I was too aggressive about wanting more, and now she won’t talk to me. How can I get our friendship back?

Chalk this one up to experience, says our elder — and hold back a little next time.

Dear EWC

I screwed up a friendship I had with a girl all because of my own greed. I met this girl online in an online community my friend introduced me to. When I met this girl we became good friends almost instantly. We got along well with each other and I became pretty close with her. Almost everyday I would talk and hang out with her online and would comfort her about her problems that are going on in her life. This girl made me feel wanted and always made me feel good about myself, and she almost made me have a more positive vibe in life. It’s like I never felt any negativity as long as I was there with her and she was there for me. She made me feel like I was worth something, and eventually, I started to have feelings for her when I knew she was in a relationship with a person she deeply cared about.

Being the kind of person I am, I went ahead and told her anyway. She understood the situation I was in and she knew how much it sucked and all she could do was apologize. Nothing changed between us — we were still the normal good friends we were, but I still wanted more than just friendship with her at that time. She eventually broke up with the person she was dating, and around that time I pushed my feelings toward her even more. This went on for about two months, and slowly things started to change. Because I was so stubborn and didn’t accept the fact that I was never going to get a chance with her, she just all of a sudden stopped talking to me,

I sent her several messages asking her what’s wrong, but she never responded anymore. It’s been almost half a year now since we talked and I still to this day try to figure out what it was exactly that made her stop talking to me — whether it was just that I annoyed her or if she was just done with me. I keep coming back to those times where we were such good friends and missing those times we had with each other. I want to fix this, but I don’t know if I even should or don’t know what to say. I learned my lesson and what I did wrong. I should’ve just been a friend to her the entire time but instead, I made it worse not only for me but for her too. I miss her. I don’t know what she thinks of me anymore, and I think if I try now after not talking for like half a year it’ll just make things awkward. I’m lost — what do I do?

Good-Listener replies

I’m sorry you seem to have parted ways with the girl in question. There are all sorts of possible reasons for the silence. You hinted at some of them — you’re being too aggressive with her and, possibly she became frightened. Or, she realized you were intent on a relationship she was not ready or interested in at this time. She may have liked you, but felt you were too involved and didn’t want to lead you on.

At one time or another, it’s happened to all of us. True, back in the day there was no ‘online’ or social media to communicate with… but, there were always people falling for someone that was either unavailable or not on the same page.

The first thing you need to do is stop beating yourself up for this. There’s no reason to. You learned, and that’s the most important thing. I’m a fan of being more subtle about feelings. Often people can tell how you feel by if you’re responsive and sensitive to their feelings and, often that means holding back from making proclamations of affection.

What to do now? I think she made it clear that the friendship you had may have gone too far from your end, so it’s very possible that she doesn’t want to hear from you. But, if you can handle the possibility of rejection, and want to send her a short, casual note, then do it but keep the emotions out of it. She may not respond. She may — but you need to be prepared in case she doesn’t.

Frankly, I think it would be better to chart this up to experience — and look for another lady with whom you can share a friendship — but taking this more slowly and holding your emotions in check unless it’s obvious that it’s more mutual. There will be other ladies — and, true, quality people are hard to find — they are out there. Just hold back little inlet things evolve mutually. Good luck.

Letter #: 440000
Category: Friendship