Hey guys,

This is going to be LONG, but I hope others have been in the same situation and can help me realise what to do. Hopefully this will help some other guys too so they can see WHAT NOT TO DO.

I'll try my best to be concise. This is not EVERYTHING that has happened, just some key moments.

Please realise that throughout the entire 'timeline' that I’m about to write, I've only started realising the error of my ways in the past 2 months (reading some David Deangelo and watching Kezia Noble videos) - how can I have been so fucking stupid?

Generally things listed the points below have stifled me and made my situation with the girl progressively worse and completely unbearable at times. You can assume I was acting like this up until 2-3 months ago.

*Being a complete WUSS *Being completely needy and desperate, texting her constantly, *Being a constant approval seeker *Being overly generous *Not playing hard to get *Not being cocky and funny (David Deangelo) - being a complete compliant wet blanket. Adhering to everything she said, not wanting to make a scene, upset her or challenge her. Not talking in a sexual manner. (As Kezia Noble would say - being a MONK.) *Expressing how I felt to her, and asking her out at the complete wrong moment *Being apologetic

Background To begin with, I've known this girl “HB9.5” for a couple of years. It's only in the past year that we've become more acquainted. She's my best friend's - fiance's - best friend. There’s no avoiding her... I’ve tried. I’m not the worst looking guy ever and I’m usually really outgoing and funny when I’m in my comfort zone.

In the earlier days (a year ago) we hit it off because I had a ‘specific hobby’ (Sorry I need to be as generic as possible). I arranged a few trips away for this specific hobby, for all our friends and she always came with us.

Things like this have happened over the year (remembering all my previous mistakes.)

Hand holding - One night I remember walking through town while she held my hand, in front of all my friends. I was awkward and resisted a bit which really showed.

Spooning We shared a room with some friends on a trip, in the morning she came over to spoon me (She was big spoon). Again, I didn’t make the move to even try it on or anything.

Kissed ONCE in the pub around Christmas. Coming to think of it, I had been telling her about being badly behaved at an office Christmas party, and how I kissed one of the clients and went back to her house. Perhaps this created a bit of envy, which got me in there? I hadn’t / haven’t said anything about other woman to her, before / since. The next day I text her to APOLOGISE for what happened and tried to act like nothing happened. WTF was I thinking? I kept texting and didn’t get any responses, which made me panic. In my head at the time I didn’t want to make things awkward because of the relationship between me, my best friend and his fiance (and her)

Birthday. She asked ME out to her Birthday with her friends. The only guy who wasn’t with their girlfriend. Surely this meant I was ‘something’ to her? I met her sister and all her friends out that night. They were all asking what was going on between us, they were also asking if I liked her. Her friend told me that her sister had been saying awhhh I really like him etc. This really spurred me on to do something about it.

On the Monday. I got panicky, went down to her best friend’s house and asked if I should ask her out. She said “yes go for it”. I also asked the advice of some friends, who were saying things like “just tell her how you feel”. I was totally ambiguous in the msg and asked her out to dinner. She replied with the heart wrenching answer “who else is coming?” - I didn’t know what to do or say. I panicked and try to retract and then asked her to a sports game. She didn’t reply for 2 days, then said “XYZ.... this sounds like a date.”. Hard to explain, but the tone of the reply said to me ‘What the hell are YOU asking ME out for? Are you being serious?’. I didn’t speak to her for 2 weeks and she eventually drunkenly text me saying that I should start talking to her again, in which I did.

It has been a vicious cycle ever since. I just hadn’t been trying it on as much. I still get messaged asking to do the activity, and still get texts asking to go on trips. I feel this is from a complete friend zone perspective. If a girl had zero interest all, would she REALLY still keep in touch?

These days when I hang out with her, she has the audacity to talk to ME about her dating other guys, telling me about who she slept with etc. Is this her trying to make a point that I have absolutely no CHANCE, or for me to step my game up by trying to make her a bit jealous back? What is the game she’s playing? She was even telling me how she has a wingman for when she goes out. It felt like a knife in the back.

Trying to get out of this rut

I’ve started trying to arrange more dates with other girls, nothing has come off yet. But I’m definitely not falling into any friend zone traps in these instances. My intention is to go on a couple more dates to spark up a bit of envy, so I can tell her about the dates and what I did etc.

I’ve been trying to introduce more cocky and funny, and project myself in a more sexual manner. Earlier today I said something which completely shocked her (in a good way, I think). She said something about liking not liking ‘nuts’, I turned it into an innuendo and said “that’s not what I’ve heard”. She really LOL’d and said, “I wasn’t expecting that from YOU, It was funny because I wasn’t expecting it”. Is this jump into a new persona too soon?

I felt myself getting desperate when she was telling me about her night out, I had already made plans to go out. But I was hoping she would ask me to tag along. I reckon if I was able to get out for drinks, that I could make real progress. When she’s drunk, she’s very flirty and I reckon I could use all this new found knowledge well.

Now that this didn’t happen, I just constantly feel the need to ask her out again. It’s really really tough.