A sweet friend who's a girl...

[destinationx]

Hi there, I'm in a serious mood disorder right now after what happened today, i'd appreciate any advice!

NB: She is a shy girl and is a foreign student and lives with her guardians here.

Here goes:

Basically, I've been friends with this new girl at college for a month or so now, we see eachother during a few classes and we text and talk a lot of the time on the phone (but it's always me making the first word). Over the last few days my feelings towards her have been growing. We have been out shopping and coffee in the local town once or twice after class at times, and today we went out with friends in the city.

The thing is, I invited her to come with us. She was the only girl there amongst 6 or so other boys. We had a long lunch, and all she wanted to do after a while was go shopping but the rest of us said 'no'... because we all wanted to chill longer. I secretly really want to, but pressure kept me quiet.

eventually, she did leave and go shopping but with another friend of mine. I phoned up and went and met her, and the other guy left to meet up with the rest of the crew. So we shopped around the busy streets, mainly only going to women's clothes shops. I played the usual 'funny guy' card by picking out funny bits of clothing and joking her to get it.

Then we go out to get a coffee, and i offer to pay for hers. She quickly goes to the bathroom downstairs for a minute and then i pay for both of our coffees. She comes back whilst the drinks are still being made, I joke by saying and acting in a serious tone "you have to pay for your drink", "no seriously, go over to the lady at the till"... she smiles and then her expression changes as if she believes me. Then I suddenly stop joking and smile, and give her a little hug and she realises and says in a laughing way: " hahaha don't joke like that again, i thought you were serious haha!".

We then leave, and i offer her to have a sip of mine, and then she offers hers to me. Later after a lot of walking and random chitchat, we get slightly lost on where to get to the place where we meet up with the others. I play another little practical joke on her in a flirty way, where i said:
"Ok, since it's hard to get there, we'll split up, i'll go on my own route"

She smiles and sorta agrees in a joky way, and I wander off in another direction, whilst she starts walking in her direction too but stops and looks at me as if to see if i'm going to give in and just go straight back to her already. But no, i walk through a little detour, and turn around into another road where i end up several metres in front of where both of us were originally. She is still standing there looking puzzled, and i phone her and she says: "heyyy, where are you?" i then wander closer to her till she sees me and i laugh and she laughs a bit too because i ended up in front of her.

Q: Should I stop trying to flirt with practical jokes? Even though she actually laughs and giggles at them quite a lot?

Basically, throughout our whole little alone time together in the busy streets shopping for her, i subconsciously cuddled her a lot. Like after a played a little joke or did something funny, i would give her a little cuddle whilst we giggled. Is this just going too far? Whenever we were also in the busy streets and i am leading the way i sometimes put an arm around her back to sorta guide her through the busy-as-hell crowd (my intention was to make her think that i was looking out for her by stopping her from being swallowed into the crowd).

When we got back to the other guys, they all made jokes asking her 'how big was it'... and 'how was the date'... like suggesting we hooked up during our shopping trip alone. She is a SHY girl by nature and may not understand english-language subtle jokes, and kinda says 'what do you mean exactly'. Seems she doesn't really understand the concept of those jokes, but yeah anyway, soon after we all leave and when we last saw eachother off we hugged, I made sure i gave her quite a strong one, (to give the impression that i was sincere in my goodbye).

Overall, throughout the whole thing, there were some silences like during shopping and going up and down the escalators and picking clothes and stuff. (i dunno if they were unbearable silences or just natural and OK silences for her).

But then when i got home. I do what i always do and give her a call a few hours later to see how everything went, she doesn't pick up for a while (probs busy watching a movie at her guardians) And overall, i left 3 missed calls on her phone and a text. I began to think this is too much and that it looks as if i'm obsessed with her or something. Eventually later i phone again and she does pick up... the conversation is good in that i asked her if she had fun and apologised for the other guys not wanting to go shopping with her at all. The only bad thing is that I stuttered and did the pausing 'well... err' when I brought up the subject of people joking about us hooking up during our shopping trip. She giggles of course, and then i later ask her what she's up to tomorrow and she says she wants to chill at home with her little brother. Then the usual goodbye and 'enjoy the rest of your weekend'..

I have felt so shit the last few hours because of all this. I got the impression that I overdid it, we are just friends right now but I think i made many mistakes during our time together.

What do you think i should do? i want to slowly start dating her as I really really care about her. So some Q's:

1. Do i cuddle/make physical contact too much? I mean in all the photos taken of us, i've got one arm around her shoulder.

2. are the little flirt practical jokes just a dumb idea?

3. Was trying to call her up multiple times, and then eventually talking about the rumours people made about us, a mistake?

4. Should I stop contacting her by phone everday? i send her a text at least everday, maybe call her once every other evening and have general chat.

5. should i invite her to watch a film with me? we are at a boarding college so we just watch a film on my laptop whilst sitting on my bed.

6. Can you please tell me anything i'm doing seriously wrong? I right now, want to PROVE to her that i'm a really caring and reliable and honest friend but at the same time can be a good laugh to be around.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I shall keep you all posted.

Thanks so much

[gartlas]

I think your doing great.maybe dont phone every day,but keep up the hugging and putting your arm around her shoulder,it showsconfidence.personally I think as I said yourdoing great.keep doing ehat your doing then grab her hand or something and make your intentions clear.otherwise you'll be seen as just a close friend.You should probably listen to giga's advice on this one,she knows more than me on this stuff...either way good luck with it

[miSSleepy]

Her lack of a sense of humour would turn me off, but hey.
You're not doing anything wrong at all, if I was in her place I'd love it. It doesn't seem like there's anything you need to fix, except maybe your choice of girl

[destinationx]

Ok cool, that's really lifted my mood a lot

I'm still really not sure whether it's a good idea or not to do this:

I have the habit of apologising to her whenever something doesn't go quite as planned or whatever. Like, when we went shopping and stuff, i apologised to her on behalf of the other guys because all they wanted to do was sit and chill and smoke shisha at the restaurant for ages, and she kept asking to go shopping. Just in general, whenever things don't go quite to plan during some sort of meet-up or whatever, i end up always makign some sort of an apology to try to make her think that i'm a polite, courteous and nice guy who is genuinely concerned for her enjoyment and everything. Too much you think? Do girls hate guys who apologise for not-so-big deals? or what?

thanks

[miSSleepy]

to make her THINk you're a nice curteous guy? lol
Look, I hate it when ANYone keeps apologising for everything. Things don't usually bother me anyway unless they're major, so if someone keeps apologising for trivial stuff it gets annoying - but I'm not going to think less of that person.

However, she might think that some of these things WERE worth apologising for - I don't know. But whatever she thinks, you have to make a judgement yourself: SHOULD you apologise? If it's something out of your control and you had nothing to do with it, then don't apologise. For example, don't apologise on behalf of others unless you had some play in it as well.

I don't know why the girl didn't just enjoy the chilling - I always do.

This is not to sound racist, just to put a perspective on it: what nationality is she?

[destinationx]

she's from amsterdam.

but don't assume her to be like a druggy slut because she's from that city.

I'll describe her... petite figure, over a year younger than me, very innocent sweet face, normally quite quiet and shy, but when in conversation my heart seems to melt all the time. She's just so adorable in general,

[miSSleepy]

ugh ok,
I'm not expecting her to be a slut.
Maybe you're just on different wavelengths here

[destinationx]

different wavelengths?

Well, it's my birthday very soon, monday in fact. and i am thinking of phoning her up to watch a film in my dorm with me,

I'm thinking of this.. saying as a joky thing when i bring up the coffee i bought her.. "don't worry about paying me back, just come over (to my boarding house) and watch a film with me tonight,". Maybe i'll save a slice of cake for her whilst playing some nice Abba tune on my record player to add some sort of romantic effect.. imagine it, i hope its not as cheesy as it sounds.

We joked a bit about the movie 'the notebook', i said no way was i ever seeing it, she was like: oh i've got to get you to see it'. it was a giggly little conversation the whole way through. Maybe I'll slide in a 'if you come, maybe i can be persuaded to watch the notebook?'... too corny?

I'm also very good at drawing, so do you think she'd like it if I drew a picture based off a photo taken of us during the day? I mean, i don't want to do it so that she feels creeped out though because i go to such far lengths to try to make her happy.

at some point it's gonna look so obvious i'm trying to become closer to her to the point of possibly dating. But honestly, i'd be more than happy to just get to the point where she thinks:

"I really really like him as a friend, and I know I can depend on him for anything.".

right now she's still a little wee bit shy, but i want to get to the point where she's 100% comfortable around me even as 'just friends' to the point that she starts playing jokes on me and opens up on deep issues. Dating her would be really great though.

[miSSleepy]

It's all fine, but it may be a bit early for the drawing. I'd be happy to receive something like that, but maybe not so early on.

By different wavelengths I mean that your mentalities are different. I know people who I can't effectively communicate with because things I say just go straight over their head and jokes fall flat because they just don't get it.

[destinationx]

i think you get me wrong here a little, sorry. I should've made it clearer.

She really does have a sense of humour, she laughs and giggles at my jokes. I just joke to try to subtly flirt with her; i just find it is my way of getting her to be more and more comfortable around me. We are still quite new to eachother, you see.

I think when the other guys suddenly sprange awkward sounding questions like "how big was it" (referral to my erm...), and to me.. "was she tight"... "were they natural".. i knew exactly what they were getting at when we returned from our little shopping trip. But she's from a different culture and maybe hasn't yet grasped these kinds of subtle or metaphorical jokes in english quite yet. I dunno.

There are two things that made me wonder... is she interested in me? Or is she just being friendly...

First of all, in like our 2nd class together, i had a spanish book, and she took it. She asks if i was good at it, to which i reply modestly. Then she takes a sheet of paper from her folder and starts getting me to translate english phrases into spanish... e.g. 'hello', 'how are you', etc.. she does this throughout most of the class, but she reaches the last phrase for me to translate... "I love you". Yes i was shocked, and i wish i reacted in a better way. I didn't know what she was getting it, it was one of two things.

So she proceeds to translate this one herself as 'te amo'. and asks me if this is correct, to which i reply with a deep breath 'yeah, i think so'. From that point in that lesson the translation games stopped, and conversation turned more into 'can you explain what the teacher wrote on the board'.

Secondly, today, The Notebook! She was telling me about it whilst we were trying to catch a train. Like saying how she really likes it and that there are guys that like it, I adopted the 'no noo, i'll never watch it, too romantic for me' approach. She's like... "you should, i love that film". I never really thought about it too much then... But Now..! I actually just researched the notebook a bit on wikipedia to find it is a seriously seriously romantic film from start to end. At the end of our 'Notebook' conversation at the station I ended it with a jokey kind of 'maybe, just maybe you might be able to get me to watch it'. Is it too early to watch such a romantic film, with her?

^the thing is, with both times, i have no idea whether she was just being casually friendly OR if she was genuinely trying to get at something. I know it's good to be optimistic, but please imagine the situation in your head and be brutally honest about what she might be getting at with those 2 instances.

thanks!

[Jimmy1218]

If only you'll make practical jokes that are actually funny, and less easily misunderstood, I'm sure that this'll all work out.

[destinationx]

any more tips?

thanks

[Gigabitch]

The Notebook! She was telling me about it whilst we were trying to catch a train. Like saying how she really likes it and that there are guys that like it, I adopted the 'no noo, i'll never watch it, too romantic for me' approach.

File that one under "urban legends". Look, I think it IS too early to be watching such a romantic movie with her. Either you'll be bored off your ass or you'll actually start crying. I'm not sure which is worse.

If there were such a thing as a recipe for love, it sounds like you're following it to the letter. There are no guarantees, though, and if I could give you a bit of advice, it's that you might want to let go a bit. You're overthinking this whole thing.