Stay as friends, or pursue something more?
A Little background info:
I met this attractive girl when I was a freshmen in high school and we "dated" for about a week (dated as in walked down the halls holding hands - we were 13/14) then she broke up with me saying she wasn't ready for a relationship. We were friends for awhile after this (few months) then slowly lost contact with each other. Just went our own ways I guess.
Recently (few months ago), I found her on myspace through a friend's profile buddy list, and we immediately started talking and catching up on things. Turned out she was serious about not wanting a relationship in high school, cause she never had another one until after graduation. She went into the Navy. She became a huge party girl - borderline alcoholic (oh the stories she's told me about that!). Now she's living with her parents again, while going to college and working as a waitress at a restaurant. She's single, yet again, and in the beginning of our talks she mentioned (only once) how she's not looking to be in a relationship again, that she wants to concentrate on school. This is totally acceptable and understandable to me, I'm just glad we're friends again.
Here's where things get confusing for me:
The more I am around her, the more I'm liking her. She's invited me over to her house a few times, we've gone out to eat & seen a movie together, and I've even helped her in a time of need a couple weeks ago. Now, I am usually really good at reading people and knowing exactly what they're thinking/feeling and that's always helped me know how to act/talk around a person, but with her I can't seem to do that. I never know what she's thinking or feeling. It's not that she's emotionless or anything, I just can't read her like I read everyone else.
This puts me in a tight spot that I've never really been in before. I feel like her and I are slowly getting closer (still just friends at the moment though) but at the same time i feel like she's not interested in me the way I am of her. So I don't know whether or not I should try to move forward, or wait for her to move forward, or what.
Perfect example, when I leave her house I give her a hug and we say our goodbyes. Well, the last one, for a split second i thought she had the look of "kiss me" instead of "hug me", but I wasn't for sure at all, so I hugged her. She held me tighter than usual and it felt more intimate than normal, but her verbal goodbyes were colder and more distant. I'm so confused!
On top of everything else, she regularly talks to one of my other friends (which gives me a taste of inside info). My other friend asked her how we were doing (this was totally not my doing! I never asked her to talk to her and i definitely never asked what she felt/thought about me) and she replied "we're living two different lifestyles. if he wants the relationship to progress he's got some lifestyle changes to make."
Lifestyle changes? I honestly don't have any clue what this could possibly mean. I don't have any other information than that about that conversation. It's been itching away at me for 3 days now and I can't put my finger on what the hell it means.
Maybe because I'm poor and she's rich? Or I'm not going to school and she is? Or maybe I'm a day person and she's a night owl? Or maybe I have kids and she doesn't? Or maybe its because I smoke and she doesn't? Maybe a combination of things? Maybe none of these and its something else completely that I can't wrap my head around?? It's riving me nuts to the point that I can't concentrate about anything else.
I really like this girl and would love to progress things to the next level to see where things end up, but I'm not willing to change the root of who I am. If its something simple, like smoking, I can deal with that. Easy fix. I've been wanting to quit anyway, just need a good motivator (and no, being healthy is not a good enough motivator for me). But if its something deeper, like my kids, or my financial situation, then I'm either not willing or not capable of changing something like that.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated because I can honestly say, I don't know what my next move should be. I'm lost.
