I seem to regularly get into this situation with men these days...a grey area where I’m not sure if we are meeting as friends or as more than that.
I work in an industry where networking is really important and it’s quite common to meet up with people individually for coffee or meals and chat over projects, developments, potential future collaboration etc. It’s a very shmoozy industry that I’ve been in since I was a child and I’ve just grown up thinking it’s normal to agree to meet a man for coffee or whatever with absolutely no expectation that it’s a date. I’m beginning to realise that it might be different in the “outside world” and I’m struggling to know when someone might be interested in me romantically or sexually and when it’s literally just meeting up for a chat/catch up. I’ve spent most of my life believing no one would ever want me and I think that doesn’t help either.
5 years ago I ended up in a situation where, outside of work, a male colleague started asking to go out just the two of us most days for lunch and dinner with me (as opposed to eating in the canteen with our other colleagues). He was also always asking to come to the cinema/gigs/theatre with me and if we got a random day off he’d say “hey, wanna go into the city with me?” This went on for almost a year. To cut a long story short I fell completely in love with him. I didn’t tell him because I felt like if he was really into me he would have said something and I was, at that point, terrified that he would hate me for being attracted to him and not want to be around me anymore. I was also worried about the dynamic at work, although it was quite an incestuous workplace and everyone was sleeping with one another!
He easily could have made a move if he’d wanted but he didn’t so I just put it down to unrequited love on my behalf and tried to distance myself but he was always desperate to hang out with me. He was extremely physically affectionate with me and really emotionally opened up to me but the one time he went to kiss me, he stopped himself at the last minute and I was left there with my eyes closed and my lips pouted looking like a complete idiot. I was confused and started turning down opportunities to spend time with him as it hurt so much. The more I pulled away, the more he wanted to spend time just the two of us. At the same time he kept saying he had an online girlfriend and then eventually told me he had booked tickets to go and stay with her for a few months (she lived on the other side of the world). Around that point, we both moved away and never saw each other again. He was quite cold to me when we said goodbye.
I’ve not really been with anyone in the time that’s passed. I’m a bit concerned now though that an acquaintance that I’ve known for several years is getting attached to me but he never explicitly asks me out and I’ve no idea what I’m dealing with! I’m not at all attracted to him and I wouldn’t want to confuse him the way I was by that other guy in the past.
Several years ago I ended up on a day trip with a good friend and some of her friends. This acquaintance was there and I drove half the group there including him. After that, he started texting at occasions like Christmas (several times during the day) and emailing asking if I fancied seeing a particular film with him and a few of the other people from the group. I said no as it was in a city that neither of us lived in (an hour away) and I would have got home after midnight and had work the next day. I explained that I was interested in the film but couldn’t go due to the above reasons. 3 weeks later he text again asking if I’d seen the film. I said no and that it wasn’t on at the cinema anymore! He just replied saying he hadn’t seen it either and that he hadn’t went with the others in the group that night.
More recently he’s regularly been trying to get me involved with certain events and projects that he is also at or involved in. I’ve said yes to a couple but only because I’m interested in the project and not because I want to see him. He started phoning me, under the guise of it being about the “projects” but then talking about himself for ages and never actually mentioning the projects until I asked what he wanted to talk about.
I was starting to feel a bit awkward and like he was reading things into it that weren’t there so I decided the last project I did would be the final one I’d see him at.
Since then he’s been texting and emailing again, mentioning events related to the last project I did (but not directly asking me to go). One of the events he’s mentioned is a three hour round trip and wouldn’t finish until late at night, possibly necessitating an overnight trip. I’m not interested in going and just said that I hope he has a nice time if he goes.
Apart from inviting me to these events or telling me about projects, we do not meet socially unless it’s through a mutual friend, he’s never “flirty” with me and I don’t feel we have a rapport. He’s regularly emailing, phoning and texting though, between 1 and 3 times a week and I do feel he’s trying to initiate opportunities for us to spend time together.
If you’ve got this far, you can probably tell I’m hugely inexperienced with men. I genuinely can’t tell if they are into me or not. I feel it would be really easy for me to end up on a “date” not knowing that it is a date or believe that I am going on a date only to find out it’s not that at all and the man was never interested in me in the first place.
Has anyone got any advice as to how I can know whether a meet up is a date or not?! I don’t want to get my feelings hurt again by stupidly falling for a friend or hurt someone else by inadvertently leading someone on. I’m totally clueless (and bracing myself for a backlash!).