Sick of being used

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I've recently come to the realization that I enter relationships, more specifically friendships, with girls I'm romantically interested in. As one could expect, this leads to a ton of emotional pain and suffering on my part, while the other party, from what I've induced, enjoys the showering of attention I give her. Recently, I told a girl whom I had feelings for (and who knew I liked her), that I couldn't interact with her any more, as she had told me earlier that she was asking out another guy. I feel extremely frustrated that I fall into this kind of situation over and over again, and would like to know how to avoid the needless misery.

You're showering them with attention, try to read some dating advice articles.

How exactly are you being used?

From what you've described, you're falling for girls who aren't interested in you romantically. Almost everyone experiences this at one point or another, and I totally get how crappy it is to have that be the extent of your romantic interactions.

But showering a girl with attention doesn't mean she owes you a relationship. If you're choosing to give her that attention and she takes it, you can't vilify her for it. I don't know what your situation is like, but in my experience, being too readily available for a girl will often turn her off.

If you don't want to keep subjecting yourself to disappointment, don't enter friendships like these expecting anything more than a friendship. Of course you can be open to a relationship, but until you and her express a mutual romantic desire, you shouldn't be looking at her romantically in my opinion. That's at least the strategy I've used to shield myself from these situations

This particular girl, even when I explicitly stated, "If you don't like me, tell me so" responded with something along the lines of "I'm not ready for a relationship right now, but I want to be your friend." This was 3 months ago. I don't know what else I can do to make it any more simple as to clarifying whether there are mutual feelings or not. In this case, she left the answer open ended, so I decided to give it a go.

Although what she said was ambiguous, I don't think she was meaning to say she might be interested in a relationship. If so, there is not guarantee it will be the result you want.

The problem is people don't want to hurt people feeling. So they speak in this laborious manner. It isn't good.

I have literally been used, e.g for transport. I'm much better at telling the apart.

I don't think that you showering her with attention and her enjoying it, is using, because it is mutual arrangement. Although in reality you expect something different in return. If she knew that and took advantage of it it would be using.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 13 Mar 2016, 6:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

I once had a girl tell me something similar.

So I knew exactly where I stood, I asked her should she become ready for a relationship whether she'd be interested in me. She beat around the bush but the short answer was no.

If she's that vague with you, especially if she won't offer a reason for not being ready for a relationship, it's good practice to prepare for her not being interested.

Oh please, most NT women know when a guy likes them. Come on now. Women are fantastic at reading body language and interpreting what other people mean. Women use men ALL the time. If she knew he had feeling for him, she should have made it clear that sh'es not interested. She didn't do that. She used a bs excuse.

This. I used to go easy on people who use and abuse me, and tried to sympathize with them, but this time was the time when I said "enough" and stood up for my own well being.

Don't become friends with girls when there is one-sided romantico-sexual interest on your part that is not reciprocated. It's that simple!

Girls like attention to feel desirable and often cultivate a circle of admirers then choose the one that they find most attractive. If there isn't interest on her part, quietly retreat without telling her directly you want nothing to do with her and move along.

The damage has already been done; I told her, in a tactful way, that she can go ^%$ herself and that I'm finished with her. Frankly, I'm tired of this happening again and again, and wanted the other party to feel my suffering by experiencing a bit of it for a change. I know it's not mature, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

With that girl the damage has been done. But my advice is to learn from your mistakes and in the future, if she isn't interested in you back then DO NOT tell her to go *$% herself, but cease communication with her and don't respond to communication attempts by her! That's what I was trying to say.

One last thing: This girl told me that I was one of her best friends, and that our friendship meant a lot, even if it was in reality one sided. This, coupled with the fact that she started crying, made me realize that telling her directly that I was done was the best thing I could do in this situation. The circumstances were horrible all around, and I'm glad to have learned from this experience.

No arguments here from me that women are good at sensing romantic interest.

But even if she knew you liked her, so what? Look at it from her perspective. She had a friendship with you that she regarded highly. She probably figured telling you outright that she wasn't interested in you romantically would completely sabotage your friendship.

Sure, if she was aware that you liked her beyond friendship, she would have been doing right by you to address it. But when she failed to give a clear answer, you were under no obligation to continue 'showering her with attention' (is that really all she did to 'use' you?), so you can hardly throw all of the blame on her. It'd be a different story entirely if she was leading you on, but you didn't allude to that being the case.

If I were you, I would have pushed for an answer. If she was unable to date at that moment, I'd have asked her whether she would be interested in dating me or not once she is able to date. If I was met with more vague responses, I'd pretty much have my answer.

You are correct; I should have pushed for an explanation behind the "I'm not ready for a relationship" explanation. That was totally my fault, and should I encounter it in the future, I will do exactly that. Nevertheless, she spent large amounts of time one-on-one with me and would initiate social events with me. I thought this was something that it obviously wasn't. The crux of my argument is the fact that she didn't tell me flat out no, even when I begged her to do it. I even had an hour long conversation specifically about our positions in this, and came out thinking that there was a possibility. At this point, I've learned what I needed to learn, and further rumination will produce nothing but depression and pain.

Men are the same they never say yes or no, or they say it's a friendship and pretend they arent looking for anyone. It ruins everything for me. I can never tell where I am with aman. Like the other person said people don't want to hurt your feelings so make it subtle. To them its subtle to us its BS. I would rather know the truth too but that's how they're programmed to deal with everyone else cos thats how most people would like to hear it.

To be honest sounds like it was kind of one sided on your part. I mean you were only 'friends' with her because you wanted her to go out with you. Based on that response it sounds like she probably actually did value your friendship, just didn't have romantic interest in you. Sounds to me like you just threw away a potentially valuable friendship. Then again I suppose if you only valued the thought of her going out with you, I guess her friendship alone wasn't very valuable to you.