What should I do and what should I have done?

[silvershadelynx]

Hello everyone,

I hope this is the right place and sub forum to post my story and questions about my love related problems. I'm a 33 years old male from the Netherlands and never had a relationship. The reason for posting on an anonymous place rather than asking friends or family is because most of my friends are male and like me rather closed and unexperienced when it comes to talking about relationships and emotions. I was hesitating whether or not to share my problems with people I do not know, but as I really want to do something about it, I decided to just do it - I already waited way too long giving attention to my emotions.

I'm not sure ifI can help people in future at this place as in my opinion I'm really socially clumsy when it comes to love and relationships...

A recent situation triggered my unrest and this action to post my questions and story.

During my life I have been in love for two times - both long ago - last time was about 8 years ago. During the first time I did nothing. I discovered the girl at school but as she was in a different class and as I was really shy I did just nothing.

The second love was about 8 years ago, at high school. Again I was very shy and I sometimes met the girl as I was in the same class as her brother. I was not able to sleep, was very nervous, I just didn't feel well and decided to write her a letter. She answered my letter and told me she was not in love with me but wanted to give it a chance. I was way too nervous during our two dates so both dates were very unpersonal. And when I asked her about her feelings for me she told me she still didn't feel anything so we stopped dating.

Because it seems that as soon as I fall in love I get extremely shy and nervous I continued my life without love relationships and I didn't try to find or date a girl. It hurt too much during the two first love experiences so I just continued my life with a few good friends and my family.

I do bicycle holidays since I was 15 years old. Recently I started to bicycle more and more - especially during the last two years. I can spend over 10 hours a day on my bike. I bike over 12.000 km a year. It gives me a direction in my live, I don't have to think so much and I really like to be outside and see new things and people.

I always thought everything was fine, but recently I started to doubt about my current life style. It is a rather individual lifestyle and every time I attend a family birthday I'm one of the few single persons. So I started to doubt if this was ok and if I was missing something.

During my bike trips I have some preferable places like a restaurant where I eat and drink. Some places are nice and I remember them and revisit them. One of those places is a restaurant just across the border in Germany. The personnel often changes except for a few older people. About one or half a year ago (I don't remember it exactly) it was the first time I saw a young good looking girl working in this restaurant. I didn't noticed her before, she was new. She didn't specifically interested me, she was just one of the many employees at this restaurant. I even complained to her about an order that went wrong.

During the next months - I can't remember the time span exactly - I saw her more often working in the restaurant. She was always very happy and smiling and she asked about my bicycling. I have a recumbent bike and this type of bicycle is in my opinion rather unpopular, at least in my country. So I was surprised when she told me that she agreed that it would be a much nicer way to bike than an upright bike.

She also told me I was a marked - well known person in this village as I was often cycling through this village with my bicycle during my many long trips.

During spring - early summer this year I did a bike trip for one month and I didn't visit the restaurant for about two months. When I visited the restaurant again, the friendly girl was there again and she told me she didn't see me for a long time. I explained her about my bicycle trip.

During one of my visits I decided to ask something about her: school and work. It was a nice conversation. She asked me if I had a family: no, not a wife - kids. She assured me I would manage to get a family in future. She was planning to move to a bigger town as this was a small village for an 18 year old girl. As she always showed interest in me and my bicycle trips I decided I wanted to give her my personal home page / blog address. I keep a web log with all my bike trips and a lot of stories and photographs and I give the address to everyone I meet that shows interest. I was hesitating whether or not I should give her my blog address, as it was a women I liked, but I did it, I wrote it down on a piece of paper together with a local museum name because she told me that she just like me liked to be outdoors and visit things.

Next time I visited the restaurant it was very busy, a lot of customers and a lot of personnel that I didn't see before. But the friendly girl was there again and when I ordered a coffee she told me she visited my website and she even used a translator to read it! I was amazed, I really didn't expected that. But because it was so crowded with customers and because she was helping customers after talking to her, I went away to drink my coffee and left the restaurant without talking to her again. So I didn't (magage to) ask her about my blog.

Last week I got problems with my right knee so I was forced to lower mileage and slow down. Since a long time I did a bike trip with a friend of mine - an even more individual and introvert guy. We were sitting outside at the restaurant as the weather was really nice and we ordered a meal. After a while the friendly girl appeared and she asked me how I was doing. I told her about my knee problem and that I was on the upright bike because I was thinking the knee problem could have something to do with the recumbent bike. I asked her when she was moving because I thought she had already moved. She told me she was moving next week and told me I would miss her and she squeezed my shoulder. I'm not sure what I answered - I was perplexed, she was standing close to me. I think I answered "yes" and nothing more. I found it uncomfortable to react because my friend was sitting opposite of me and he didn't know about her and there were a lot of other customers around me. Every time she needed to pass my table she looked
at me, or at least she looked at me several times.

When I paid my meal I didn't speak to her again - she was busy with restaurant tasks and I'm not the kind of person that just walks toward her and shouts "Goodbye!". During the next weekend I suddenly started to realize how much I liked the girl. I suddenly realized that I really liked her - more than avarage. She is good looking but maybe too young woman that shows interest in me and the things I do. I started questioning myself whether it was just friendly behavior or if she really liked me. I didn't know. My friend told me that he noticed how interested the girl was in me and how she didn't pay any attention to my friend. The problem is that my friend is even more socially inexperienced and solo than me.

Last week would be her last week at the restaurant and I was very sad about that. I did not always completed our conversations because of interrupting customers and I didn't want to show too much interest and I didn't want to disturb her when she was helping customers.

My problem is that I really would like to know if it was just a very happy and friendly girl, that is just friendly and interesed to a lot of people, or if she was really interested specifically in me. I was realizing more and more that I would really miss her, together with those beautiful moments. I was fed up with myself as it took me such a long time to realize how much I liked her and how interested she was and how much I appreciated her kindness.

I decided to visit the restaurant again this week, her last week - on Monday evening, but she wasn't there. When I rode home I had to cry for a long time - I was in nature, there was no one and I just wanted to cry. I felt very emotional. During the last week I was already mentally unstable - something new to me, or at least I did not experience this in years - and my doctor confirmed it was because of endorphin addiction: because I bike so much the body is used to this and as I had to cut down my mileage it has a big influence on my mental well being. Together with my feelings for the girl and maybe also a change in weather (dropping temperatures, suddenly no summer weather anymore) it felt like everything suddenly changed and I was too late. I realized how much I enjoyed my conversations with the girl. She was always so happy and laughing. I'm a little introvert but talkative guy and I really felt a lot of positive energy radiating from the girl.

Last Wednesday I went again to the restaurant but it was more difficult as my knee was still hurting. She wasn't there. Since last week I experience some sleeping and eating (appetite) problems. Yesterday I decided not to visit the restaurant because it would be both mentally and physically too intense. So I took one day "off". Yesterday, on Friday, the last day she would be working at the restaurant, I biked again to the restaurant. She wasn't there. Only a few new girls that didn't say anything. It felt so different at the restaurant, so impersonal. Like a completely different place. No friendly happy girl that asked me how I'm doing.

During the way back I had to cry again. I don't know what to do. I remembered her name and although I don't like looking up people online, I searched her name and after some trail and error I found her Facebook profile through a special Facebook account where people can ask for a persons name: if you met a nice person somewhere and you want to know who the person was, you can put a request. Through this Facebook page I discovered another person that was looking for a friendly blonde waitress in this village I often visit.

I didn't manage to meet her, even though I feel very tired and very sad I tried it three times this week to meet her without success. Right now I'm thinking that maybe I should have tried it on Thursday as well, but I was too tired to do that. It seems that when I plan things, things don't work anymore.

I have several questions and maybe you can share your thoughts on this? Sorry for the extensive story but I thought it would be good to tell everything. For me it is also a way of processing my experiences and not to forget things. My questions at the moment:

* is there a chance that the girl has special feelings for me?
* is she too young for me? Am I in love with her person, or just with a young attractive girl?
* should I contact her through Facebook? Is that ok or would that be considered stalking?

Personally my biggest problem is that I really wanted to personally tell her something that I did not manage to tell her: I wanted to thank her for the beautiful moments, our short but very pleasant conversations and that she is part of my very special experiences during that time, together with the bike trips. Not solely because I have feelings for her, but also because I wanted to thank her for all the attention and positive energy she was giving.

I find it difficult to explain how I experience those moments: sometimes I biked 150 to 200 km on a day and I felt spiritually / mentally very satisfied and calm. And just before the end of such a long trip I visited her, without knowing in advance and without planning, it just happened spontaneously. I just planned the visit for only a coffee but I got an interested person as well. I still remember those moments clearly in my mind and I have to cry when I think about them. Maybe I will soon get more stable, but at the moment I really don't know what to do. After losing a very important person, a family member that died, whom I never told her how much I loved her, I decided that in future I would always tell people I love what I feel for them. And now I didn't manage to do that.

By the way, maybe I sound like a desperate lonely guy that needs just some social company, but I have good friends that I know for years and I see them regularly. I have family as well, but even though those people are very important to me, I don't get the energy the girl was giving me.

Kind regards, S.

[TablesandChairs]

It's difficult to tell you what she was thinking - it could very well just be friendliness; maybe she felt comfortable around you because you're older. I'm very friendly and people have mistaken that for flirting in the past.

15 years is a large age-gap in general, lets be honest. But it's one thing if you were, say, 45 and she was 30 - same age difference but at 30, you're dealing with a fully fledged adult. This girl is a teenager and even if a relationship was to transpire, I couldn't see it lasting.

But more importantly - your social awkwardness around women needs to be addressed. Do they have life coaches in your area? If not, a counsellor could help. Some of the things you mentioned sound to me like you might be on the autism spectrum...but that's a big assumption, I realise.

Don't put women on a pedestal - they're just people. If you can't mingle and talk to them like people, with ease and confidence, of course they're not going to be interested. The example you gave of a date you went on many years ago - have things changed? Ideally, they should have - you should have grown in confidence and ability to talk to women. But it doesn't sound like that has progressed - your personality can't shine through if you're shy, withdrawn and acting all weird and scattered. You build situations in your head - you even cry about them - but in reality, not much actually transpired because you don't really make much of a move either way.