So i work in a foodcourt, the business nextdoor to where I work had these two girls that became friends with me at the start of the year. One day one of them (lets call her Cathy, she's the one i'm just friends with), invites me to come out with the two of them (the other girl, lets call her, Sophie, is the girl I was interested in at the time).

So we went out once, it was fun but a lot of other random people I didn't know showed up, and I ended up bailing to see other friends coz i wasn't feelin it. They then invited me out again, and this time, it was just the 3 of us the entire night. During the course of this night, Sophie and I hook up, and then she ends up coming home with me. After this, we sort of treated it a bit like a one night stand, and just resumed being friends.

After a month or two, I decide to bite the bullet and ask her out on an actual date, as in the course of our friendship before and after the one night stand, it had become clear we had some chemistry and things in common - this may be slightly paraphrased but this is the response she gave:

"I'm gonna have to say no, i'm sorry, I'm just not in the right mindset to go on any dates or date anyone at the moment. Sorry if I'm being awkward about this, i tend to nervous laugh in certain situations - I'm just mainly trying to focus on uni cos it's a lot of work and it's getting stressful and I'm falling behind"

I took this rejection with grace and told her she didn't need to explain herself etc and it's all good. And as for her uni, I was previously aware how under the pump she was, so I have no reason not to take her at her word. Since then I have begun distancing myself from her a bit whilst being calm and polite/friendly if i do see her - meanwhile she has gone out of her way to try and get my attention a number of times - for example she messaged me one morning to see if i could come next door in to her work to lift something heavy (this was in fact about 2 days after I'd asked her, I would have thought she'd want to avoid me if anything, and it was not the kind of thing she'd ever asked me to do before, i'd only ever set foot inside their workplace once before), and other instances of her just doing things that exceed the norm of the dynamics we'd established before I asked her out.

As much as I've put distance between us already, should I just completely walk away, I quite liked this girl, and despite getting rejected, mixed signals have ensued. Just a bit confused how I should handle it I guess.