We’ve received our very first agony aunt letter so we’ve called up wise old Uncle Fred and Aunty Frieda to see what pearls they can offer on this tricky subject. But in the meantime, we are putting this out there for you, our threads community, to chip in with any bits of advice you have.
I’ve been following the conversation on Twitter about if men and women can really just be friends without anything else going on, so I thought I’d write to ask your opinion on something which happened to me recently.
I met a guy at a festival a little while back. We hung out loads together and chatted round the camp fire until the sun came up. As we drove away from the festival, my best friend asked me what was going on between me and the guy because we’d spent so much time together.
The week after the festival he messaged me to say it was lovely to meet me and that it would be great to stay in touch. The messages flowed between us. We spent time instant messaging each other – sending each other songs and conversing into the early hours. I phoned him up a couple of times; we spoke for ages.
We decided to meet up. We went for coffee, then a walk, then a drink, then dinner…he paid for everything. He told me there were some places that he’d like to show me another time. We spent hours together.
The messaging continued. We went out dancing all night with one of his best friends who told me (unprompted) that he thought the guy fancied me because he kept giving me compliments. We went out the next day to an art gallery, then dinner. He paid for everything.
It might be worth pointing out that both of us are in our late 20s…not late teens, not early 20s, not in that vague post-uni wandering around, trying to find out the meaning of life kind of phase. We’re at an age when things can get serious.
By this stage, I was certain there was something going on between us, so I decided to swallow my pride, face my fear and tell him I had feelings for him. Somewhat nauseous and a little bit shaky, I called him up and told him I liked him.
He was aghast and quickly fobbed me off with some great line about needing to focus on his work at the moment, of course prefixing it with the standard ‘I think you’re amazing’ line.
I was upset; I cried. I thought I’d read the signs, I was sure he’d been flirting with me. He’d gone out of his way to spend time with me. So, did I misread the signs or was he playing games? How will I know another time if a guy really does like me or he thinks we’re ‘just friends’?