Issue I never really expected to have.... Kind of a "Friend-Zone" sort of thing...
I have lost count of how many times I have tried to write this thread just now. I kept trying to do it and it was winding up way too long. Those of you who know me by now here will not be surprised by that at all. LOL!
So, I'm trying (yet again) to just make this very short. (If anybody is truly interested, I can go into greater detail later, or even in a PM if you were that interested).
A new girl started coming to my game night recently. She hasn't been there every single week, but she has come in a handful of times already. We do get a new visitor from time to time, but very rarely a female visitor. She is really awesome! She is a lot of fun, very friendly, very funny. Best of all, she really seems to like us, and she even finds me funny. I LOVE corny jokes, so if somebody actually finds my goofy sense of humor funny, they are instantly somebody with whom I can easily be friends.
Knowing myself, everything about her should make me have a HUGE crush on her. Funny enough, I find myself wanting to be friends with her, not necessarily wanting to ask her out. (Ahhh, threw you off with the title, didn't I? You thought this was a question about how to get out of the friend zone. LOL!) It isn't anything about her. I'm not really sure why. (Though, I think it may be because I get the hunch that she is a lot younger, like maybe 10 years younger. I know that isn’t much, but to me 20 and 30 are a big difference in your lifetime.) And, don't get me wrong, if she happened to be single and SHE asked ME out, I would have a hard time saying no. Not sure I could resist if that were to happen. But, I find myself wanting to be friends with her. And, it's weird, but I've never felt so strongly about a girl without it being somebody on whom I was crushing. I find that she is somebody I really want in my life, and not just as somebody who shows up to our games from time to time. I mean, in all likelihood, she will probably wind up being just like any of our part-timers. She'll come around a few times, then disappear completely. But, I find myself really hoping she sticks around and considers herself one of our regulars.
So, I found myself with a strange issue I never even really thought of before. As a guy.... how can I, for lack of a better phrase, sort of ask a girl out... but strictly as friends? Complicating matters a little bit is that, it was later revealed that she does have a boyfriend (If you are wondering, no, I did not ask. He actually just recently joined us one game night.) On the one hand, that helps because the option wouldn't be there anyway even if I had started to crush on her. On the other hand, though, that also kind of complicates things because I sort of feel wrong trying to be friends with a gal who has a boyfriend. He's not going to believe that I just want to be friends with her, and I don't want to cause trouble in their relationship.
So, sort of a multi-part question here.
- First off, is it best just to not bother to pursue a friendship since she has a boyfriend?
- If you think it is okay to pursue a friendship with a girl even if she has a boyfriend (so long as you make it clear that you aren't being a creep, and you just want to be friends) how exactly do you go about doing that?
- Just in case the situation should ever happen to come up again.... let's say she either didn't have a boyfriend, or I didn't know whether she did or not.... How do you ask somebody of the opposite gender out strictly as a friend? I'm not really even sure how to go about something like that.
Thank you so much to any of you who can help. And, especially thank you if you can get through my long posts. LOL!
