h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I certainly understand things like finding friends attractive and particularly that bit about not wanting to do the wrong thing and have things turn out bad. But if it were me knowing what you had already said would alleviate much of that fear. So I don't get it. Sounds like either he's so fatalistic that he'll reject advances from someone he does like (you) or he's gonna be kicking himself for hesitating like this. Very strange if you ask me. Not strange enough (yet) to say okay forget it, but getting close.

Mmm Hmm. Understandable feelings for him to have. I agree with CrazyOne. Your guy just wanted (needed?) more time to figure himself & you out. Impossible to do without outside influence. Tell on.

-jb

Okay, an update- it turns out my dumb ass ex(let me remind you he is also my best friend) didnt recieve my IM, he was busy signing off to notice. He was going to call me, but he was sleeping. He has also refused to speak with me about his feelings, he says he wants to do that in person and not take the wussy way out(which is what I do). So on Monday I will get the verdict. I thank you for your responses and advice but I am the paranoid, crazy psychotic who reads into things way to much. I am not sure what I will do when push comes to shove, but I will let you know ASAP.
Greyrose, this guy is an ass. Forget him. He is a cretan. Get on with your life. I can see he will be nothing but trouble in the long run. I should be the one to talk, seeing as how I am thinking about trying things with the ex again.

Rat

I think I might understand how your guy feels, Rat. I don't like talking over the phone about things I might find terribly important and personal. And honestly, his talking directly to you, person to person, is probably more advantageous to you than it is to him.

We haven't heard all of GreyRose's story yet, so jumping to conclusions there might be just a bit hasty. I have female friends who I won't go out with, even though I find them attractive and quite possibly ideal. Sorry , there's a matter of principle involved, though I'm not entirely sure what.

-jb

before reading this opinion please bear in mind that all of this has absolutely no prior experience to be derived from so it is all guess work. now that i have said that let me get back to the original post:

hmm.... (seem to be starting a lot of posts like that)
well it seems to me that when he says he isn't sure that he likes that isn't what he meant, perhaps he misunderstood the question (taking it to mean do you want to go out with me, because thats what that questions is generaly bound with). Maybe he just doesn't yet know (or perhaps understand) just what it is he feels for you, and so is afraid to act on that which he doesn't know (or understand). From what you wrote it seems as if you were pushing him into "going out with you" whatever that really means (always wondered that actually, maybe i should start a forum...) Perhaps now that you have shown that you are interested in him you should leave him an open invatation, not indefineta ofcourse but not with a time constraint either. And maybe ask him to get together on comfortable terms after thinking about it for a bit and see what you two have decided thanks to this new information. (sounds like some kinda of peace confrence). But whatever you do don't try to push him into this, because if he is a certain type of guy he will agree with you out of fear of upsetting you and i don't think you want that. Well i think that shall be the end of my unusual posting for today (i don't give advice but after the party i just came back from where there were a few engaged couples who were very happy and a few who were obviously about to strangle each other i just felt i should try to encourage the first and prevent the second)

P.S. This in no way reflects the opinions or state of mind of iodine in refrence to his own life (this is for you rat, so don't think you learned anything about me)

So basically you are saying that she should give him more time?
-If that's not right then skip this reply-

I, being the best friend of the GreyRose, believe that there has been
a boy's whole lifetime of waiting for this almost relationship to turn into a definate one. GreyRose's boy's lifetime, + a few others as well.

And still the boy says 'I don't know.'

She waits forever for something to happen (okay, almost forever)
the whole time wondering,...wondering, and when something finally does happen, she is exctatic (sp) and thinking that things are finally moving up on the relationship scale. But every time the Boy
regresses. So, she takes matter into her own hands, as far as she dares (which seems to be too far for Boy because it seems to scare him again) & so she waits again. -Hopefully (usually) with a bit more information than before. But perhaps no farther up the relationship scale.
But, he does act like he likes her most of the time. -body language included. He just seems extremely shy. So, I wonder if he's the type of person who would just rather not say anything in cancelling this whole charade, because he's so scared, inexperienced, whatever.
But when it comes down to information being important, no one knows what he thinks, not even his closest friends.
But, if he was uninterested, he would most definately tell her so, especially upon being confronted.
So, he must need more time.
This is how intensly it goes around here. -and around, and around.

They're Hopeless...
P'hul*

That wouldn't be generalisation, would it?

I've known guys like this (from talk to my female friends). When you advance, they retreat. When you back off, they come after you. In response, you advance again and they retreat again. etc. etc.

He's confused. He doesn't know what he wants. He's got totally conflicting ideas as to whether he wants to get closer to you or just stay friends (although I do understand the "stuck in the friend mindset" thing). It really depends on the strength of your feelings as to whether you keep going with this, GreyRose. If you like him enough, keep trying. If you're sick of all this, leave him alone and see whether he comes to his senses. If he doesn't then you've saved yourself a lot of confusion. If he does then you both win

Once again, as with all male/female interactions, there's no right answer.

Rat, I agree with jb - if he wants to talk face-to-face then a) he thinks it's important and b) he's smart and sensitive enough to realise that the phone is really impersonal. You lose so many nuances of conversation when you can't see each other.

Give him a go, hear what he has to say and then decide whether he's a dumb ass (arse? ) You might even be surprised.

Looks like everyone thinks the same thing. (Except for Rat, but I think that may have more to do with her present situation.)

Waiting is the only thing I can do. The only thing I have been able to do for months. I'm glad that I did talk to him this week.

The conclusions that I drew from what he said were that he does like me, but wishes that he didn't. Because of his fear of getting involved. The most I got directly from him is that he is confused, frustrated, and doesn't know what to do. I asked him if he thought our talk helped him. He said that he couldn't tell yet, that maybe he would be able to later, after he thought about it for a while. I really hope it helped.

I like him a lot, and am not interested in anyone else whatsoever. (believe me I tried.) Now, I'm back waiting again for four more days. I don't think I'm going to really ask him about it this week unless he brings it up. Do you guys think that's a good idea?

Ummm...yeah, maybe that's the way to go for now. Give him a little while to mull it over. If you ask him about it at soon as you see him again you could scare him off.

I think you're handling this well, GreyRose (we can't take *all* the credit )

Off to bed . Work tomorrow. Damn.

Thanks Oz! I hope I'm handling this the right way.

I should let him 'mullet' over? (inside joke w/me and P'hul* )

Good Night. It's morning for me, but I haven't been to bed yet.

Well i did imply that greyrose should give him more time but that wastn't the entire thing.
to be honest i am not totaly sure what i meant when i wrote it (it was somewhere around 5 am so my mind wasn't all there, which is odd because usualy its not there at all), but from what i recall i meant that greyrose should continue trying to get him into a relationship but very slowly so as not to scare him away (like someone else stated in a post after mine). Yeah i believe thats what i meant.
As for what you said... i dont think its hopless, rather slow to start perhaps. He did say he liked her and he did kiss her, or did she kiss him, well either way that shows that he is trying. And if you give him some motivation i belive that grey rose and him could get together and be happy. I knwo there shouldn't be any motivation involved but since he is so... i guess shy wouold be the word, and greyrose does seemt o like him quite a bit perhaps that is a sacrifice she would be willing to make.

ok no more of this, my opinions are obviously flawed on subjects like these so i shall try to keep them to myself in the future

hey grey rose...

does the length of this thread mean that we are soon to have a "why are guys guys III" forum =)

Iodine! You and Rat both are always saying that you guys don't have anything to offer to this conversation. You guys have lots to offer!

Don't worry about P'hul* saying we're hopeless. She doesn't really think that. She's just exasperated with us. She has to deal with all this more than you guys do. She's been listening to me go on about this for about 10 months now.

I'm going to keep moving forward, as slowly as I have to. It is so unbelievably frustrating though. Almost as frustrating as waiting for these conversations to load.

Meaning that you're probably right about having a new one soon.

Okay, Greyrose, you are right, my opinions are probably being influenced by my present situation....sorry. I am an impatient person, and not thinking about things. Realistically, yes, this guy may be just scared and thinking things over, which is something that people should do. There are times(everytime) that I rarely think things over well enough.
Iodine, don't give me any of that"this isnt really me, this is just 'iodine's' thoughts. Or whatever. I know lots about you, compared to like the rest of the school(I probably knwo as much as most of our friends though, or maybe more?) Anyways, thanks for calming me down the other day, and why dont you give me some good advice like you gave Greyrose? You know so much about the situation and the advice you gave me was good, but, I guess what I am getting at is WHAT THE HECK AM I GOING TO DO TOMORROW?!! Ahh! ok, so now I will make you answer this so everyone can see your response. Help!

rat

Yeah, a new forum sounds like it may happen-when i came on just now i got scared when i saw all the posts made!!

I think that a reason that Iodine may be hesitant to give you more extensive advice than he would give me, is that he knows you in 'real' life. He might be worried that if he tells you something that you don't want to hear, you will get mad at him. I do this myself sometimes. Early this morning, when P'hul* was over here, she said a few things that I didn't want to hear and I was like, "don't say that!", and I made her feel bad. (Sorry babe) Or, he might be worried that you'll take his advice and things will turn out bad, and he doesn't want it to be his fault.

See, if Iodine were to give me (or anyone else here) bad advice (which he hasn't as far as I'm concerned) and things got worse, and I (or someone else) decided I (or someone else) wasn't going to talk to him anymore, he wouldn't be losing anything. If that happened with you, he would be risking losing a good friend.

Am, I right about any of this Iodine?

I'm going to leave starting another forum up to you, Rat. Just don't forget to let us know when you do.

Yeah, it's a lot easier to give advice when you won't have to deal with the consequences in any way. Anonymity is a wonderful thing

iodine: maybe you should create another "persona" that Rat doesn't know about

Thanks for the idea Ozman. I hat though of that before but i decided against it. I don't like to lie to my friends or decieve them like that, plus taking on a nother persona would be such a nuisance (remebering to be loged in under the correct one, etc... (yes i rad the forum that said those who said using etc... it just don't by those who have nothing more to say and that is correct too). Also if you haven't noticed i (just like everyone else) have a particular style of writng. Mine happens to be highly disorganized and i believe that it's easy to identify.
Greyrose... you are proving to be quite insightfull here (and also very carefull in protecting yourself from my misenterpretation (sp?) of what you wrote). The reasons you stated are the some of the ones because of which i tend not to give advice, but that's not completely acurate. I would have a similar level of hesitation giving you advice despite the fact that i don't really know you. You seem to be a nice person (and a smart one at that) and i value people like that wether they are friends or just names on a message board. I also didn't give rat advice on this since i had absolutely none to give her. What she is going though is just something i have never known or even thought about before. As with you i can manage some sort of logical help since i did have something *slightly* similar happen to me but i was in the place of the guy. As you know from prior posts my friends known othing about me (as P'hul* stated about your guy), and there was a girl who liked me and told me so. What happened from there i would rather keep to myself as no one else really knows any further (including rat). Hope that can explain why i didn't post any advice for you rat.

sorry about that
a few major typos manged to sneak in there (6am post this time)
"it just don't by those who have nothing more to say and that is correct too). "
that should read
"is just done by those who have nothing more to say, and that is correct too)). "

I didn't mean to imply that you don't care about the people that you meet here, just that with Rat you have so much more to lose.

I am worried right now about the Boy. I'm starting to wonder if I did the right thing in talking to him. I'm just afraid that I may have messed everything up. I wish it wouldn't be three more days before I get to talk to him. ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!