The TIB guide to Men and Women

If she's worth waiting for, then wait and see what happens. But by all means, keep your options open. Don't deny other opportunities or the pursuit of other people that may interest you because she's not available right now.

Trust me, timing is a bitch sometimes and maybe she really does have something going on that's occupying the majority of her time. As retardedly cliche' as it sounds, if it's meant to happen, then it will. In the meantime, live your life.

 

Yeah, like sucking off ten other dudes. Has anyone here ever uttered the "I'm too busy" line in complete truth? And by that, I mean you feel like you could fall head over heels for the person, have no one else tying you down and they showed interest but your schedule held you back? I can understand not being emotionally available to pursue a serious relationship at the moment, but no matter how busy someone is, I have a very hard time believing they are too busy to get to know someone they like romantically if they are single. I mean for christ's sake Shimerred was able to start seeing a new guy while working full time and raising (three?) kids and this young single girl is too busy? Bullshit. She's probably involved with or pursuing someone else, thinks it might not have a future and wants a plan B.

 

I'm going with wanting a plan B, bad as that sounds. There's something there between you guys, but there's something potentially better that she's waiting on.

 

Why can't you two start some sort of relationship that is beyond friendship for now, and wait until after Christmas to become more official/exclusive?

 

I'm pretty sure that a climax was supposed to follow those words. You know... instead of the opposite.

Whatever the reason is for that, legitimate or otherwise, you have all the information you need to make a decision. She might be dealing with shit right now that really does prevent her from having a comfortable relationship. Or she might be seeing some other dudes. Or whatever, because it doesn't matter. She's not interested [right now] and you should keep living your life as usual without focusing your thoughts on her.

I'd only agree to 'wait for her' if she was completely honest with you about what the hold up is. Since you made that post, I assume you did not get that honesty. I agree with the other posters: you're not her plan A. She can't be yours.

 

Question for the ladies, and older fellas here. I dated this girl for two years and we broke up about two years ago. We were both in law school together and I won (use the term loosely seeing as there was no politicing on either side) the friend battle. She had no friends in town and I felt bad, so I started inviting her around my local friends (I'm from the town we went to school at, she's from 2 hours away). We had a falling out and mutually decide its best for each others sanity that we go our separate ways seeing as there is a reason we broke up and don't get along. First football game (huge social deal here) comes around and my buddy says that I might have to deal with her since she's been texting his fiance. Fine by me as long as theres no drama, I text her saying its cool we'll be civil, she then texts my buddy next to me and says she refuses to be around me. She then starts chatting up my buddies fiance and wrangles an invite to the first football game of the season. No big deal really, problem is I tried to be civil and engage her in casual conversation as part of the group and she literally gave me the 90's "hand." Haven't heard from her since, nor has his fiance, then all of a sudden she says she is going to come to my tailgate for the game this week. (Quick back story, this week a good bit of our law school friends are coming into town so I got a spot and me and the aforementioned buddy are putting on the tailgate, the very tailgate that I was trying to tell her about when I got the hand) As far as I see, either hate me and leave me alone or be civil and we'll both deal with the other. Why on earth is she doing this? Am I totally wrong for wanting to have my group of friends and have her just go on with her life?

 

Totally agreed. In college I worked a full time job and took more than a full course load (as previously mentioned) and have never worked less than a 50 hour work week with some volunteering/whatever on the side. I maintained a very serious relationship for a couple of years in school, have a healthy dating life now, and could pretty much always make the time for a casual sex situation if I didn't want something to get serious but felt like there was chemistry.

If there's something there, you should be willing to work for it, unless the situation is incredibly extreme (like, I don't know, you're dying or your parents are dying or something, and even then?) My guess is that she's playing mind games with you. Or sucking off ten other dudes.

 

This sounds very similar to what I dealt with not too long ago. Honestly, if you're in a place where you don't give two shits whether or not she's around, then it won't matter if she shows. Be the bigger person and try to be civil, but if she's a bitch again, then don't bother engaging her anymore. As far as why she's doing this, I'll let the smarter people (read: armchair shrinks) get into that, but I don't think you're wrong at all for wanting your life/friends without her in any of it. What makes no sense is why whatever drama is going down is happening 2 years later. The statute of limitations should be about 3 months, which has clearly passed. Either way, just get really drunk at the tailgate and have fun.

 

Well, apparently she wasn't busy sucking off half the football team, first date with her last night, went well. She just wants to take it somewhat slow. I guess I can work with that.

 

Of all the things that I've learned about relationships is that you need to continue living your life as you normally would; many people get hooked on one person, putting them on that pedestal and go ape shit when things go pear shaped. Keep on meeting new people, doing new things and expanding your horizons; if she truly wants something and is too occupied to be able to commit right now, then that's the way it is - it's not possible to force these kinds of things. I'm not as jaded as some members here but I think that you should embrace the fact that she is being up front with you before anything starts. There are going to be people who are going to say she's off blowing the rest of the city or you're plan b but they're only getting a fraction of the situation.

Ask her on another date; keep it casual and low key, go at her pace. She can have a plethora of reasons to go slow; some of them rational and some of them not; either way, they're her reasons and you should honor them. Keep on doing enjoying life and eventually things will work out.

On the off chance that things do not work out; take it in stride and keep your chin up. A lot of people take one bad experience and extrapolate it; they automatically assume every time they try, from there on out, is going to end up the same.

 

I'd like to defend her, because I am this way. I'm horrible with time management, and sometimes it's really difficult for me to juggle school/work/relationships. When I get overwhelmed, I tend to cut out the easiest thing, which happen to be new relationships. This goes double for the fall/winter period. You're coming off the high of summer, you're starting new projects, and you're headed into a crappy time of no sun. Sometimes it feels like a little too much pressure to take on something that will require even more work in that time frame.

I don't think she has something else on the side. I think she is nervous about starting something new, and wants to keep the pressure light so she doesn't feel overwhelmed and dump the relationship before it gets off the ground.

 

Same. I've often thought that the only way I can be truly successful at a relationship is to give up having a job, my pursuit of a degree, or any personal time at all. I can barely juggle those three things successfully- adding in another thing means that one of the other categories starts slipping.

 

Or you can just say that you're not really into them. Its much easier than stringing them along, and taking it slow and then just dropping them as soon it gets real or are "too busy with school". Whatever you want to call it.

 

It has nothing to do with 'not being into them.' It really is about getting overly stressed and overwhelmed during periods of time when you have a lot on your plate.

This same thing happened to me last year, in that stressful pre-Christmas time frame. I was head over heels into this guy, we had been on a bunch of terrific dates, and I spent the majority of my time thinking about him. That meant that my work and my school suffered, at a time when I couldn't afford to drop either of those balls. So I asked him if we could dial it back a bit, he respected that, and I got my shit together. We picked it back up later and continued to have a great time.

Sometimes girls have things happening in their lives. Sometimes it has nothing to do with the guy. If you feel like she is worth it, give her a little room, and the situation will likely improve. If you don't think she's worth it, move on.

 

Here's the thing. "I'm busy with life/school/work/scuba diving certification/etc" has been Lady Code for "Fuck off" since, probably, time immemorial.

If you want guys to genuinely believe the "I'm busy with whatever" thing, I would humbly suggest shifting to another line becoming Lady Code for "Fuck off".

May I suggest - "I've been chosen by the Rylan Star League to defend the universe against the Ko Dan Armada". It'd work on me, anyway.

 

I am really, really into my boyfriend. I love him to pieces and I'd rather be naked with him than do anything else at all.

But sometimes we have to dial our interpersonal time back to virtually nothing because I'm just really, really busy. I suspect my poor time management skills have something to do with this, but whatever- I'm really busy right now. I mentioned school, work, and personal time- one of these three things has to go away in order for my life to become less busy. Until then, I really don't have room in my life for a relationship. But...I love him. So I'll let shit slide in one of the other three categories for a while in order to hang out with him/spend time with him...until I have to start repairing the damage that my neglect has done in one of the other three categories. I come dangerously close to being fired, failing classes, or going crazy if I choose to continue my relationship with this man whom I adore. But I choose to play this stressful juggling game because I truly do care deeply for him.

But if my life was like this when we had first started dating? And I wasn't already head over heels for him? He wouldn't be my top priority. He'd come last. Mama needs to take care of her own business like a motherfucking adult before she can even begin to start juggling the needs of a man on top of everything else.

EDIT: The universal code for "Fuck Off" has always been, and will forever be, "I'm Sort Of Seeing Someone Right Now...". Any girl with half a brain will realize that "I'm busy" isn't actually going to work on those persistent-as-fuck dudes who can and will out-wait your supposed "busy-ness."

 

This kind of happened with my boyfriend early in our relationship. He went overseas for work for 3 weeks so we had minimal communication (like a one-line email here and there). For a minute I thought that maybe it would be a good time for one of us to phase the other out, Slow Fade style. I didn't want to do that, but I figured that I couldn't control him...I would just see what happened when he returned. He texted me the day he got back to the States and we picked up where we left off dating. I remembered thinking, "Oh. I guess he really does like me. Derrrr."

If anything, I think it's a compliment when someone can have Busy Shit for a few weeks and still want to get together afterwards. At least you were in the back of her mind and she made a point of reaching out to you at a better time.

 

Then you have to listen to the words around it. In MrPrime's case, the girl was saying, "I am very busy right now BUT I do want to try something with you, if you let me try to balance these things." That's a very different sentence than, "Oh, well right now I'm just super busy so I don't want a relationship at all."

That's really what it boils down to. If she is showing interest but telling you she is also busy, then maybe, just maybe she is telling the truth.

 

So everyone is drinking, hanging out in the lounge. Girl I'm pretty cool with start talking. The following convo occurs.

Spoiler

Her: What are you up to this weekend?
Me: Going home, shopping, cleaning, putting on some lounge pjs, cooking food and playing some damn playstation.
Her: "God you're such a guy.
Me: Uh...let me check..wait...huh...well, yeah...still a guy. What did you expect and why can't I be a guy?
Her: Nothing I guess. I want a gay male friend!
Me: Why do women want a male gay friend so fucking badly?
Her: Girls are annoying. Too much drama! They also won't steal your bf...well not to say a gay man won't do that but still...
Me: What the hell? Same shit different pile, except I hope it'd be harder for them to steal your bf. And gay men less dramatic than women...you kidding me?
Her: Well I still want one.
Me: Why?
Her: Just because.
Me: Funny how you never hear guys say "I want a lesbian friend!" Are you getting this shit from Sex and the City?
Her: I don't think so.
Me: I wonder if there has EVER been a television/movie portrayal of a lesbian woman and straight man having any sort of relationship besides The Wire?
Her: I haven't seen The Wire.

Short version: Why do women want gay male friends? What's the difference between them and chick friends?