girl - was I her 2nd choice?

Post Reply New Topic

I don't normally post on the forum, but now I do. Short introduction, I'm an exchange student from Amsterdam, NL in Luleå, Sweden, will go home in two weeks and learned quite a lot in the past few months. However, I appreciate comments on the following that happened in the past few days. I also sent this as an e-mail to the autism university mailing list (autuniv-l), which explains the formatting.

Wednesday, during Swedish class (I'm a Dutch exchange student in northern
Sweden) a Russian girl L. came to sit next to me. She smiled quite a lot
during us practicing our language on each other.
We had sitten next to each other during Swedish class before.
At one point she asked what my hobby was - we had just been returned
texts we had written on our hobbies. At a later point, she asked me -
knowing I knew German - if I knew what the German word "geile" meant,
still smiling. I know what it means, but I said: "I'm not sure", because
it really really scared me. "geile" is a form of German "geil" which
means "horny" (among other things)

I really don't know how to interpret this. I seem to recall she has a
German boyfriend, but I'm very unsure. Is this likely to be a flirt?
I found a guide on flirting at http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.html.
It says flirting is either "harmless fun" or "flirting with intent". If
this is a flirt, how do I tell the difference?

I skipped lunch and have thought about it all day. I find it hard to
imagine she would be flirting, but perhaps she is. Thinking she finds me
interesting irrationally feels like a self-defeating phrophecy. I find
her interesting, but don't know much about her yet. In 16 days my plane
home will leave.

this is what happened yesterday with regard to L., the girl that might
have been flirting with me on Wednesday. Comments are very, very
welcome. Short summary: she switched boyfriends from a French guy to a
German guy yesterday. I might have been 2nd choice, and she might indeed
have been flirting with romantic intent.

In the beginning of the evening I walk to the Farewell Dinner that has
been organised for the exchange students. It's a very cool dinner, a
nice evening, nice presentations, mine gets a lot of applause because
I'm the only one to do it alone, etc. When C. comes in I think for a
moment that she's L. because they look like each other, C. is even more
beautiful, but they are not, of course. L. is not there. After the
dinner we go to an 'in-between-party' with some students, which is nice
as well, and then we go back to Kåren, the pub/night-club at university.
There are not many people there and the dancefloor is empty, so I
continue into the pub. After a few minutes I notice L.

After standing for ten seconds trying to collect some courage (not sure
if one can say this in English?) I walk up to her and greet her. When
she sees me she greets me extensively and asks what I thought of the
dinner. I answer but forget to ask what she was doing instead. I sit to
the nearest place nearby her, there are two boys and one girl sitting
between us, so we're five. At one point we look at each other behind
their backs, and have eye contact for /seconds/, while both smiling and
I see the twinkle in her eyes, and it feels good. A few moments later
she proposes to go down to the dancefloor, where there are some people
now. I go with her; we go together. It's about midnight at this point.

On the dancefloor she dances with many guys, sometimes very close. When
it's so close I think that I must have been wrong thinking that she
could be interested in me, because so close must be a boyfriend. But
later I see her do the same with someone else and/or see the guy to the
same with someone else. At one point we copy each other's movements
while dancing - well, not really dancing, but the closest approximation
that I can do with my body (which is not very close). I get confused by
her contact with others, because I don't know how to interpret this. At
one point I see her leaving the dancefloor with the German S. A few
moments later I see them intensely kissing each other. It results in
some distress for me. Sure, this is an answer, but not the answer I had
wanted and not the way in which I had wanted the answer; so she was not
flirting with me? I walk to the nearest computer to write some comments
in my diary. I go back to the night-club for another hour but I'm a bit
lost.

After it closes I stand in front of the night-club to talk with, among
other people, A. I heard A. say that Lisa had a minor accident this
night, that she got some fire in her hair after she had made it out with
a French guy. I'm not sure if I heard it correctly, and I want to be
very sure, so I ask: "she actually made it out with a French guy
tonight?". The answer is positive, and this makes the confusion in my
mind complete. I decide to walk home myself rather than waiting for
others going in the same direction.

While walking home I think of the following scenario: she /was/ flirting
with intent, and she was doing so with me /and/ with other guys, because
she had decided to make it out with her boyfriend and looking for a new
one. I was one of the canddates but in the end she chose S. At first I
find this scenario overly optimistic, but the more I think about it, the
less unlikely it seems. The extended eye-contact we had earlier this
night might have been flirting. At that point she might not have decided
yet who would be her boyfriend? That would happen in the next 40 minutes
only? This thought disturbs me. Assuming it's true: on one hand, to be
treated as a possible partner is good. On the other hand, it hurt
somewhat to be flirted with first and then see her intensely kissing
another guy (this guy is very nice! He's the only one to have commented
on my autism based on my website!).

Later, during the night or the early morning, I'm not sure, I come up
with another scenario, that she was drunk and just flirting with
everyone, and that the kissing did not even mean they are partners. I
prefer the other scenario.

Yet another scenario would be that the extenden eye contact with
laughing and asking questions were not flirting, and that the copying of
body movements was not either, but hey, it fits exactly in the guides on
the internet... but then, I'm an unexperienced person to judge.

What should I think of this? Which scenario do you consider most likely?
(just ask if you need more information). Or is there another scenario
that I did not think of?

I also wrote the following questions in my diary. I don't expect you to
know an answer of them, because you can't, but I write them down here to
make clear what kind of thoughts were going through my head yesterday
just before I went to sleep, at 03:00 in the night. Perhaps the last two
can have an answer though.
- Had she decided Wednesday to make it out with her boyfriend and
look for a new one?
- Was the behaviour from last Wednesday partner-selecting flirting?
- Did she see me as a possible partner? Wednesday? Thursday? While
greeting each other tonight?
- Did she decide S. to be her partner between the greeting-moment
and the kiss-moment?
- What does she think about me?
- Is dancing flirting?
- Is it possible to get any answers to the other quetions?

This is a short version of the 2000+ words I wrote in my diary about this
(in Dutch). Whatever it really is, it is a totally new experience, once
again. Comments are very, very welcome, also if those do no give any
answers to any questions I have.

I don't really have any answers, but it sounds like you are thinking about this a bit too in depth. The girl in question is probably acting on her instincts and hasn't thought things through as much as you are.

I'd suggest to try not to worry about it so much, try and take a more laid back attitude, and let whatever happens happen without becoming riled up about it.

Sounds like she's just cruising for hook-ups, and you are apparently a candidate. What happens next would be up to you. But I think its safe to assume she isn't currently interested in deep and abiding love. Go for it if you want to, just be aware that the relationship will most likely be temporary.

She might have been sending you "mating signals" but when you didn't immediately catch on and take action, she dismissed you. She wants some action most likely and, if she's NT, she would think of your confusion as rejection. She is probably impatient (horny, and wanting "it" ASAP) and won't wait for anyone... so she hits on as many guys as she can and lets them scramble after her. Typical strategy of hot slu*ty girls... or girls who like to think they are.

My guess is this:

She was looking for either a new bf or a one night thing. She did consider you but you didn't act fast enough.

If she had winded up with you, it would have been worse for you in the end because she would have left you quite soon for someone else (like she did her old bf).

She is probably not the sort of person you want as a gf in the first place, if you want more than fun and partying.

If you want a real caring relationship, she is definitely not the way to go.

This is only a guess though ... as I see it in my mind's eye from your description. I would have a better guess if I had been there. Be sure to take this with the appropriate grain of salt.

Ten days later, 2005-12-20 22:54, she stood in front of my door saying: "IS THIS WHERE HE LIVES?". I was too much freaked out to do anything, and never saw her again. Perhaps things would have happened if I had acted. It's a long time ago. I miss her. Beautiful girl...

One problem with trying to analyze an individual persons behavior and intent in depth is that humans are partially random.

You can spend hours and hours trying to analyze a person if you really want, but in the end, you can never make a complete analysis because there is the random factor. You cannot analyze humans as if they were a finite state machine. Sometimes humans do things for no particular reason -- occasional spontaneous bursts of random or semi-random behavior that cannot be analyzed or is not worth trying to analyze.

So for this reason, Sanityisoverrated's advice of "try not to worry about it so much, try and take a more laid back attitude" is good advice. Gerrit, you have written such a long message about what should be viewed as an insignificant unimportant incident.

It is like a bird flew down and landed on your shoulder. It stayed there a moment, then flew away again. Then for the next 3 years you pondered the issue, "Why did the bird do that? Why why why??" and wrote detailed theories and eventually made it the topic of your PhD. OK I am exaggerating but it is ridiculous for you to spend so much time trying to find an explanation for why a bird landed on your shoulder, or why a girl was briefly interested in you, especially considering it was probably 30% random behavior.

Two things that could have been happening...she was looking for sex that might turn into more or
she just feeds her ego with all male attention.Beautiful or not,she sounds like she may have had some real psychological issues to work through...you may have missed some great "casual sex" but you also may have saved yourself from further heartache(and VD).

Gerrit,

Upon reading your post, I'm left with the impression this girl must be the reincarnation of the Mata Hari. I think you'll be better of without that.

ask her what geschlecht means.

http://dict.leo.org/?search=Geschlecht