Confused about "friendliness" and "attraction"

[indestructible]

This is going to be a bit of a long story, because I’m using my recent experiences to build up to the point of my question(s).

So, I’m 23, and recently, I fell for a girl I work with (we’re just two part timers at a dinky little retail store). I have zero dating experience, because I don’t really become attracted to very many girls, but we seemed to hit it off better than I’ve ever hit it off with a girl before.

I asked her out, and she explained that she’s had bad experiences dating coworkers in the past. I was ready to back off right then and there, but she said she would give it some thought. I didn’t see her again for a couple weeks, and we had a super cool conversation about it which ultimately resulted in her turning me down due to being preoccupied with finishing school in December.

I was pretty let down inside, because I like(d) her a lot, and I’ve gone back and forth on having lingering thoughts on whether or not we could potentially try again after she finishes school, though we never discussed the issue further. I expected that things would be awkward between us for a little while, but surprisingly that wasn’t the case, and we immediately got back into the nice little dynamic we had before. I’ll admit, she is still in the back of my mind, but I understand nothing will ever come of it.

What I’m “confused” about boils down to the differences between reading whether a girl is being friendly, or if she’s interested in more. I know every girl is different, but I always hear little generalities, like, they’ll try to spend more time with you, they’ll make little excuses to touch you, etc. But I have this stuff with the girl I’ve been interested in lately, and that doesn’t seem to mean anything because she’s obviously not attracted to me, right?

For example, yesterday, towards the end of the day, I was stuck on front end, and when things had quieted down, she came and sat down on the desk by me and we chatted a bit (though it got cut short after we were interrupted). Then today, the store was fairly dead, and the manager was super lenient about us just doing whatever; I was walking down an aisle, and she had come from the other direction, and we made a joke as we were passing each other. I was just going to keep walking, but she sat down on one of the displays in the aisle, and started chatting with me, so I stopped and hung out for a while. She kinda tagged along with me (and/ or invited me to tag along with her) as we walked around the store, tidying up and trying to keep busy. Heck, she’s even done the whole “touching” thing before; she’s done silly little things to me in the past that I never thought much of, and today, she randomly brushed something off my shoulder, for example.

So, I don’t know, in general, I just don’t get it. I don’t really have this kind of dynamic with other girls I know, which is why it stood out to me, but obviously it doesn’t mean anything if she doesn’t want to go out with me. I don’t feel like she’s “leading me on”, or anything silly like that, and I enjoy the friendship that we do have, but it just makes me wonder, how do I decipher from “friendliness” and “attraction”? I know I apparently got it wrong this time, but I don’t want to find myself falling into that “trap” again, yanno?

[April Masini]

The difference between friendliness and attraction is that if a woman is friendly towards you, that’s all she wants (friendship). If she’s attracted to you, she’s interested in more. It’s really that simple.

My advice is that you ask her out again. It seems like you’re still interested in her, and she’s definitely at least friendly towards you, and her feelings may have changed — but you won’t know unless you give it a try and invite her on a date. Rejection is a small possible price to pay for giving it another shot and possibly winning.

You should buy and read Date Out of Your League, a book I wrote for men, that goes into a lot more detail about women, their body language and how to know what they’re thinking, than I can give you here on this forum. Here’s the link for the book: [url]http://www.askapril.com/relationship-dating-advice/date-out-of-your-league.html[/url].

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[indestructible]

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about asking her out again when she finishes school in December, but I think chances are slim to none that she’d say yes. She’s given me no indication that she’d be interested in seeing where things are after school is over, so I have no good reason things would go differently.

I am kinda hoping maybe she’ll bring it up again when school is over, but I doubt that she will. I dunno, I don’t want her to think poorly of me, I don’t want to be the guy she had to say no to twice, or whatever. I dunno. I just wish there were an easy way to talk about it again with her, but it hasn’t come up since, and its been close to two months since she said no.

[indestructible]

Is it… wrong that I still continue to look at the little things she says and does towards me? Like, for example, last weekend when we were on lunch break together… We were talking about something or other, and I stated my opinion, and in a weird sort of way, she told me that she had always said the exact same thing, like, word for word.

She had also asked this one older guy we work with to bring her a little of some pasta dish he had made for his wife, and after she warmed it up, she grabbed me a fork, too, and insisted I try some with her.

Then, last night, I went out for the first time to a tavern with three of my coworkers, which included this girl, another girl we work with, and the aforementioned older guy. The other girl was talking about something her boyfriend did that annoyed her a bit, and the girl I like looked at me and said “Don’t ever do that”. Later on, she was really trying to get me to do shots with her and the other girl (especially when she found out I’d never done shots before), but I didn’t do it because I’m still a bit of a “lightweight” when it comes to alcohol; they didn’t end up doing shots, for whatever reason, though.

Ugh. I hate that I’m having so much trouble getting over her… v_v We just seem so good together, and I’ve never met a girl I’ve been so “good” with. What a sucky feeling…

[April Masini]

[quote]Is it… wrong that I still continue to look at the little things she says and does towards me? [/quote]

No… there’s nothing wrong with looking at little things she says and does, but it is wrong to obsess and stop the rest of your life in order to focus on your interactions with her, since you’re not dating, and she’s told you she’s not interested until December. You mentioned that you’re having so much trouble getting over her — but there’s not really anything to get over. The two of you are co-workers. You never dated, and she’s not interested right now. 😕 My advice is to look elsewhere for someone to date. 😉 If you find someone who DOES want to date you now, you’ll be a lot happier. 🙂

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