Love is a gamble

okay, I know this is a generic story, but the truth is, Im tired of going in circles, its the same thing every time, I like someone, I become" friends" with them, only for them to just randomly start ignoring me, or forgetting me. Lemme explain, the most recent example I can give is with this girl I met last year, you see, when I first met her, I was still depressed over some other girl who had shown me affection, only to then leave me hanging and move on to some other people, but, when I met this new girl, well, she made me feel better, she'd talk to me, she'd listen to what I had to say and we'd play games together, hell she even called me her "best friend" and for once, I finally felt like I could start a relationship that'd work out, but then...it just kinda stopped, she stopped talking to me, she no longer came up to me to ask how I was and it just made me sad, and whats worse is, she knows what she's doing is wrong, she apologizes for leaving me out and that she's selfish but she still continues to do it, I've told her that its gotten harder to believe I was her best friend, that if she didn't wanna be around me anymore she should just say, but she just goes "no, I wont do that" which makes me think things could go back to normal only to see her ignoring me, I hate this cycle, and I hate that she made me feel special only to leave me in the dust, but the worst part is, I can't forget her, because I feel like maybe, just maybe things will work out, but they don't, instead, everyday I get to witness my friend, the girl I've loved for over a year now, walk away, forget about me, its one of the worst things I've had to go through, and she didn't even tell me why, why is she ignoring me? why is she moving on from me? have I become old? am I not interesting anymore? are the other guys you'd rather hang out better than me? Its hard moving on, it hurts seeing someone get along so well without you while you find it hard to breathe properly after realizing whats going on, and I love how life has to rub it in as I constantly see people holding hands.its kinda why I came here, hoping I'd find someone to relate to and get this off my chest, love is a gamble, if you find a partner, it can be one of the greatest feelings in the world, but if you don't, the pain is some of the worst I've ever experienced in my whole life.

Sorry about the heartache, buddy. Girls can be rough. The really tough part is realizing that maybe it's something that you're doing that gets the same reaction from so many young ladies. The truth is, when you're getting to know someone, you have to be a jerk. You have to have your own things going on, your own people to talk to, your own goals in life. And while you should express your interest in a girl, you have to have strict boundaries on what you will and won't do. Keep some distance and don't bend over backwards trying to make things happen all the time. And after you've been together for some time, when you've developed a healthy bond, we're talking months! you start bringing the walls down. It's a shame but that's how it is. If you're a pile of feelings and guts and softness from day one, people won't respect you. Keep your armor on at first, and start stripping it off after you trust them.

Well now you know why everybody is acting the way they are, their all using the same script. I think Corazon Verde's playbook is not how to to have an honest relationship but rather a blueprint for how to reduce all risk of being hurt. I think this may work if you were looking for a jerk. When girls think of meeting someone they are not looking for a rude, distance, self centered: AKA: The Jerk. The Jerk Meter is always on filtering out the Jerks. CV might wonder what kind of girl he could have had, but meter read: Jerk MOVE On. In your case just be yourself and when you see girls being rude, mean,selfish, If the BITCH Meter reads: She's a Bitch, know that this person may not be the one for you.

I think CV was just using a turn of phrase rather than meaning 'jerk' in the literal sense. After all, I don't call failing to wave over-prematurely goodbye to your independence or natural guard, being a jerk. Jerk is PRETENDING to - so that the woman follows suit, only to suddenly find he's secretly and silently put his back UP (because he wanted only HER to be the vulnerable one). But he's right in that an IMMATURE woman, one not nearly ready for a serious relationship or settling down full-stop, likes a greater portion of drama and angst compared to ever-growing harmony and contentedness, in order to make the relationship feel as if it has any POINT OR CHALLENGE AND INTEREST/EXCITEMENT to it, given to how the natural, INTENDED source of interest and all its accoutrements, i.e. the end objective, isn't open to her. A woman who's ready and keeping her eyes on the end prize (cohabitation and/or marriage) won't NEED any artificial drama because by then there's drama enough - natural at that - in having found "the one" as well as in the experience itself of the two-personed journey up the relationship path to WrinkleVille. I agree her mouth says one thing whilst she simultaneously does another (keeps herself available and open to other options). Walk away (if you like, whilst giving her the same empty reassurances type of own medicine). See if she newly starts to follow. If she does yet then quickly reverts to bets-hedging type, you've got an immature one (meaning, any actual romance would have been like a rollercoaster having a bad trip anyway). If she doesn't follow, you've got a dead horse that always was and needs no further flogging, and can set your sights and energy on someone new (or finish grieving properly for the ex-friend-girlfriend-er-thingy first). If she follows and changes her tune - great. Win/Win/Win. Friends are friends. Lovers are lovers. Ne'er the twain shall meet. That (duh) is why they're given separate titles. Suggest you cease trying to get yourself a girlfriend surreptitiously through the Friend-shaped door and go in via the orthodox entrance of Lover Door instead. Doing the former is NOT giving you the extra safety and protection you need or believe it will. And anyway, if you need THAT much insurance from the outset then you should take that sign as meaning you're not ready to risk it for a biscuit. Yet. Love is not a gamble. It's as inevitable, natural and seamless as going Grey. (Swans have no problem, note.) Only, UNLIKE grey hairs, your conscious or unconscious self, due either to dread of commitment and/or knowing there are active, non-conducive issues still to be cleared from your decks (as in, first things' first, thank-you-very-much), can get (deliberately, sometimes) in the way and slow things down... even to a standstill. So, keeping your armour of ice on until the woman bit-by-bit melts it off (by earning trust) is good advice, but trying to AUGMENT that armour at the outset by collecting a 2 foot diameter of fog as you pass through the wrong door (are we friends or are we daters?) just backfires, as you've now seen is becoming a pattern. Over-fear and -timidity, as in time gets revealed via that initial 'wrong door' action failing to gel with increasingly boyfriendly behaviour, expectations, AND DEMANDS, can be a huge turn-off: "Why has he been spending all this time pretending we're friends when he clearly likes me more than that? Is he a wimp? Is he sneaky? Ugh, dunlike sneaky wimps. Don't want someone who can't wait to walk me up that aisle, either - by hook OR crook. I'm young, I want FUN first! Not sure, though...Let's make him sit warm on the side whilst we see what's over there instead." Take away the 'warming plate' option so that he has to choose All You or No You. You can always re-strike up the friendship in x months' time if by then you want to. I doubt it, though, because by taking her out of the equation your vibe will cease 'reading' UNAVAILABLE, LOOK ELSEWHERE. You can't have half a relationship. No such thing. There's full-on relationship or there's torture by another name.

Sorry - full-on relationship, replete with all the usual risks, or torture by another name.

mmm, thanks for the advice guys, I appreciate it, but, the thing is, I have thought about trying to move on, but, I just kinda feel bad when I think about it, she's told me before she struggles making friends (even though that doesn't seem to be the case) and Im not exactly the most confident guy in the world either, it doesn't help that she just so happens to be friends with all my friends and her sisters are our friends too, so I find it even more difficult to be open about the whole thing, maybe I should just stop talking to her for a bit, see how she reacts, and depending on the results, I'll know what I should do then, but again, thanks for the help, (damn SOULMATE that must've been a pain to type out, kudos to you) and if it doesn't work out, well, I'll be sure to learn from my mistakes.

At the same token, many people advise to focus on just making female friends and allowing relationships to blossom out of that, SOULMATE. What do you think about that?

(No, not a pain and no kudos pour moi - that was a short one for me (as the actress said to the bishop). Anyone who agrees to be interactive moderator without enjoying super-fast touch-typing (and the sound of their own voice, LOL) is a fool.) "I should just stop talking to her for a bit, see how she reacts, and depending on the results, I'll know what I should do then" Almost-"Yup". You don't have to stop talking to her. You just have to turn your affection and informality dial down a good few notches to where you sound more like a mere good acquaintance. Still smiley, but polite. Cease seeking her out, teasing her, joking with her, lending or asking to borrow things, asking 'how did it go last night', picking up items she's dropped... Let her say hello first (if poss) and do all the initiating of any conversation greater than pleasantries...that kind of thing. And instead of 'and what happened next?', you just mainly go, 'Mm-hm?.... oh, right... uh-huh....oh' (still with a polite smile and nod here and there). 50% loss of interest + withdrawal of all affection. If she asks, 'Er, is everything alright?' (to which you, suddenly all animated, chirp, 'Yeah, everything's GREAT*, thanks!', without expounding) then you know you've got it right. *Plus the "GREAT!" will get her suspecting that some other woman, one not in your usual circle, must have newly taken her place in your affections. Her only suspecting is the key, here. You don't want her "knowing for a fact" or her resultant fuel tank might be powered solely by jealousy, making it false attraction that can't last. You want it only to act as a turbo boost, to *activate* what is (hopefully) secretly already in her tank. She's made her bed, now she has to lie in it (and no, you can't get in as well, LOL). After all, if people treat you badly without consequence to them (and here, 'badly' relates to her failure even merely as a best friend) then what possible incentive is there to clean up their act? ******************* What do I think about that? The key word is allowing, as in, naturally evolving to yours and her total surprise...rapidly. But you've got to realise that many such people who advise are themselves wary of commitment and real closeness beyond a certain level and looking for a safer option as might appear ideal from the outside yet is actually wide of that mark behind closed doors, meaning, their relationship is more about satisfying practicalities and involuntary urges to reproduce. How do I know this? Easy-peasy: [1] First-hand experiences as an ex-commitmentphobe, [2] a lot of indepth studying, and [3] the biggie: CHEMISTRY! It's the glue that stops either of you walking out and never coming back during/on the back of any perfectly natural humdinger or when the going gets tough in whatever else ways. It's the stuff that, even though you at times FEEL like you want to leave and can see plenty of good reasons to, you just....CAN'T...(or can't maintain it)...and HAVE TO stay and get things sorted... leaving them requiring something as strong as a threat to your very physical/mental survival if you stayed put (maiming/death or depression). If you take that critical quantum to mean one bucketful, it can come in acute fashion (whoosh!) or chronic (drip..drip..drip..). Think about it: you've got to have the motivation to want to stay together and do all it takes to ENSURE you do, through thick and thin, for DECADES, not just for the sake of the ideal or norm in terms of a permanent, solid parental unit. It's an elastic glue once set, but, boy, can it experience some stretching and pummelling (possibly even acid dousing). So it's got to be DAMN POWERFUL AND STRONG! ...including stronger than any mere individual- nay, TWO individuals and their iron wills combined. If it's so powerful as to be capable of withstanding all reasonable stressors for that length of duration, you'll feel it on first sight - WHAMMO! Think about it - how could you not? ...the exception being where it takes a 2nd or 3rd meeting (or mere weeks if you're already acquaintances) because your receptors are still numb and/or because you've avoided standing close enough or touching. How can two mere friends go one, two, three YEARS without having already fallen 'prey' to it and still claim to be lovers rather than just two exceptionally good friends trying to kid themselves and the rest of the world that they're much more than that, though having come to a tacit agreement to settle for a whatever degree of pretence/contrivance together? That's not Tennis, it's Tiddlywinks (aka a safe port in what has proven to be a stormy sea.) There are always exceptions to every rule, but... they tend to be the exceptionally stubborn, resistant uggers where denying and avoiding the chemistry is concerned, meaning, it's the other way around: lovers pretending (again for preemptive self-protection) to be just very good friends. But it's nevertheless a losing battle. Chemistry will, as Blondie put it, getcha-getcha-getcha (one way or another). Remember, people have killed and died for chemistry. THAT'S how strong and powerful it is. It's a naturally 'self-made' drug more powerful and lastingly affective than anything we beans have manufactured. Hence, 'walking on air', 'Cloud 9'... As FOR Tennis: If as a young or amateur player you wanted to win Wimbledon and the other top circuit tournaments consistently, you wouldn't appoint yourself a coach who isn't/wasn't consistently a Top 10 grand-slam winner himself. Yet you see a lot of so-called relationship gurus who are either single or suspiciously must or may as well be (constantly, constantly working all the hours). Hypocrites. They and their spouses may think they LIKE that, comparitively-speaking, arm's length set-up, or kid themselves that zero arguments means perfection, but - don't call it truly-madly-deeply when the evidence speaks for itself. You just RATE the person so much that you believe you CAN 'have it all' after all (especially since it doesn't feel like a huge leap from A to seemingly B).... without getting hurt: S/he is my BEST FRIEND, s/he'll NEVER betray me, etc. A faux insurance policy that almost never pays out. Then there's the muddying: friends are friends, lovers are lovers. If you're friends who try to switch to lovers then its human nature to think you can carry that same dynamic over into the completely different ball park. 'Just add sex' (and pet names). Wrongggg. Friends-into-lovers will experience MORE clashes and arguments, not less, because they'll naturally struggle with making what they don't realise is actually a chasmic adaptation in terms of rules of relating and operating. One but petty, throwaway example: it was amusing and perversely flattering when as just friends she'd call you Shrek-features or Pee-Wee and you called her Droopy-T*ts McCoy; now you're lovers, IT HURTS. Trouble is, it became a HARD HABIT. Romantic relationships are hard enough. Why make them harder just because you think you want it easier. So, 'being friends first', before it got blown all out of proportion to suit the commitment-shy, is just meant to mean take it slow (if you're normally apt to rush things), to compensate for the now defunct practise of chaperoning by playing chaperone yourselves, i.e. start off friend-LIKE/treat her LIKE you would a friend, as in, Ar Ee Es Pee Ee Cee Tee, find out what it means to me, and wait for her to do HER bit as *Selector* (from having been sufficiently impressed). Another way of saying, 'Don't sh*g each other until you can genuinely tell it's safe to'. However, if two people are naturally truly ready, willing and able, to a matching extent (including life circumstance), and the chemistry massive enough, not even sh*gging (cementing feelings) "too soon" can ruin things. I could go on all day, but I think that basically covers it (said the actress again). ********* PS: ignore that spam from Michael aka Katie, it'll be gone soon.