (hence why she might think you're the one who has been avoiding her). But whatever you do, don't assume that her odd behavior is caused by some primitive fight-or-flight response that she's not even consciously aware of, or something. She's a grown-up just like you and has reasons for what she does, whether or not they're good reasons. To assume otherwise is not only sexist, but it's kind of insulting to yourself, because it suggests you're going after girls who can't think like you can.

All that said, it sucks if your friendship is at a low point because of this, but you couldn't very well just ignore your feelings, could you? You did the right thing by bringing it up, because if you hadn't you would have grown unhappy with your friendship anyway. Since she said it seemed like you were the one avoiding her, maybe that's her way of reaching out and telling you that she doesn't want you to feel like you have to walk on eggshells or avoid her. I suggest you just try to go back to talking to her the way you did before, maybe she'll be receptive to that. If she didn't want to stay friends with you, then she wouldn't be trying to meet you halfway like that.