Say Goodbye or Keep Hoping?

[Granin]

Hi, I'm new here and would really appreciate some impartial advice on this situation I've been struggling with some quite some time. This will probably end up being a really long post, but please bear with me

 

 

Around late last October I went to visit a friend at university. A group of us went out and after some dancing went outside to relax and chat for a bit. I was sitting down looking around the place and checking my phone when this Russian girl just approaches me, stands really close and starts talking to me .She just said that I "looked lost", I looked up from my phone andinstantly knew that I liked her.

 

 

I'm not normally temperamental and quite guarded with my feelings, it normally takes me a while to build something with someone. We were both quite drunk and ended up talking to eachother all night. There was some flirting, we seemed to be hitting things off. Strangely I could feel myself start to like her more and more as the night went on. I thought I should at least kiss her and get her number before I left. I sort of had to leave in a rush with my friends, as I needed to crash. So I hugged her, said goodbye and that it was nice to meet her and left. She said the same.

 

 

I got home the next day and deeply regretted not doing anything (kind of a pattern in my life). It also turned out she asked one of my friends if I was single. I got pretty depressed about this and knew I had to speak to her again, so I added her on Facebook and asked her if she was up for meeting again as I was probably going to be down there again in a week or so. She said she'd like to. I also got her number finally.

 

 

This is where I know I started to **** up, hard. It took me OVER A MONTH to get down there again due to some logistic circumstances (that I could have avoided). We kept in touch the whole time talking and texting but that's a longtime to arrange a "second date". We finally met up though despiteeverything. I had a night and a morning free before I had to get back to go towork. So we met up and went for drinks that night. I was a bit stupid and drankfar too much (I shouldn't have drank at all, I was still on tablets from a near death experience at hospital) but I didn't do anything like puke on her or be really lewd. I was just a bit ... slow. We had a good time, even though it wasn't as flirty as the first time. She had to leave to say bye to her friend who was leaving for Russia the next day, and there was a moment where I felt like I should have kissed her, but I was just too drunkenly slow to compute it and the moment fizzledout. We arranged to meet the next morning for coffee though.

 

When I got back to my friend's I carried on drinking until the early hoursout of complete stupidity. I woke in the morning after a couple of hours sleepfeeling the most hung over I've ever been in my life. There was no getting ridof it, so I headed off to the coffee shop to meet her feeling like I'd beenstabbed in the head. I opened my wallet to pay for everything and my heart sankwhen I realised I didn't have much money left on me (apparently in my drunkenstate I threw a £20 note at my friend and ordered him to buy everyone food). Soshe ended up paying for her stuff and some of mine. Horrendous start.

 

We sat down and I quickly prompted that I would be free next week and would beable to come down again. She said that would be good, and that this time I could stay at hers. I wasn't sure as to whether she was inferring a level of friendship or she was being flirtatiously suggestive.

 

 

It doesn't matter though, because from that point on I tanked pretty hard. I felt ill, and when you feel ill you don't feel confident or seductive at all.The conversation got a bit boring, and I somehow managed to keep it fixed onher university work for a long time, which killed a lot of the mood. She wenton her laptop to check something, which made me panic about being boring, and Iwas. I just wasn't "on". After about an hour we left, and she walkedme to the train station. At this point I could feel the air had changed quite abit and I felt like I had to do something.

 

 

So I tried to hold her hand, and she refused, and mumbled something about it being "inconvenient". Thinking back I should have maybe queried as to what shemeant. Was she referring to me not being able to get down there for long periods?Was she just making an excuse and just didn't want to? I dropped it in any case.

 

 

We got to the train station and talked for about half an hour while I waited for my train. I felt a little better, the fresh air did me some good, and we were having a better time. My train came, I turned to say goodbye, we hugged,and she reaffirmed that she still wanted me to come back down. I walked to the train.

 

 

And then some kind of explosion of utter stupidity went off in my head as I was about half way there. I walked back to her, looked her in the eye, and ASKED her to kiss me (just horrendous). She said no, but allowed me to kiss her on the cheek. I did, then ran to get the train (nearly missed it). The whole ride back I was absolutely mortified at what I just did, and what had just happened. I took the whole thing as a rejection (and I think that's a fair assumption?) and resigned to just forgetting about her and trying to move on. I also discovered about 20 texts from her the next day when I turned my phone on and off that she'd sent over the course of those two days trying to arrange the meetings with me, obviously I never replied because I never got them (she must have a broken phone, or I did).

 

 

After a fairly depressing week, she texted me again asked how I was and why she hadn't heard from me. Like an absolute moron, I got my hopes up again, thinking maybe there was still some interest there. We talked over the next few days, great conversations into the early hours, and I could feel myself getting reattached (I wasn't even detached yet anyway). I knew I had to find out once and for all, so I asked her how she felt.

 

 

She texted me on Christmas Eve, and after reading the first line I knew what was coming, and had already braced myself for it. She wanted to be friends, nothing else, and hoped I'd be ok with that. I replied saying that was fine, wished her a Merry Christmas and a safe flight home the next day. I'm not sure why she thought it was a good idea to talk to me again after I'd blatantly taken it as a rejection (which I don't blame her for, I was not smooth at all) and was trying to forget about it, but the wound was nevertheless reopened.

 

 

It's really weird, and I'm not sure why I like her so much really, especially going off so little physical intimacy, and I swear down I don't make a habit of this. Over the last few years I've been really apathetic with everything, forcefully so, probably because I fear genuine failure so much. There's just something about her that opened my eyes. I find her to be a sincerely inspiring person, I admire her and how hard she works and her independence. I think she's got the best smile I've ever seen on a human being. I love the way she gets her English slightly wrong and worries about it, but it makes the content of she's saying so much more pronounced. I respect how she's reserved but not shy at all. We share a lot of the same interests, but it goes a lot deeper than that, at least for me. I'm not doing it to impress her or anything like that, but she's a big part of a mosaic that's inspired me to start workingout and getting fit, applying to university finally, travel around China for a month and visit New York, pass my driving test and basically become a more productive person and start living life properly again instead of coasting.

 

 

I'm still in contact with her, as friends of course and will probably be seeing her in a week or so. I'm certain there's no chance of me getting this relationship back on a track I'd be happy with, and the lingering contact is just serving as a grim reminder. It's hard, because I love talking to her, about anything, but at the same time it just serves to be ultimately depressing. I'll initiate conversations knowing I'll enjoy them while they last but ultimately come out feeling awful

 

 

So when I see her next, I plan to tell her how I felt, how I feel, and say goodbye. I know it's selfish, but I don't think I can handle this very well at all. The thought of her getting a boyfriend and having to put up with that as a friend would really hurt me, and just the constant lingering notion that I feel a lot more for her than she does for me at this point is draining. And the worst part is that I don't blame her at all, and I know I'm the irrational one

 

 

Wow that's a lot of writing. If anyone's had the time and magnanimity toread through all this, I'd very much appreciate any insight or advice, or even just thoughts. It's quite a lonely place to be.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Granin

[weee111]

Just cut it off and go no contact. Seeing her again is only going to make it worse and you know it...

[Granin]

It will, but I will probably see her again anyway out of circumstance, and I'd feel better about it telling her in person. I already deeply resent the fact our relationship got bogged down in so much messaging