A tale of woe

Where to start? At the beginning I suppose. I moved to a tiny town in the middle of Scotland almost a year ago now, to share a flat with my friend who had found a job locally. It was on the first day that I met her. Thinking about it makes me sad, how I would do things differently given what I know now. She was a friend of my flat mate who I'd just moved in with, and we took a walk around the nearby loch that evening with a group of others. I remember thinking she was loud and rude at the time. Her unkempt tangle of red hair and small stature completed my picture of her as quite aggressive with a fiery temper. She didn't care to talk to me at all and seemed to avoid me. I had a nice chat with her housemate though, we seemed to spark together quite well. It was a cold April evening and she had not brought her jacket, I lent her mine. I saw her a few times over the next week or so. I was more interested in her housemate, but alas, she had a boyfriend. I didn't consider this red headed tangle mess thing. We went on quite regular outings with friends and I got to know her a little better over time. We'd go rock climbing and hang out together at each other's houses. She lives only a minute's walk away in the next street, so it was quite easy. I'm quite a silly guy sometimes with a goofy sense of humour. I'd mess around with the girl and found she had a similar goofy side once you got to know her. She was actually quite fun. After a little while I landed a job at the kid's club where she worked, we'd work together, fool around and be silly and flirt quite a bit as well. This carried on for quite some time and she seemed to enjoy it and responded to it. All the while I was thinking about her more and trying to find the right time to ask her out. There never seemed to be a right time. I found out from a friend that she may not have had a serious boyfriend before and perhaps had never been with a man before. I've had the odd girlfriend here and there, but I tend to be a little bit quiet most of the time which has an effect. She's 27 and I'm 31. We started to go on little 'dates' together (at least I think they were, nothing was expressed explicitly and I couldn't bring myself to tell her how I felt) and we'd swing from over the top juvenile flirting to awkward shyness and repressed guilty glances at each other. This seemed to go on for ages. I was also a bit confused about the signals she was sending at times. Hot and cold, anybody else get that? There was a little bit of friction between us at work one day and I felt a bit pissed off with her for a while. I probably shouldn't have been. But at her housemates birthday BBQ I ended up paying most of my attention to her housemate instead. I could see she was trying to talk to me and have fun but I was being a total idiot. A few days later I woke up one morning and decided out of the blue to tell her. I don't know why that morning, it just all came clear I suppose. I wrote her a message and sent it off. It went along the lines of 'Er, I think I like, err... I like you... or something' or something like that anyway. It sounded crap whatever it was. It came back no. We don't flirt so much any more, I stop when I find myself doing it. I was ok for the first month or so after she said no, I just didn't think that much about it. But it started to kick in a bit more recently. Crying and stuff. Feeling a bit lonely. I know she's only in the next street and I can see her house from my window and it breaks my heart sometimes. She must be as lonely as I am sitting there in that house, what's the point? What's wrong with us? I'm spending quite a lot of time in the gym to focus my energy on something else, I've put on a lot more size. I don't know what she thinks of this, probably thinks I'm insane or something. It's just something to do. I've bought some anabolic steroids to help progress with the weights, I know if I was with her I probably wouldn't consider something like that. It's like I don't care any more.

Ur jst acting like a kid....displayin to her dat u dnt really care abt her...better apologise to her nd tlk tinz thru wt her