We met each other in Japanese class around August 2023. Initially I felt somewhat insecure because I thought she was much more attractive than myself, but things worked out mostly anyway. Over time we've become very close and we do things together around once or twice a week, such as having lunch together, watching movies, playing games, etc. We don't have this type of relationship with anyone else.
We've both been fully honest about our feelings (including my expectation of entering a romantic relationship with her). Unfortunately her last relationship was very traumatic for her and she thinks she's not ready to be in a relationship with someone else for now. Her last relationship ended around September 2023.
Resolves to YES if at any point during the year she believes that I am her "boyfriend" or that she is my "girlfriend".
You may ask further questions about our relationship or about myself. For each question, I will throw a coin. If it lands heads, I will reply honestly. If it lands tails, I will reply with a lie. I also reserve the right to overrule answering to specific, more sensitive questions in which case I will reply "overruled".
1,000
3.00I had a very close friend who became my girlfriend after 6 months who then became my wife of now 15 years.
Don't rush things. Don't act like a simp (meaning don't fawn over her too much). Make sure you have other friends too. But also don't wait too long. If you don't ask her out directly in the next 3 months, she might think you aren't really interested. Just be direct, ask "Would you like to be my girlfriend" after dinner some time.
I also think that you should directly ask her this. She already knows you want a relationship with her, you've already kissed and she liked it (or was that the bad coin toss?), she probably knows you're in love with her. Sounds like she's also into you but is being indecisive. If she says yes, great. If her answer is neither a firm yes nor a firm no but something indecisive, then question her about this, firmly and empathetically talk to her in detail about this, learn more details about her attitude towards you and towards relationships. Show her your feelings and explain your desires and your thinking too.
Note that if I were in this situation, I probably wouldn't try to elevate the friendship at all, as I'm not looking for a relationship.
But if I were in the situation and wanted to start a relationship, then I think this commenter is correct, except that it has to go a step further. Cut out all alcohol for a month, do all of what you said, and figure out a caring way to say that he wants a girlfriend and she has a week to be it or he's going to move on. That doesn't mean ending the friendship, just cutting off the physical contact.
And then if she says no, then resolve the market to NO and immediately start taking active steps to start meeting people and find someone who actually wants to be with him.
The drinking and her indecisiveness are both damaging his life and he could have a great life sober, with either her being committed or him being with someone else, who he would come to love just as much, even though it doesn't seem that way now.
There were some problems though, sometimes we had a bit too much to drink while there, and we had some fairly big arguments which is something that hadn't happened until then. It was also the first time we were basically "living" and like sleeping etc in the same room which obviously has its own challenges. One of those arguments was actually the first time we kissed, but I think we were both way too drunk to really infer anything meaningful from that. In retrospective the arguments were for quite silly reasons but while they were happening I was actually feeling very sad and thinking that it was over etc. But in the end everything was fine.
Then we came back and I was told about a company trip to Japan that would happen in March so obviously I asked her to come along. For this we had to go to the capital, to the japan embassy, to get our our visas.
We collected all the documents and took a plane there. Unfortunately this is when I had a major autistic moment (won't go too much into details) but I accidentally did something that was fairly disrespectful to her, and she was very angry at me the whole day when we were delivering the documents at the embassy, and I wasn't even able to say I was sorry because of how stupid I felt. We went to our hotel and ate dinner and we got a wine bottle, and I felt very bad so I started crying. So we went up to our room and cuddled angrily until we fell asleep. And then the next morning I finally managed to apologize and it went sort of okay except uhhhh I think we never really got over that.
Then everything was more or less normal for a while. One night I fucked up again because we were drinking at her apartment and I kinda hinted at the idea of staying over for the night and she was like no you can't and I was like ok. And then later when it was time to go and we were rly drunk I was like hmmmm but could I stay over maybe :'3? and at that point we were with other ppl so it was awkward and it made her feel bad and yeah not my proudest moment. Then the other ppl left and I felt very guilty about pushing her so I started crying. After that she kissed me and we talked a bit and I apologized to her but it was very awkward.
Then we went to japan. It was honestly fairly difficult. By the time the trip happened we started to have some financial problems and this created weird power dynamics because we were now on the other side of the planet and I had most of the money, and this was compounded by the nature of my autistic moment earlier, not a good time.
I tried to compensate for this by making sure she felt as comfortable and had as much fun as possible, but it was tough for me and our relationship suffered a lot. It was also a business trip for me so I had to spend some time working and such, so all in all we didn't get to spend all that much time together, and when we were together the vibes were mostly really bad :(
I will be honest and say that I am very sad about this. I dreamed of going to japan with her and I didn't think it would be so "easy" (seemingly). Indeed it wasn't easy and I feel I miscalculated and wasn't able to create a proper environment for things to go the way I hoped. At least I am glad she had a better time there and got to explore more things, but I wish I could've been with her during that.
I probably don't really care as much about having like a named relationship or whatever anymore. I've learned a lot about myself and my flaws and how to improve on them, and I've spent many very nice moments with a very beautiful person and I think that's just enough value for me to be very very happy.
I may be wrong about this, but just from reading this randomly for the first time, the thought that strikes me is that you drink too much. Many of the problems you mentioned, some of which made you feel extremely depressed, were directly caused by things you did while you were drunk.
Does anyone else see this? Perhaps you should consider quitting alcohol entirely. If it's serious, consider seeking treatment.
Recent research has shown that any level of alcohol consumption is medically harmful, and in your case, it seems like drinking is ruining your relationships. You would probably be more attractive to her as well if you were in better control of your behavior, too.
@SteveSokolowski thanks for your comment. I am of course well aware of the effects of alcohol on health and generally speaking I wouldn’t say I drink that much. It is true that we drink a lot more when we’re together and it is usually a fun activity as it increases the volatility of our emotions, but obviously that’s not necessarily a good thing as it can (and has) also lead to instability. I have definitely noticed the pattern you pointed out and I have been drinking less when I’m with her. It is a difficult thing to balance as she encourages me to drink more and consent-wise I think it’s not ideal for one of us to be considerably more intoxicated.
But generally speaking I want to clarify that I am aware of this and I’m working on improving things in that regard.
The statement you made in that comment - that "consent-wise" you need to be at the same level of intoxication - might concern a few users reading this thread. Setting up a situation for a false allegation of rape should concern everyone, particularly those who have a lot of money. Being "equally drunk" is not a valid defense in a civil case where trivial evidence can cause bankruptcy.
But even if there are no legal issues, it sounds like you drink a lot mostly because she drinks a lot. And, if so, this relationship is pulling you down.
Anyway, maybe that's an incorrect reading of the situation - what would I know? My intuition is that if a discussion with her about spending a night or two together while sober turned out negative, there is someone out there who is a better match for you.
We drink because it's fun, there's not much more to it. We have also spent many nights together sober too, it's just that on average we drink more heavily when we're together. There's also some survivorship bias because obviously when we were sober nothing particularly relevant for the market happened, so I didn't go into as much detail on that XD