What does this guy want from me

[Conan1]

When i was in college I met this guy who had a reputation of being a bit of a player and hooking up with many, many girls. For this reason, I never had intentions of dating this guy or even hooking up with him but rather than getting to know him and becoming friends. We started talking and really hit it off. We hung out a few times just the two of us but nothing sexual ever happened. We introduced each other to our friends and our friends became friends and sometimes we would all hang out together. We all had a great time together. Even though we never hooked up, I wouldn’t necessarily say our relationship was platonic. We would talk every day, flirted, and he was always eager to hang out with me. I knew of other girls he was talking to and our experiences with him were very different. This led to me being very confused to what his intentions were with me. Fast forward 3 months, we came back from winter break and he felt a little distant. We talked everyday over break and he would tell me how excited he was to see me. But when we finally came back, he never tried to make plans to see me. He would post pictures every weekend of all his friends and girls that he was hanging out with. So after months of being confused and a little hurt that he wasn’t trying to see me, I stopped talking to him. We went no contact for a few months until I ran into him at a club one night. We caught up a little bit and said how we should keep in touch. A few weeks later we moved to different states. We still talk every now and then but not like how we used to. The other day he randomly asked me if when we were hanging out if I ever wanted to hook up with him. He said he could never tell what I wanted to do so he never tried anything but then continued to ask me what I would have done if he did try to make a move. His question really caught me off guard because I thought I was finally getting some clarity that we were just friends this whole time, since the occasional catch up conversations we had since graduation even though we will probably never see each other again. Now I’m wondering if this whole time he really was just trying to hook up with me? I think I just need some outside perspective. 

[Lotsgoingon]

No, no, no.

The question is, what did you FEEL when you were with him. The way we determine if someone is romantically interested in us is how we feel when we are with them. 

You say that it was clear that the energy between you two was different than the energy between him and other women you knew. So did you move to shut down that extra bit of energy between you two? Why not? You are acting really passive, as if you are a twig on the ground and he's the one who determines everything. No, you both created what happened between you. 

You should know that he could have really liked you AND wanted to hook up with you. You are putting fort an either/or. 

The big problem here is that neither of you knew how to flirt. Both of you waited for some clear signal from the other. Both of you needed to signal clearly with the other what you wanted.

BTW: what DID you want from him? You can't just hang out with no goal. At some point, you really want to decide: am I interested in romance? Or do I want to just remain friends? 

BTW2: he might have pulled away out of respect for you. He was attracted to you, and he might have thought that interest kept intruding in on the friendship you two had. 

 

[stillafool]

I agree with this^, did you want to hook up with him too and if so, what was the answer to his question?  Before you wrote that he asked you what you would have done if he made on move on you it seemed that what you guys were doing was what platonic friends do.

[Conan1]

1 hour ago, Lotsgoingon said:

No, no, no.

The question is, what did you FEEL when you were with him. The way we determine if someone is romantically interested in us is how we feel when we are with them. 

You say that it was clear that the energy between you two was different than the energy between him and other women you knew. So did you move to shut down that extra bit of energy between you two? Why not? You are acting really passive, as if you are a twig on the ground and he's the one who determines everything. No, you both created what happened between you. 

You should know that he could have really liked you AND wanted to hook up with you. You are putting fort an either/or. 

The big problem here is that neither of you knew how to flirt. Both of you waited for some clear signal from the other. Both of you needed to signal clearly with the other what you wanted.

BTW: what DID you want from him? You can't just hang out with no goal. At some point, you really want to decide: am I interested in romance? Or do I want to just remain friends? 

BTW2: he might have pulled away out of respect for you. He was attracted to you, and he might have thought that interest kept intruding in on the friendship you two had. 

 

I appreciate the reply! Minus feeling confused, I felt great when I was with him. He had great energy and we got along very well. He however, is a very charismatic person so I wasn’t sure if this is just how he was or if there was any romantic interest involved. I think what I might have struggled with was I only intended to be friends with him and was not expecting for things to progress the way they did. As I got to know him better I was developing more and more romantic interest in him but a romantic relationship with him was not something I viewed as realistic. He never gave me any clear indication that a romantic relationship was something he would have wanted so I never pushed for it as I didn’t want to jeopardize the friendship we had. I am aware that neither of us were great at communicating which led to a lot of this ambiguity.

 

You’re right that it is possible he did really like me AND wanted to hook up with me. I was making it an either/ or when it didn’t need to be. Thank you for this perspective.

[Conan1]

1 hour ago, stillafool said:

I agree with this^, did you want to hook up with him too and if so, what was the answer to his question?  Before you wrote that he asked you what you would have done if he made on move on you it seemed that what you guys were doing was what platonic friends do.

Thanks for the reply! I personally don’t like to hook up with people outside of exclusive relationships. I told him that I don’t do casual hook ups and I was also unsure with what he wanted. When he asked me what I would have done if he made a move I told him it would have depended on what he tried to do and when. He told me that that was a fair statement and the conversation ended. 

[smackie9]

Yes he did. but he's so used to women throwing themselves at him...meaning he's lazy and full of himself. He expected you at sometime to jump him. Now he got a little bent out of shape about it...his poor ego got a boo boo. make note: you got along like gangbusters because he's got game. He has a play book he goes by that's sure to get any woman excited about him. 

[Leihla_B]

1 hour ago, Conan1 said:

I personally don’t like to hook up with people outside of exclusive relationships. I told him that I don’t do casual hook ups and I was also unsure with what he wanted. When he asked me what I would have done if he made a move I told him it would have depended on what he tried to do and when. He told me that that was a fair statement and the conversation ended. 

Good for you. He distanced himself in favor of getting laid more easily by someone with her lights clearly turned on for that. But his ego couldn't resist reaching out to get you to say you'd have  hooked up with him if he'd tried. Instead, you clarified that you'd have only been interested in something better than a hookup.

His ego will take that as a win for having seduced you into believing that 'better' was a possibility, while you can take your win from avoiding a useless hookup.

This guy is the perfect example of why sticking to your values doesn't deprive you of anything valuable. Head high.

[Lotsgoingon]

You know his question to you--what would you have done?--might be the cover question. 

He may  have lacked the confidence and willingness to be vulnerable to ask you his real question. He might have really wanted to date you.  Or he had a war inside himself. He liked hooking up with a number of women AND he was more seriously interested in you and he didn't know what to do. 

The fact that he distanced himself from you at a key point tells me that he had real interest in you. Remember, some young guys have trouble processing feelings and processing mixed feelings for sure. Life is fully of situations with mixed and confusing feelings. I want to be the cool guy hooking up and this particular woman really excites something much deeper in me. Really hard for young guys (really hard for lots of people) to sort through those mixture of feelings. 

[bpb2017]

8 hours ago, Conan1 said:

When i was in college I met this guy who had a reputation of being a bit of a player and hooking up with many, many girls. For this reason, I never had intentions of dating this guy or even hooking up with him but rather than getting to know him and becoming friends. We started talking and really hit it off. We hung out a few times just the two of us but nothing sexual ever happened. We introduced each other to our friends and our friends became friends and sometimes we would all hang out together. We all had a great time together. Even though we never hooked up, I wouldn’t necessarily say our relationship was platonic. We would talk every day, flirted, and he was always eager to hang out with me. I knew of other girls he was talking to and our experiences with him were very different. This led to me being very confused to what his intentions were with me. Fast forward 3 months, we came back from winter break and he felt a little distant. We talked everyday over break and he would tell me how excited he was to see me. But when we finally came back, he never tried to make plans to see me. He would post pictures every weekend of all his friends and girls that he was hanging out with. So after months of being confused and a little hurt that he wasn’t trying to see me, I stopped talking to him. We went no contact for a few months until I ran into him at a club one night. We caught up a little bit and said how we should keep in touch. A few weeks later we moved to different states. We still talk every now and then but not like how we used to. The other day he randomly asked me if when we were hanging out if I ever wanted to hook up with him. He said he could never tell what I wanted to do so he never tried anything but then continued to ask me what I would have done if he did try to make a move. His question really caught me off guard because I thought I was finally getting some clarity that we were just friends this whole time, since the occasional catch up conversations we had since graduation even though we will probably never see each other again. Now I’m wondering if this whole time he really was just trying to hook up with me? I think I just need some outside perspective. 

Wall of text.

Good luck with that.

[Gebidozo]

8 hours ago, Conan1 said:

Now I’m wondering if this whole time he really was just trying to hook up with me?

I don’t think he was really trying to hook up with you. I think he considered that, but them backed off because he saw you weren’t really into that kind of thing.

Why is he asking you now whether you would have hooked up with him? Well, personally, I think it’s an ego thing. Some people just like the sensation of knowing that someone is attracted to them, even if none of the parties would act on that. 

 

 

Edited September 11 by Gebidozo