Dear Dr. Nerd Love:
I have been friends a Nerd guy for almost 2 years now. I have been out with him in groups and we have had some conversation on Facebook and email. Early on in our acquaintance he actually met me once for coffee. When I tried for a second round, he blew me off with a strange excuse about how it would “look” if we were alone together in public. :/ Anyway About 5 months ago I came right out and told him that I liked him. He said he admires my “candor” and said that “I am a braver person than he was because even if he felt that the same way he would not admit it. [because] his “baggage ( I am assuming he is referring to his weight) and history prevent him from doing so.” He said he would like to “grow” our friendship, but would understand if I did not, but he hoped that that would not be the case. I played it cool and told him I would like to stay friends. But now things feel different. A mutual friend told me that when he likes someone, he wants to observe them for like 5 YEARS! And that if he likes someone he will likely pull away instead of getting closer.
I think I already know I should give up on him, but I really like him, A LOT. He is so intelligent and funny. I love to be around him. He doesn’t seem to be shy or weird at all. Some of our mutual friends have asked me if he is interested in me or if we are dating, because they say he treats me “different’ than other women. What gives?! Is this something I should wait on, should I approach him again? I should add that I have almost no dating experience of my own. I am rather attractive for a 40+ single mom of 2. He is VERY attractive to me, but most women say they do not get my feelings for him aside from his “personality”. (but I like a guy with meat on his bones ;)) So tell me, is there any hope here or should I pull the plug and move on.
Just goes to show: it isn’t just guys who get the “Let’s Just Be Friends” speech. Women get it too. The humiliation of the “Let’s Just Be Friends” speech knows no gender nor age limit. Truly it is the most democratic of rejections.
So what gives with Mr. Wonderful? Unfortunately, since I’m not in any position to make any observations, I can’t really say. After all, it could be any number of things. If your friend is right and that it takes him literally years to decide to make a move, then he’s got some serious issues… either he’s painfully shy or he’s so poorly socialized that he can’t handle relationships. He may have been hurt by women before and he’s afraid to love again. Or he just may not be in to you for whatever reason and he was trying to let you down in his uniquely awkward way.
He may be your type, but if he’s just not digging you, hanging around and pining for him isn’t really going to do you any good. You’ll be sparing yourself a lot of frustration and heartache by moving on. If you’re a MILF into beefier nerdy guys, I can guarantee you that you’ll have your pick of dudes who’ll be happy to help you get over him.
Hey Doc,
I’m in a bit of a predicament and wondering if you could help me through it. I met this girl recently and I don’t mean to sound like I’m over-hyping her but she’s pretty amazing. Now, I’ve been kind of an introvert most of my life but I wanted to try to change that for this girl. She’s president of this club I joined and in an attempt to try and spend time with her, I ran for club VP and won. I also tried impressing her with my art abilities (which is about the only strong suit I have) and she seemed to really respond to that. However, when we’d see each other in public, unless she needed to tell me something important, I’m ignored.
The club members had a night out at the movies this past weekend and I figured that would be a great opportunity to hang with her in a relaxed setting first, rather than just ask her out immediately. Turns out, that plan was doomed to fail. She spent the entire night tagging along with some other guy and every time I tried to get near her or interject into her conversations, I was, again, ignored.
Most of our interactions have been on Facebook (that’s a good sign…) and she’d been leaving cryptic messages lately, along the lines of saying she had a crush on someone. Stupidly, I thought perhaps she meant me but whenever I saw her in public, she’d still be all buddy-buddy with the dude from movie night. I just about to call it quits but I did a little research and found that she and the guy are old friends from high school so maybe I was jumping to conclusions.
However, I got the proverbial last nail in the coffin tonight. I just happened to poke my head onto her Facebook page and saw a comment she’d posted to a friend, saying that’s she’s asked out her crush and he accepted. Since she obviously didn’t ask me out, my assumption is that I’ve been wrong this entire time and she doesn’t think of me in “that way”.
I can’t fully put in to words what has me so fixated on this girl but when I saw that she’d asked someone else out, my heart just shattered; I’m just a depressing wreck at the moment. Should I even try at this point, Doc? Should I at least tell her how I feel, just to see if maybe there’s a chance or should I just cut my losses now?
I hate to break this to you, but you didn’t have a chance with her. She’d given you every indication that no, she didn’t like you all that much.
I don’t want to add insult to injury here, but you’ve more or less ignored all the signs that she had next to no interest in you. Let’s see…
- She ignores you in public.
- She only speaks to you via Facebook (This, I hate to point out, isn’t a good sign… people act differently online than they do in real life)
- The only time she had any conversations with you were when she needed something club related.
- She was rather obviously infatuated with the guy she had been flirting with during movie night and wasn’t responding to any of your attempts to get in there, verbally.
Now, it would have helped if she had flat-out said that she wasn’t interested in you, but she never really had any reason to… as far as she was concerned, you were just the one following her like a lost puppy and – and again, I really don’t want to make this worse, but it needs to be said – she was probably hoping you would get the hint and move on.
A grand confession isn’t going to help you right now… in fact, it’s just going to make things worse. At best, it’s going to be an incredibly awkward scene as you’re standing there, metaphorical dick in hand ash she tries to let you down as gently but as firmly as possible.
It’s time to cut your losses and move on. And for the record: the next time you’re interested in a girl, passively hoping that she’ll notice you isn’t going to get things done. Neither will half-stalking her by getting involved in activities in hopes that it will bring you closer together. The best thing you can do is to quit trying to be the passive nice guy and hoping that exposure and proximity are going to do the work for you.
Next time – not this time, but next time – man up and ask her out directly.