Advice on reading a situation

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Hi - I joined about a year ago but haven't really posted since then, but I was hoping to get some insight on a specific situation I'm experiencing. As a bit of background I'm an aspie male, 32, diagnosed last year, and have limited relationship experience (about 8 months worth, about 5 years ago).

There is a local pub that I like to go to since I've lived in my neighbourhood for several years and have gotten to know all of the staff there, so it's a very friendly welcoming place. I know when to go when it's quiet, and leave when it starts to get busy. All of the girls who work there have boyfriends, and I've always heard that asking out someone who works at a bar is difficult as a patron, so I never really considered it as a realistic possibility (as if I'd know how anyways haha...). But a couple of weeks ago, I was there for breakfast on Christmas eve and was the only one there, and one the waitresses and I were talking a bit since she wasn't that busy. During the conversation she started to bring up some insecurity in her relationship with her boyfriend. Like how she was uncomfortable having him over to her family Christmas celebration since she wasn't sure they'd be together much longer. Later on she noted again that she wasn't sure they'd be together much longer. Then I went a few days ago for dinner and asked how her holidays had been, and she said they had been great, and that her boyfriend had been away all week and that was "actually really great" and seemed to regret that he was getting back the next day. Whenever I've seen her since that Christmas eve breakfast she's hugged me as I was leaving (3 times now) and this morning when I went for breakfast she actually sat with me at my table for a while when I got in and chatted for a bit. She brings up her boyfriend a lot but half the time it's to suggest she's not that happy in the relationship.

I'm not really sure how to gauge all of the above - is she trying to read something in me as she tells me this stuff, or trying to send me some sort of signals? Or maybe I'm just a familiar presence and she feels comfortable just getting stuff off her mind with me? I thought maybe that she's been considering breaking up with him and is trying to read me to see if I'm interested in her or something like that. But then it could be that she just likes chatting with a familiar friendly face. If anybody has any insight into what may be going on I'd be interested in hearing someone's take, since I feel totally lost when trying to read somebody.

I've been trying hard to maintain eye contact when we talk, I'm sure I still seem a bit awkward to her anyways since our conversations from my perspective involve me trying to simultaneously listen to everything she's saying and remember it, remind myself of things I've learned about body language and try to implement them, and freak out inside to think I'm not applying those things properly, try to make adjustments while trying also to think up responses to what she's saying and then choose a response and say it while hopefully trying not to look like I'm panicking.

Don't know. Don't focus on the details so much. Play along, be friendly, don't make a move until it's inevitable. Or do, if you want to.

It sounds as if she is flirting with you. She may be eliciting your attention in order to assure herself that she's still attractive to men because she feels insecure with her current guy. (Bolstering her sexual confidence which she may then use on her current boyfriend or on other guys.) Or she may be trying to establish her next boyfriend (perhaps you) before exiting her existing relationship.

Either case is not good for you (her current manipulee). Let me explain. Women with emotional integrity take care of current business before moving on to the next guy. They figure out to mend or end with their boyfriends and spend some time healing and breathing before the next relationship, when the choice is to end things.

Without the pause to reflect on how things went wrong or how she mis-chose in the first place, a woman continues to bounce in & out of failed relationships. (They leap into whatever relationship is available, lest they be without a man, any man, for any amount of time.) Good girlfriends do not line up the next guy while they are still WITH the current guy.

Men who accept a mate just before she's left the "last" guy are setting themselves up to be the next failed partner. And, likely, she'll have the NEXT next guy lined up before her new current one knows; 'cause that's how she rolls. (This is true also for the same circumstance with the genders reversed.)

The antidote to this is simple; don't get emotionally involved with anyone who is still WITH the current mate. If she leaves the current guy, then you can look to see how she is with you. (If.)

Feel free to enjoy her attention; if you can, indeed, enjoy it; without projecting your attachment onto her.

I certainly have no 'emotional integrity' so I have no right to expect it in anyone else.

I know that if a girl ever wants to use me as leverage that's an excellent way in.

Don't overthink it.

What you're being right now looks like exactly what she wants: a good friend. I reckon your best bet is to carry on doing just that for the moment. Assuming she is NT, if something is supposed to happen, it probably will, sort of all by itself. At the moment, though, sounds like she is very not-free, in a relationship, and it's complicated. There is a bit more unfolding yet to be done, is my guess.

Meanwhile, what most people would want to avoid is being a sort of rescuer, in a 'life-raft' or 'rebound' relationship. These relationships tend not to last, because once the feelings for the despatched previous bf/gf have been resolved, so is the need for the rescue.

Give it a bit more time, I reckon; stay close, and see what happens next. WP is always here!

PS while I agree with MountainLaurel that, in an ideal world, people will pause to reflect between relationships, I think that is a practice that tends to come for some with experience, and for others not at all. Personally, I reckon about two years is right. For others it's even longer. But most people, especially in the early stages of partnering experience, simply don't do it. Therefore sometimes you will only get one chance with someone, and that is in the nanosecond between the old relationship and the new. It's rugged, because it means all that rebound stuff must be despatched while trying to get a new r/s underway; but people have been known to survive it! Good luck, however it plays out.

Great, thanks for all of the insight. I think I'm probably reading too much into it as well. I'm just going to keep going about my routine and see how things unfold. I just wanted other people's takes since I have a history of not reading people and situations that well, and I like to feel prepared for things that may be coming along that have a social aspect since I don't think on the fly that well either. Thanks again for the advice.