LogFAQs > #978720062

I made a topic about it a few weeks ago but I doubt anyone remembers it. Anyway I'm not looking for advice I guess (though wouldn't mind it even though I think there's really nothing more to be done) but rather just want to tell the story and get it off my chest.

It'll probably be way long so turn back now if you're not down to read a story.

Anyway this is a former coworker who I've known for a bit over a year. She left when she got another full-time job somewhere else. There's also a bit of an age gap here, (she's early 20s and I'm early 30s) but we got along really well at work. We started hanging out and became friends after she left my work and it was definitely platonic though there were small signs here and there of her being a little interested, though I thought nothing of it and was content being her friend. This went on for 6-ish months.

A turning point is when we went to Disneyland and I started to definitely feel there was a mutual attraction growing during that trip. I won't get into the details but there was plenty of signs and we spent the whole day together. This was a bit less than a month ago.

Anyway that was more or less confirmed when she asked me out the weekend after that and specified that she was asking me out on a date. She asked if she was too young for me and I said I didn't think so and let's give it a try.

So we went on the date the weekend after, she dressed up super nice for it (nice dress, hair done up, heels) and we had dinner and a saw a movie. We've done that before plenty of times but it was an official "date" now. I really felt like we both had a blast, plenty of talking/laughing/touching.

I dropped her off and before she got out of the car, I asked if I could kiss her. She said "Sure!" all happy and leaned in for a kiss. So we kissed but it was fairly brief. I mean, first kiss with someone new and all. When we pulled away, she said "That's it? OK, bye (my name)...." and started packing up all her stuff. So I called her in for another one and she grinned. However I was thrown off mentally by her "that's it" and was nervous as a result, and it was a pretty bad/out of sync kiss. Wasn't sure what she wanted and I felt we were trying to do two separate things.

Can't remember if I pulled away or she did. Anyway when that ended she was pretty quiet and just gathered her stuff up and said bye, and got out of the car. I definitely felt like that went wrong.

So the next day I texted her and asked if for our next thing, she wanted to come by my place and we could cook something together and just hang out as I wanted to show her the house. Part of it was I wanted to see if she'd flake after that awkward kiss moment. However she said sure and seemed enthusiastic, was still sending heart emojis with exclamation points etc. She said she was going to bake me something to bring and said she was looking forward to coming over. Since it was weighing on my mind I told her I owed her a better kiss next time, and she said don't worry about that, it's not an issue and that we just started dating.

A couple days later I found out she quit her new job. It was a pretty good full-time position with a City government (similar to what I do). She had talked about how stressful it was to me before but I thought this was a pretty bad and impulsive move. It wasn't stressful because the work was hard (according to her) but rather because she just didn't like her coworkers. If she would have talked to me about it, I probably would have tried to talk her out of it until she had a new job lined up. I asked if she was still up to come over given all the stress, she said of course with a smiley face.

So the day came when she came over (last Saturday) and she brought me a homemade pie she made along with ingredients she prepared for the dish we were going to cook. She was friendly, we joked and laughed like we usually do, but she was also kind of cool and distant. Not kind of all over me at times like she was on the date. After we ate we sat on the couch and watched Netflix. I definitely didn't invite her over to try to push it toward sex or anything but I hoped for a bit of cuddling on the couch. However her body language wasn't inviting toward that at all (crossed arms, putting distance between us). I could just tell so I didn't try to initiate any sort of touch.

After a couple hours she said she had to go and just left abruptly. Walked out the door with just a hurried "well, bye" and no hug like she always did even when we hung out platonically.

I texted her and asked what was up, if she was still interested in dating because I didn't get the vibe tonight that it was anything other than a friend hangout. She texted back saying something like:

"I just feel like you have your life together way more than I do. I feel like I need to get my life sorted out first. I don't know what I want yet and I don't want to waste your time. I feel like we're in two very different places."

She then said she wanted to stay friends and that it was "absolutely not anything you did at all".

So my thought is that the explanation sounds like a typical excuse when you don't want to tell someone the real reason. I'm thinking I somehow screwed it up when a woman actually liked me enough to ask ME out. We're definitely in two different places (I own my home/have a job while she lives with her mom and is now unemployed) but she knew that from the jump and knew it didn't bother me and that I didn't judge for it. I have a hunch it was the whole kiss situation but if it was I doubt she would've came over?

Side note, the pie was amazing.