Delicate situation - where to go from here?

[tree-seeking missile]

Hi,

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! And apologies in advance if this turns out to be quite a long read!

 

A friend of mine - let's call her Alice - I've known for about a year and a half now, maybe a bit longer. I know her because she was going out with a good friend of mine for a couple of years, but they broke up late last year and he has since both moved away and moved on. His friends around here were her friends and I got to know them and have remained part of that group since.

 

It's more of a drinking buddy type friendship than a "lets hang out all the time" sort of friendship and we don't typically talk much outside of meeting up maybe once every week or two, usually with the group but sometimes it's been alone too (not really recently though). A few months ago I started developing some feelings for her, but I didn't really take action, even though I had a feeling she might be thinking the same thing. Partly because she had recently broken up with my friend, partly because I wasn't sure myself if it was right and partly because I didn't have so much confidence back then.

 

Then just as I was wondering about it she started going out with this other bloke, who she's been seeing for a few months now but it's not going well at all. Basically she doesn't want to be with him but doesn't know how to break up with him. He's extremely needy and insecure, harasses her constantly with calls and texts and leaves sickly sweet messages on her Facebook most days which generally get ignored, all of which is just driving her further and further away. He's really not the sharpest tool in the box either.

 

Last week a few of us were out (not the other bloke though) and we were quite drunk and got overtly touchy-feely. There's usually been some degree of flirting to go along with the alcohol but not to this extent. I don't remember the whole evening exactly but at one point I kissed Alice on the forehead, then she kissed me on the forehead and I went up to the bar. Then she bumped me quite forcefully in the back with her chest and then stood with me at the bar and I had my arm around her waist. And we went to sit back down and I still had my arm around her waist. It just seemed to feel right.

 

Anyway, being drunk as I was, I made the idiot rookie mistake of voicing what was going on and saying there might be "something there"...at which point the barriers went up, she said my name in a sort of playfully protesting tone of voice and immediately got up and went to the bathroom (with a big grin on her face nonetheless). Naturally at this point I felt very awkward and didn't talk to her for the rest of the night (which was only half an hour if that anyway). She still seemed to be perfectly happy and not at all phased though.

 

In the morning I woke up to a nonsensical text from her that looked like it was intended to go to "boyfriend" if he can so be called, explaining that she wouldn't hit on me and it was all a joke. And a missed call from her. And a text from Alice's friend saying to ignore her because she's drunk and being an idiot. She text me later on that day saying she accidentally (?) text him about what happened and then backtracked and said her friend stole her phone and was joking, and apologised to me for sending the text. He seems to believe this...like I said, not the sharpest tool in the box!

 

Hadn't spoken to her since but saw her yesterday at a friend's party. She brought boyfriend along. I sat with them (as well as other friends) and it was initially slightly awkward but not to any great extent. A bit later I went to talk to one of the girls who was there who seemed quite nice, and she didn't stay out all night due to a prior engagement but I got her number before she went. I noticed Alice paying quite close attention to the whole process from across the way. Mission accomplished...!

 

I've changed quite a lot since I first met Alice - I spent most of my life being very overweight and with no sexual confidence whatsoever, although not lacking in self-confidence in other ways. I've lost 4 and a half stone over the last two and a half years and everything that's gone along with that has made me into a completely different person. In the last few months people have been referring to me as "sexy" and "hot" which has never happened before and I have absolutely no problem meeting attractive women (whereas relationships used to be something that only happened to other people). Having been my friend Alice has, of course, heard some of my dating tales of woe from the past so I wanted to make her notice that women do pay me attention, I have options and I'm not one of her girl friends.

 

Later on that evening we were in a club and when we were going to sit down, she put her drink down next to where I was sitting and asked "boyfriend" to sit on the other side of the table, and came and sat next to me. To which he pulled a chair up by her on the other side. She sat for ages curled up in the chair facing away from him with her feet pointing right at me. And she was really getting fed up with him later on, the crowd had thinned out by this point and she was trying to get him to go home so the two of us could go for a drink alone. He kept asking her to spend the night with him and she kept saying she had to get up early.

 

We ended up in another bar (boyfriend still in tow) and I went to the bathroom, when I came back the two of them had disappeared - apparently Alice just left when he also went to the bathroom and he went to find her and she was being stroppy with him so put her in a cab to her place and went home. I heard this from him earlier as he enquired as to if I had seen her phone which she apparently lost somehow lastnight.

 

So...I'm really quite at a loss as to what to do now - sit back and let things play out or do something?