[nessa0918]

Hi I’m Vanessa and I’m having a little trouble understanding a certain boy at school… It’s kind of frustrating because he gives what seems to me like mixed signals. For a while now I’ve had a crush on him. He’s actually an international student…I’ve noticed that he always seems to be doing something or rushing off somewhere. A lot of the times I see him during lunch or dinner in the cafeteria and he eats alone, unless he sees a group of people he’s familiar with. At first he seemed like he might be kind of a loner and maybe a little shy, which is true to some extent…. but as I started knowing him, he’s actually quite funny and blunt about what he thinks! Though he doesn’t always sit with people I do ALWAYS see someone telling him hello or coming up to him for a quick conversation. Some of my other international friends who have classes with him have told me that he seems to attract a lot of girls towards him.

One day he was sitting alone and me and a friend decided to join him and he seemed happy! We asked him his major and if he missed home…he also seemed happy when we figured out we had some things in common. He told us that we were very nice for sitting with him. After that day I thought to myself “ok, I guess I can say hi to him from this point on…since we now know each other.“ From then on I would see him and say hi and he too would respond, but he never would say hi to me on his own! I would have to say it first or else he most likely wouldn’t have spoken! I figured he might have been a little shy or something because he’s always so quiet unless spoken to, so I continued to tell him hello and one day when I was sitting alone he walked by me and kind of hesitantly looked at me and told me “Bye Vanessa,” on his own. It wasn’t a normal, “bye” it seemed like a “should I say bye” kind of thing…but this of course still made me happy! Now every time he sees me, he acknowledges me! A few times he actually sat with us during dinner… I knew that if I liked him I should try and be his friend first so I invited him to come sit with us one day when he was alone and he did. I told him that he’s welcome to join us and sit with us whenever! He was quiet but sometimes he would ask my friends questions or answer theirs or even make a joke…but he never initiated conversation with me. I would have to speak first….and I did a few times but mostly I was so nervous around him I would only say a little bit every now and then. Not because I didn’t want to speak, but because I was afraid to say something dumb in front of him and my friends! Yet still every time he sees me, whether we are walking to class or in the cafeteria, he says “Hi Vanessa!“ The group of girls that I sit with normally are the ones who have class with him and I noticed that before he would only speak to them every now and then when he saw them…like I said before he’s always rushing off somewhere and he never really puts in the effort to say hello every time he sees someone he knows. Sometimes they’ll see him and he wont say anything at all to them, but like I said…. with me he never passes me up without looking at me and telling me hi. I’ve also noticed him looking at me a lot! When he walks by he always glances at me like he’s waiting for me to acknowledge him, because most of the time I’ll be looking at my phone or speaking to someone…but I’m always watching his reactions out the corner of my eye. Sometimes I’ll play a little naive and act like I didn’t know he was there, but he still says hey…the other day I even caught him turn around and look at me. He also flirted with me once when I was walking to class and took the papers I had from my hand and started laughing and waving them around like he was going to let them fly away in the wind! Later that same day he seemed really happy and told my friend ” I was gonna come sit with you guys, but the table is all full so I’m gonna go sit with my other friends!” My friend was watching a video of me in her class one day and he was sitting next to her and asked her if it was me then took the phone and told her what I did was “so cute.” He also told her I was pretty. To any girl it would seem like “oh ok, maybe he likes me and doesn’t wanna say anything.” But then it seems like he doesn’t sometimes…

One day my friend tried to leave us alone at the table and even though he had the chance to talk to me alone, a girl he knew walked by and he told her to wait for him so they could go to the library together….then he left. Another time he walked up to our table and I smiled and told him he was welcome to sit with us and he said “I know….thanks.” It kinda came off rude, whether he knew it or not, and annoyed me a little because I was trying to be nice. Then he put his stuff down in the seat across from me and sat on the same side as me but like 3 seats down….there was a guy over there to talk to, but still that confused me. Because of that I told myself I’d speak to him but only now and then because I didn’t want to come off pushy…not only that but he kind of hurt my feelings. We had dinner again and he walked up to our table, but I said nothing to him and just watched videos on my phone. When he left my friend asked me why I didn’t speak because he kept looking at me like he was waiting for me to say something and I probably hurt his feelings…but I just didn’t feel like speaking to him, which I feel like I had the obligation to feel. During that same time my friend and I saw him in our CO-ED doing homework but I acted like I didn’t see him and my friend said he kept glancing up at his paper to look at me…I decided I wouldn’t be too rude and that I would say hello again to him because I DO like him….and the other day he walked up to me at my table during lunch and told me goodbye. Normally he says bye on his way out the door, but the other day he came up to me…it just seems like he likes me and then it seems like he doesn’t…normally I have no problem being able to tell when a guy has a crush on me and sometimes it really seems like he does…but if he does the only effort he puts in is glancing at me every time I walk by and saying hello every time he sees me. He’ll probably do it again tomorrow!! Am I crazy and it’s all just in my head or what ? I don’t know what to do or know if I should do anything at all… HELP!!

[April Masini, your AskApril]

When a guy looks at you a lot, it’s because he’s interested in you. 😎 But sometimes college aged guys are inexperienced, and therefore, shy, and because he’s from another country, he may be used to different cultural norms when it comes to dating and socializing, which may increase his hesitancy. My advice is that if you like this guy, you continue to flirt with him. This is the way a guy knows you like him, and it cuts down his fear of failure if he’s considering asking you out on a date. 😉 It sounds like you’ve got some anxiety of your own about being rejected, which is keeping you from flirting with him in any kind of consistent manner. You may actually be more upset about your own fear of failure, than whether or not he likes you! So focus on that. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, for starters — in other words, be open to the fact that he may or may not like you, and be okay with that. If you truly are, you can flirt with him without so much risk to your ego. Also, be open to other guys at the same time. That way you won’t have as much pressure on yourself or this relationship that is hardly a flirtation so far, to evolve. If it does, you’ll be happy and interested, and if it doesn’t, it won’t be a big risk or a big loss.

I hope that helps!

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[nessa0918]

That makes a lot of sense and I never actually thought about it that way ! Thank you so much April ! You’re also completely right about me being afraid of failure now that I think of it. Honestly, I’ve never had to deal with this situation before…I’ve only ever had a REAL crush on two guys…any other time I’ve had to deal with crushes is when someone tells me they like me (and I say that in a completely unselfish way, its just the truth 😐 ). And in a way the situation is humbling because it helps me to see how scary and nerve-wrecking it is on the other side !! This has definitely helped me a lot ! 😀

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re very welcome. 😀

[b]Everyone likes to be liked! If the advice you found on AskApril.com was helpful “like” us on FB — and tell a friend!
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