Deer in the headlights

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Well, first thing's first. "What the hell does that subject mean?" If I'm simply observing other people, social interactions are pretty transparent to me. They make sense. Its like the Mac ads. It just works. The second I'm involved, well, not so much. Best analogy I have is that I'm a deer in the headlights. Seriously. "Oh s**t, that's bright...." splat An application issue or something. Can't run a .exe on OS X. (Don't bring up virtualization, you jerk, that's a metaphor.)

That being said, I'm completely befuddled (I like using that word...though I dislike having to use that word...) with my current situation. So I suppose explaining that would be a good idea as well...

This whole posting thing is a hell of a lot easier when it isn't the first post, and it isn't about me... moving on...

At the start of the fall semester, the apartment building I live in got some new residents. Some people had moved out, and new people had moved in. That's...kinda how that works. Again, wow, typing in response to something seems easy, now I feel like I'm rambling like an idiot. Attempting to stay focused though. In the apartment adjacent to me, a guy and two girls moved in. No biggie. Well, wasn't. I became interested in one of the girls, and after a while (and some drunk nights...booo social anxiety disorder, hooray beer!) she would basically stay at my place every so often. I wasn't really sure what the deal was, but I figured hey, I can live with this. One night she even pulled me off the floor where I was lying in a drunken stupor to get me to go to bed. With her in the bed no less, needless to say that was motivation enough to get off the floor. I definitely seem to sleep better with someone next to me.

Things went like that for a while, to the point where she stayed over and we didn't simply sleep. (Trying to keep this low-detail, again, not sure which sub-forum would be best, etc, etc.) Next morning she's all "Just don't tell anyone about this, I don't like people knowing about my business." No problem, until I've got a few drinks in me and people start asking. This time its boo alcohol lowering inhibitions. She got pissed, said s**t was over, whatever. Well, that wasn't entirely true, she slept over a couple times after that (if memory serves me right.) Just sleep, but again, wasn't complaining. Then I got so drunk downtown one night that I blacked out, made an ass of myself, got thrown out of a bar, and apparently had a nervous breakdown. She apparently saw most of that. I say apparently, because to be honest I simply don't know. I was there physically, no memory whatsoever, save a flash here or there of basically still-frames. That made things even worse. That gets things pretty up to speed.

After that, she'd show up at my place somewhat late a couple nights, drunk, sit on my couch next to me (rather than in the empty chairs or on the more open section of couch), sit there for maybe a half hour, maybe talk a bit, then say she should go to bed and leave. I figured she was just drunk, brushed it off. Then there was a party at a friend of mine's place. Can't remember why, didn't go. Got a message from his AIM account that basically said I should have been there. The next day, said friend shows up to my place, looking like he was nearly in tears. He said he needed to talk to me. He then proceeded to apologize for sleeping with her the night before. I asked about the AIM message, he said she sent it. After they fooled around. (This would be WTF??? #1.)

I did my best to brush it off, move on. He was upset, he felt bad, so I couldn't be angry at him. I wasn't in a relationship with her, so I couldn't be angry at her. That doesn't mean I was in a great mood about it, but I tried to just let it go.

Over the winter break, I've been a good 1200 miles away from said college town. Not really been all that communicative with people. Yet she's still sent me messages. I'm guessing they're when she's drunk, but I have no way to verify this.

Examples: Text message by phone: "I miss my (my name)! Hope you had a kick-ass Christmas! Happy New Year!" (Sent at 12:03 in the morning on the 28th) (The "my (name)" thing is just a turn of phrase she uses, not totally sure of where that comes from, what the psychological meanings could be, etc, again, deer in the headlights, its like someone just knocked the cpu out of the motherboard, or windows BSODed)

AIM Message, sent this morning, around 3:40 local time:
"seriously i felt like s**t about the game....but then i thought about all the good times we had and that you would be back soon to make it all better! love you and miss you! " (Football game on tonight, our team lost, people got drunk, I got over a migraine in my parents' house)

OK, if you got through all that, you must be bored, or motivated, or dedicated, or something, but I commend you.

Now for the $200,000 question. What the hell am I supposed to see this as?

My thought? She's definitely into you. First of all, what you tell me gives it away that she at least was attracted to you physically. The fact that you didn't keep that secret - not the best thing but then again it wasn't a deal-breaker and trust me, she could expect at least 1 out of 2 guys to slip on that one too.

Here's what really caught my interest though, what she did with your friend and him being almost in-tears embarrassed. First of all where did he get that impression that you guys were that serious to where it was if he'd f'd your long-term girlfriend? She must have really been building up the history between you and her a lot. That and that text message she sent? Getting with your friend was a rather deliberate psychological maneuver on her part and one she probably did in hopes of trying to extract an emotional response out of you. To me it sounds like your responses tend to be very nonchalant to things and sometimes that unintentionally works way more than you know - ie. if she's trying to have some effect on you and you're playing it as cool as a cucumber (even if that's AS rather than anything else), not getting their way drives women crazy and puts the flip on things even more making them even more into you if they were to begin with.

As for the text messages, more continuation. She likes you, now feels embarrassed because not only did getting with your friend not have any sway on your head but to someone like yourself its like she put you on the moral high-ground and realizes that. Just by the way the situations evolved and probably very unintentionally she's got you on a bit of a pedestal in her head now (or more realistically she feels she's looking up from a ditch she dug). That adds another element - she probably cares a lot of what you think of her. All this is just my guess though, I'd say wait to see what other people chime in with. As for what you should do? That's the trouble - I like to think I'm decent at understanding these things but when it comes to knowing which route I'd take that's where things blur on me. If you really like her as well I'd give her some mixed signals, stay cool but flirt a bit to keep her hopes up. If you aren't really that into her then just don't worry about the texts, don't call her, and be superficially polite when she does get a hold of you but just stay distant so she knows your just tolerating and dealing with her rather than wanting her attention.

Its a weird sense of loyalty going on between the guys I consider friends up at school. If we ever stab one another in the back, or at least believe we have, we deal with it directly. Another friend of mine made out with her at one point, and he's not even interested in her, but he felt, idunno, obligated to tell me? His situation was a bit different though.

Some stuff I managed to leave out, slipped my mind, was that the second friend of mine had apparently done some stuff with her towards the end of the summer. I don't know the extent, because their stories aren't in agreement, but at one point I had the "great pleasure" of listening to her going on about him. According to one of her friends, she "couldn't decide," something like that.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. Paranoid that she only acts interested when she's drunk, paranoid that this could be the same kind of crash and burn situation as my ex turned out to be, paranoid of a lot of things. After all that's happened, would I like to believe something positive can come out of this? Sure. That'd be nice. Will I allow myself? I'm not entirely sure. Other stuff in my life (the complete F'ing up of my usual routine caused by winter break, the chaos of grad school apps) has got me a bit distressed right now, and at this point I have no way to measure my reactions. beforehand. I overthink every aspect of it, because I expect other people to be paying as much attention as I believe myself to to all the details that most people either ignore or subconsciously take note of. Both times she's sent messages now, I've thought of responding, but then I overthink the responding to the point of not being satisfied with any possibility I've come up with, and I end up pushing it aside as best as I can, either referring to the message in an away message, or making an excuse as to why I've been unreachable (at times these aren't made-up, between parents and grad school apps). Short of literally asking someone else what to say, figuring out how to respond is difficult at best, as it seems like (in my head at least) by the time I've come up with a response, I've passed the window of opportunity or whatever, and the response would no longer be valid.

You want my advice? of course I don't drink, but I have taken a psychology course and a sociology course and the whatnot.

my advice. I think the girl is genuinly interested in you, from what I've read of what you've said, it would appear that the only mistake that was made was when you got drunk and told others about said girl. It would seem to me that the fact that she slept with said best friend, a mistake on her part, and one that said friend appologized for. Now apparently your emotions are not exactly those that make it simple for you to understand all of this Correct? or sorta or something like that. Your paranoia comes from your previous relationship with a girl who screwed you over, and now you're wondering if its her or the beer. In most cases where if it's just a one night stand thingy, I'd go with the beer. But from what you're describing sans beer, I'd say beyond a shadow of a doubt that what you're looking at possibly is a girl that likes you. Considering she's slept with you, how many times, and alway seems to want to be around you, that would be a bloody high indicator of the fact of the above that I mentioned.

However, I would caution you to be careful.

Well this is what anyone else would do, fact she only or may do it when she's drunk - you got to change all your details, email - phone number everything else, coz that's exactly what any person would do,, he did say that she sent it so that would mean she wanted you to get angry about it. Sound's more like she knows she can play you, and you won't give a s***t... I know ive had this lass phoning me all the time starting talking about her and you know what to do to her... went on for 2 weeks with her calling me every day with this calling, anyway I sometimes got through to her phone and a guy answers and it drop's...

Felt pissed about meeting her too... Basicly it's the guy the girl's hate to have, in a girl... but they keep falling for them...

After 2 weeks I had enough...

http://www.dataguru.org/love/strategy.asp this might help you to figure it out... need to skip the *** to the courtship part

Also this *** about a rebound relationship - where a person comes out of a serious relationship and target's someone for a rebound thing..

Eh, some of it does. I don't trust people all that readily to begin with. I can't really say with full confidence that I trust more than a few of my friends, and even that took a fair amount of time.

That's the plan...then again that's at times the problem. Whole tendency with going overboard with the caution and the scrutinizing all the details.