Advice from the ladies? by TheGreyJedi

TALK STORY

Advice from the ladies?

POSTED BY: THEGREYJEDI
UPDATED: Thursday, November 25, 2004 12:47
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Monday, November 22, 2004 4:01 PM

Alright. Well. I've come seeking different points of view. Just because I like to hear them. No comments from the peanut gallery (Static). I'm specifically seeking advice from you women folk bcause women folk understand women folk. And to us guys, women folk are strange and confusing creatures.

Right. SO there's a girl, as no doubt you've guessed. I've known her for about a month, and there's been some romancing going on. She clicks, y'know? It all fits. It feels like I've known her for a long time. Being human, we've kinda gotten a little ahead of ourselves, but we've talked about it. I know I love her. But it doesn't take much for me to fall in love when it's right like this. But there's been a lot of stress in her life, and she's apparently never had anyone be romantical and wooing. But this weekend, she shut me out. Rather abruptly and with very little cause. The whole time we've been building up to a relationship, I've told her that if I start to become a little overwhelming, to tell me. Because I tend to feel things very intensely, so I tend to come off strong. I may have made a mistake, but I told her how I really felt. I meant it as a supportive gesture, something to help her, to know that she had that kind of support behind her, but it ended up adding to the stress. So I asked her this weekend if she wanted me to back off, because I'm an idiot and knew the answer she'd give. She said yes.

The question is, how much do I back off? How long? I hate to see her closed off and hurt like she is, and I hate it that I can't do anything about it. I mean it when I say I love this girl. She's a little shy, sweet, kind. A little sarcastic, but not bitterly so. She gets flustered when I give her flowers, write her poetry, which makes me smile. She's into video games and RPG's. Tall, graceful, soft. What do you guys think I should do here?

Just looking for some different points of view.

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Monday, November 22, 2004 4:37 PM

HELL'S KITTEN

Huh. That's a tough one. You ask a room full of different women what color the sky is today and you'll get a room full of different answers. The whole "backing off" thing is so incredibly dependent upon the chick. And the situation. And the guy. And the time of day. And, and, and, ad infinitum. Being the little shy, sarcastic, getting-flowers-gets-me-flustered-too kind of girlie, it seems to me like you oughta be walking real softly in this instance. I mean, she did tell you to back off. Try sending daisies with smiley faces delicately painted on the middle in about a week and a half. You know... small... subtle.... Maybe a couple phone calls a week to let 'er know you're still thinking of her. The trick is to be away without being gone. Knowing the girl should give you an idea as to what extent to be away. Although, I'm not tall, so maybe you should do the complete opposite.

I can probably do the comforting thing better than the advising thing, cuz I've been told I'm not quite "the norm" when it comes to chicks. Broads. Twists. Whatever you wanna call us.

无党派人士

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Monday, November 22, 2004 4:45 PM

MALICIOUS

Do what she said, back off. That's really all you can do, short of harrassing her. You told her how you feel, the next move is her's. If she never wants to see or talk to you again, you have to accept that. You would then: be on the losing side/get the short end of the stick/be S.O.L., however you want to put it.

Just because you "love" her, doesn't mean she HAS to love you back. I know that sucks, but she is a whole other person with her own wants, dreams and desires you might not fulfill for her. I mean, I care about my husband, but I can't make him care about ME back, you know?

It just has to happen on it's own, dude. I'm sorry. It hurts and it sucks, but it's better to know now than later. Just ask Zoid!

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

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Monday, November 22, 2004 4:58 PM

THEGREYJEDI

I'm aware, at least somewhere in this addled brain of mine, of all the factors involved. I want to give her breathing space. Smothering is a bad thing. I also don't want it to look like I'm abandoning her either. She's going through a rough spot, and I want to be there for her. But I thank you both for your concern and advise/words of wisdom. I'm just trying to get a lot of opinions, I guess. I'm young, impulsive and so wholly inexperienced in the realm of romance. I have a little insight, more than I give myself credit for sometimes, but far less than perfect. I just want to do right by this girl. She's a great girl, and I'm glad she's in my life at all.

But you are right. It does suck.

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http://www.jed-soft.com Gamer Rigs, Budget Prices

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Monday, November 22, 2004 5:55 PM

DACUTE1

Okay, so romance is a good thing, but too much gets a little intimidating. As Hell Kitten has said, back off a bit. There's a differece between a phone call and poetry. Give her a call after a couple of days and let her take the next step, perhaps a movie or a casual dinner just to talk to see where she's at.

You've mentioned that you love her, has she said it back? Intimidation may be that you feel more for her than she does you which can be very awkward.

Oh, and by the way, the reason men can't figure women out is because there are no two women alike. I'm sorry, there are no general rules.

Kaylee: Wash, tell me I'm pretty
Wash: Were I unwed I would take you in a manly fashion
Kaylee: 'Cause I'm pretty?
Wash: 'Cause you're pretty

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Monday, November 22, 2004 6:00 PM

THEGREYJEDI

She didn't say it back, and I didn't expect her too. I know she cares about me. One of the reasons things have been as slow as they have been is because she's afraid of hurting me. I just felt wrong about holding it in, which is why I said it. And I try to make sure I'm not coming on too strong too fast, try to make sure she's comfortable with everything. And till this weekend, she's said she was okay, that it wasn't too much.

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Monday, November 22, 2004 6:42 PM

MANIACNUMBERONE

I am not too old, but I've had my share of being on both sides of this situation. If I feel that way for her, seems the hardest and best way to know if she is the one, is to tell her. Sounds like you done it a might soon fer her likins' (a month is perty soon), but you got yer answer. Either she will love you back (even if she doesn't say it), or not.

Time to ask yerself some tough questions. Do you really see this girl choosing to be with you, or is it a pipe dream? Are you waiting for her to change her mind or just waiting for her to be ready? I have to say the "being ready" thing has never worked out. When I've told her that, I wanted her to back off completely. When she has tols me that, "she" has never been ready in the future. It's harsh, but a lot easier than the alternative, which is pining over someone you can't be with for longer than is reasonable. It's painful to pine. If you really feel she may soon change her mind, go for it with whatever means seem appropriate and not creepy, if not, back away forever and as soon as possible.

-------------------------------------------
Inara: Who's winning?
Simon: I can't really tell, they don't seem to be playing by any civilized rules that I know.
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Monday, November 22, 2004 7:08 PM

THEGREYJEDI

I did express my affection for her in the "L-bomb" too soon. At least I know that now. But there's a lot going on that's adding stress to her life right now other than that. She had been choosing to be with me, just very nervous about relationships in general. It seemed kinda soon, but it feels like I've known her a lot longer than just a month.

I thank all you guys for your advice. I'm not seeing anything I didn't expect, but that's not what I was going for. Just wanted to see some outside perspectives. I know what I've gotta do, it's just not gonna be easy.

--------------------------------------------------
http://tomeofgrey.blogspot.com

http://www.jed-soft.com Gamer Rigs, Budget Prices

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 2:48 AM

EST120

Quote:
Originally posted by Malicious:
You told her how you feel, the next move is her's. If she never wants to see or talk to you again, you have to accept that. You would then: be on the losing side/get the short end of the stick/be S.O.L., however you want to put it.

note: i am a guy, not a lady, so you can ignore me if you want

i know you said no comments from guys, but i just wanted to say one thing. sorry.

i whole heartedly agree with this opinion. i feel you need to do what you can and accept the outcome, no matter what it is. if things are not going to work out, the sooner you know, the better off you will be. getting finality from her is the best way to begin moving forward with your life.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 3:33 AM

ANNIGERRIA

I've been in all kinds of relationships, dating, engaged but didn't marry, married twice. It can be very scary when someone professes to love you when you don't have the same feeling for them. There's a gentleman at work right now who would love to treat me like a queen, but I don't feel the same for him, so I handle him with care. I like him, he's a sweet, gentle man, but there's just nothing there. I wouldn't hurt him for the world, but I can't give him what he wants, either, because it's just not there.

I'm sure she has your phone number. Leave her alone. You just dumped a huge responsibility in her lap that she's probably not ready for. She'll contact you when she's ready. Give her SEVERAL weeks before you call her. There may be other factors involved that she can't reveal after only a month of knowing you. Give her time to work it out. She'll let you know when she's ready.

My best wishes for both of you.

**************************************************
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at 900 miles an hour... The Galaxy Song, Meaning of Life, Monty Python
**************************************************

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 4:55 AM

I'm not a lady, but I couldn't resist throwing in my two cents on this, since your situation is darn near identical to a relationship I had over twenty years ago, when I was in college and she was in high school.

You've got some incredibly good advice here already, and probably don't need more of the same, but here's my perspective after coming out the other side of it. In my case, I did pretty much what's been advised here. We saw each other as friends a few times after I told her I loved her, but I realized two things during that time: one, that if I really loved her it needed to be about what she wanted, and two, sitting out the slow dances was going to make me say something stupid sooner or later.

So I stopped calling, just to see what would happen. She didn't call me back.

I got on with my life. Graduated college and moved to take a job. I heard later through a mutual friend that her family moved, too, and a few years after that I heard she'd married and moved to the east coast (I was in the upper midwest).

Meantime I was working like a dog, 7 days a week, writing code for what would eventually become a fairly large software company. Half a dozen years after my last call to her, I still missed her. I woke up one morning, convinced myself I was too young to have really been in love, and threw out every letter she'd written me, walked them straight out to the dumpster. I resolved to move on.

And I did. I met several women over the next few years, had some fun, but nothing really clicked. I ran quickly away from any woman who just wanted a friend; that wound was too deep. Then, while out with some friends, I met a funny, lovely woman and hit it off. I fell in love for the second time in my life. Two years later we married, and we've been happily married for more than a dozen years now.

When my first love's thirtieth birthday came up, I sent her a card on a whim (and my wife's support, of course, God bless her). I heard nothing for almost a year. Then, just before her thirty-first birthday, I received a long letter and a picture of her two beautiful children.

Our friendship was re-established. Since that first letter, we've corresponded a little, and my wife and I have even visited her when we were in the area. The universe tilted at a strange angle when I saw my first love hug my wife goodbye. Whoda thunk it?

Now, here's what I did wrong, and where, I hope, you might do better.

First, make no mistake: walking away was absolutely the right thing to do. I wanted the best for my first love, and accepted her choices, even when they hurt more than anything I'd felt before or since.

My biggest goof was in thinking that I had been too young to fall in love. I still love my first love very much. It never faded, and after more than half a lifetime I don't expect it to. There is still pain in thinking "what if." But that's a burden I carry inside, our little secret, shared only because I'm anonymous here. And loving and being loved by my wife makes the burden relatively easy to carry. As for my first love, her friendship is more than enough, and always will be.

My second biggest screw-up was that, over the years, I distanced myself from several very nice women who could have been good friends. Friendship is valuable, and well worth the risk of being hurt.

Maybe your relationship with this girl will go differently; people are complicated and unpredictable. I hope it goes well for you, that it all works out.

If it doesn't, you're in for some hurt. If you truly love her, though, she is worth it.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 7:08 AM

ODDNESS2HER

If things changed as abruptly as you say, it sounds as though she does have a reason, although you may not know about it. And if her life is that stressful, the reason probably has nothing to do with you. So my advice is to take her at her word and drop off her radar for awhile. Give her a chance to miss you. Let her realize that she does want you in her life and let the next move be hers. That way, she can't feel that you are crowding, smothering or in any way adding to her burdens.
Best of luck.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 7:34 AM

EST120

Quote:
Originally posted by fv:
I'm not a lady, but I couldn't resist throwing in my two cents on this, since your situation is darn near identical to a relationship I had over twenty years ago, when I was in college and she was in high school.

your story is quite touching. i understand where you are coming from, though (which is why i felt compelled to post here even though he said no guys). in my case, we were both in love with each other. multiple factors contributed to tearing us apart and i spent years missing her. we were both hurt. she moved on and later got married. i spent those years making bad choices about people that i THOUGHT were right for me, but were really not. then i went to a wedding a realized that it was long overdue for me to put the past behind me and move on with my life. i still love her. of course i do. i will always love her, but i was finally able to move on and say that i will not let this part of my past dictate how i handle my life now. if i had not been able to do that, i would never have found the wonderful woman that i am with now. i NEVER thought it would happen, but it did. it helps me to understand the reason why i had to lose the first one.

my point is that if things do not work out the way you would like them to, you will most certainly feel upset, but you must trust that whatever happens is the right thing.

by the way, fv. i completely agree. walking away was the best choice in my situation too. i did not do it out of spite or anger, i did it because it was simply the right thing to do.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 7:39 AM

ZELDA

My dating experience is a little rusty, but I still have a lot of friends who are very single females, and the only possible bit of advice I would give is that, if you want to give her space, you might consider e-mail rather than the phone when contacting her (if she's an e-maily type of gal). E-mail allows her to answer things at her own pace, and if she's feeling stressed about the l-bomb can give her time & space to keep communicating with you, but be able to frame her responses without the pressure of you looking at, or listening to, her. I've also found that my friends often get and give out more honest responses over e-mail than they will give a guy face to face (crappy, but true).

Also, e-mail can give you an opportunity to stay in touch through 'stupid' e-mails (forwards, articles, etc.) without the pressure of having to 'talk' every time. Which might be a good way to be present in her life w/o pressuring her.

Those are my thoughts, and they're probably worth exactly what you paid for them.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 7:48 AM

IDEFIX

here's anopther lady giving her two euro-cent. although I'm often told I'm really 'one of the boys' ;o)

if someone I've known for only a few weeks would give me flowers, write me _poetry_ and tell me he was in love with me. I'd be running no matter what I felt. ok maybe if I was madly in love with him I'd just say it back and fall into bed or something but that's obviously not the case here. and if she has other things on her mind at the moment it's pretty much out of the question anyway.

what happened is she told you to back off and that's what you gotta do. women on earth fight for this right to be taken seriously for generations now. if she's any kind of selfrespecting girl and you keep on pushing her in any way she's gonna blow on you big time. girls can get angry you know and not been taken seriously is a good couse.

if you tell someone to back off then they should make themselves invisible and wait for a callback and apology as in "I was busy sorting other things. I'm sorry. now I'm ok and we can see each other again if you still want to." if you tell someone to back off and hope he's gonna stick around pestering you at least once a day with flowers and poetry than you're just weird.

she's got your number? then she's gonna call you when she's sorted herself, her feelings towards you, the rest of her life or whatever else was there to sort. if she doesn't she's not interested. simple as that.

and lots of people need to sort their lifes themselves. that's also a part of this being a grown up girl of this century thing. there's nothing wrong with getting help from people you trust but someone you've been dating for a few weeks is hardly someone to ask in times of crisis for support. I tend to go to my best friend whom I've known for years even if I'm actually with a guy at the time. some kinds of support really are better based in friendship than love. maybe her problem is something like that. if she was all alone and in need of support she wouldn't have told you to go.

and don't wait forever. forever can be a very long time. I know couse I've been doing the waiting game almost all of my life. can't seem to follow my own advice.

Idefix

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 8:10 AM

MAUGWAI

It also sounds like she may be bugged out by the "queen" treatment. Some guys think women love to get flowers and be told how beautiful they are all the time, but that's not actually true. If a guy always tells you how much he loves you and how great you are, you start to feel like you can never be yourself because you have to live up to this image on a pedastal a guy has created for you. Make sure she knows you actually like her, not that you're lusting after her or that you're dreaming of weddings and rugrats. Show her that you enjoy her company as friends with no pressure to be some magical princess you've imagined her to be.

Or I could be full of crap.

"Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy."

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Tuesday, November 23, 2004 8:41 AM

CAITE

Grey~

I have to agree with the other ladies that perhaps you should back off and let her come to you. My friend Sarah has a term "turning your hand upside down." Basically it means you back off, and if the person really wants anything to do with you they'll let you know. This is not to say that you can't try and give her a nice friendly call in, say, a weeks time--just to let HER know that her freaking out some hasn't scared YOU off. But when you do, try to keep it low key.

I myself had a boyfriend who was into the huge romantic gestures, and it freaked me out too. I have grown up with a bunch of guy friends who are wonderful, and *at times* they treat me like the princess I am, but they've gotten me used to fending for myself most of the time, which I like. So when my ex-boyfriend did the exact opposite, it was really weird for me. Your gal could be feeling something like that and just needs time to adjust...I don't know By the way, yes, the guy did become my ex, but rest assure it was not because of the romantic gestures...he was extremely controling and dominering and he routinely threatened to kill himself.

Also, like everyone said, no two girls or women are alike. Some would be tickled pink to be wooed the way you're going about it. Some women are more low-key and don't really go for all that stuff. Some are in the middle somewhere. Try your best to base your actions on HER behaviors and responses and hopefully you'll do all right.

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Thursday, November 25, 2004 9:29 AM

MALICIOUS

TGJ,

Don't leave us hangin'! Let us know what happens. Those of us with enquiring minds (who have no lives) want to know!

Mal-licious

Co-Holder of the Red Bell from Hell

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Thursday, November 25, 2004 12:47 PM

THEGREYJEDI

Point 1 - I hate my step-aunt's computer. No spyware blockers. Out of date anti-virus. No firewall. Ack! That and she's very pushy, weepy, and bossy. Double Ack! Howe'er. Wine. As much as I can to drink. So I manage.

Point 2 - Back on subject, there's not much to report on. She's warming back up a bit. She's spending the Tryptophan Overdose Day holiday with her family, so I plan to just let her be, give her a call perhaps sometime this weekend. I think being with family for a few days will do her some much needed good.

Point 3 - Yellow Tail cabernet sauvignon is good wine.

------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jed-soft.com Gamer Rigs, Budget Prices
http://tomeofgrey.blogspot.com
Real Fans Wait - 09/30/05

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