Don't you hate it when you bump into an old "never was&

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I got out of a movie today, and ran into a friend from high school. We had both lost touch apart from email because we went to different schools, but then 18 months ago when I was back in town we had a lunch date. It seemed to me that it went really well, and the next few months I tried to build on it...first I sent her a funny little gift that was an in joke between us. She seemed to like it. Then for Valentine's day I sent her homemade cookies and a guidebook for a trail she talked about wanting to hike/bike. However, she did not respond to the second gift. I waited a while, and finally sent a note explaining I liked her, and that I'd be finishing school soon, and that we'd be in the same place, I wanted to see how she felt, yadda, yadda, yadda.

You all can guess what the outcome was.

Fastforward eighteen months, after no contact, and there I am face to face with her. She seemed happy to see me, and talked about how she was leaving for Baltimore in a month, and she was meaning to send me a note before she left. I can already expect what she'll write, how she considers me a friend, and she's sorry it didn't work out, but I'll find someone else and all the hogwash a beautiful girl tells a dork.

What has me messed up is, after so long of just trying to get her out of my head, having even removed her from my facebook so I won't be confronted with her image, or the details of her life, the old wound comes tearing open, and my feelings are running the gamut. Anger, sadness, frustration that I wasn't good enough, wasn't what she wanted. I can't get it out of my head that she's going to be happy someday, and some guy is gonna enjoy her great smile, her personality and intelligence, not to mention her incredible beauty, and that guy won't be me. Why oh why did she have to walk by and see me and say "hi"?

Has this or something similar happened to any of you? How do you cope?

BR

Why did you send her a gift and a love letter? Mistake number one and two right there.

What a f****d up world we live in, where giving gifts and expressing affection are faux pas. There was a time when that'd been romantic. Jesus, if Shakespeare wrote his sonnets today, I'm sure he'd be pegged a stalker.

Anyways, it's all done. I never had a chance anyways, I'm just wishing I hadn't bumped into her and stirred up those damn memories!

To a girl that isn't your girlfriend, yes. It's time you got your head out of the gutter.

Nothing wrong with giving gifts. It's the expectations you associate with them that can be off. Work out your motivations, that's the important thing. If you want to give just for the giving, knock yourself out, but homemade cookies and guidebooks aren't going to convince a woman who doesn't want to go out with you to go out with you.

And I think most men can relate, even foreveryoung, though he'd rather berate you for not following the rules laid out in his 'player's guide' than sympathize.

I can relate, yeah, definitely. It can be really painful. Sorry to hear you're suffering. Best not to cling, get on with your life... easier said than done.

I don't think there was anything wrong with those gifts, she would have loved it had she liked you back. So maybe the next girl will appreciate the home-made cookies - an inappropriate gift would have been expensive jewellery - cookies are completely harmless.

Yeah, I hate running into never-was guys. There's a few of them. The annoying thing is they all seem to have settled down in permanent relationships now and i'm stuck in the same old rut.

I still stand by what I said in this post, even while in a better mood and all. What the woman was probably thinking is "Why is he trying to win my affection with gifts?" Even though he thinks what he's seen in movies is accurate, and thinks "what's the harm in wooing a crush with gifts?" the way she sees it is "creepy" given that they aren't dating (and even if they were dating, they'd have to be in a serious relationship for it to not be overboard.)

This goes beyond any "player guide" and just common sense.

And sadly, I can't empathize with the OP. I can empathize with a lot of the posts made here by naive men, but never was I at a point where I thought giving a woman a gift that I'm not dating was a good idea.

There's nothing wrong with (unassuming) gifts... but two gifts after ONE lunch is very close to obsessive and stalky.
It seems to be that you were thinking so much of her that you mind tricked you into feeling more comfortable and intimate with her than the relation ever were..
So when you then act on this it is understandably sketchy to the other person. And righteously so - you've established a "relationship" to her that she was never a part of establishing.
This is I guess a classic Aspie mistake, in that you take something that is in your head and assume everyone else knows it without conferring with reality.
I say work with your empathy and Theory of Mind skills. ( I had to... if it makes you feel better)
You do not get to be bitter on her though, because she could not know and should not have to set aside her "red flag feeling" because you made a mistake. Distancing herself from guys that acted like you did right there could very well save her life one day, even if you were never a threat.

You're NOT a DORK!! !! OOHHH! I'd like to give you a punch!!
Stop your nonsense! The whole world goes through this, even girls!! I went through it!
Just because she wasn't interested has NOTHING to do with who you are! They get all friendly like that for reasons of formality. Aren't you embarrassed to act like a damned doormat? SLAP! Who is she?...the Queen of England?...big deal!! LOOK YOU! SNAP OUT OF IT!! ! You're good enough! Don't you dare say you're not good enough for her! She's just another person. Every pot has a lid. You just weren't her lid. I'll tell you what straightened me out when I was your age. As a rule, I was forever chasing the unattainables. Once and only once, I snagged one. When I got to really know him, I wanted out. He wasn''t what I imagined him to be. He wasn't willing to let me go so easily and had become a real pain in the neck...like I would've been if I hadn't won him over. For me to act this way again (a doormat) became embarrassing because the shoe was on the other foot this time. I was the "hunted" one. From that day on, I learned to offer once, maybe twice and if it isn't accepted, withdraw quickly to prevent embarrassment...I was SOMEBODY too!

You guys are right, and it has me wringing my hands. I feel everything I do is the wrong thing. There were other girls who I liked, with whom I cultivated friendships and tried to slowly build something. One in particular I knew for years, developing a rapport, a closeness, and yet it was all a waste...it took one blind date set up by a friend, and in a month she was in a relationship with the guy. One month!

I try to be a little more proactive and the result is the same...alone, humiliated, reminded again of my sheer incompetence and loser status when it comes to dating. And this girl is so wonderful: smart, ambitious, pretty in a down-to-earth way...I can think of no other reason for why it didn't work except I wasn't good enough.

If I show affection, I'm a stalker and a creep. If I try to cultivate a relationship from friendship, taking my time, I get beat out by the guy who knows what he wants and goes for it.

I feel like there is a set of rules, and I am the exception to them all: "Be confident and take action...except Brian. You'll fail and be a loser....Take your time and show you like her for her, not her body....except for Brian, you'll just be pegged a nice guy who isn't aggressive."

I'm 26 and I don't have anyone, and I've never had anyone. Loser.

Heh, I've never even had a "never was".

26 with nobody is nothing. try 37 with never anything. Never even encountering someone you wanted.

I'm very sorry to hear you've gone so long. I'd say you'll find someone, but I suspect you and I both have been told that.

Instead, I hope you find happiness, whether that's with someone else, or a happiness achieved from a life, though single, filled with rich and happy experiences.

I've been re-reading a letter Jefferson wrote, after he was spurned by a lover. It was a lengthy "discussion" between his heart and head, over the pains and pleasures of love and companionship.

After that letter, Jefferson never again had a romance, and instead devoted himself to...well, everything, and became a truly great contributor to humanity...all because he decided to forge happiness himself, and not waste time making it contingent on someone else.

http://www.juntosociety.com/i_documents ... rtltr.html

You're missing the wood for the trees. He's upset that some girl he likes doesn't like him back in that way. And if you've never been there, I'd be very surprised.

One month is actually a good time to make a relationship happen.. It does not take years to get from acquainted to bf/gf... You seem to believe that turning a friendship into a relationship is simply a matter of time, it is not. It is a matter of the rapport and chemistry you have, and an ability to take and give at the right moments. This is hard for someone with Aspergers to see and recognize when it is happening. And what you did wrong as I said was not to give two presents, it was to give two present without a rapport. the first gift might have been a good play, depending on how she reacted. But then you should have met her more, give her time to reciprocate in some way, show that she is into it too. She might have been. But the silence and then a subsequent gift is a huge red flag.. first you do not show interest in meeting her again(or she didn't want to), and then you give her a gift saying "all this time that we've never met I've been thinking of you enough to buy you something."

The way I see it you just don't see how she'd react to you, or didn't bother seeing it. And as I said building a relationship is something oyu do during this dance back and forth. It is not something that needs to be defined by time.

Yes, but they were the wrong women for me. I was only liking them for their sexual attractiveness. If I had opened my eyes, I would have realized, I wasn't a match with them.