Relationship advice (new female friend)
 

self deleted

The particulars aren't important.


Dilemma : New female friend says she "needs space" after spending days on end with you, and you both appeared to get along great the whole time. Now you feel disrespected and confused. What do you do?

Tough call here she sounds like my mother when she dates.

She might be feeling anxious, and she might not like you. Though she probably has trouble expressing how she feels to others. I like to call this phase the phone game.

Ps: I read the original post.

Based on the fact it is a new friend.. give her the space.
You don't know her well enough to know what is up. There are 100 reasons why she could have said that ranging from insecurity to necessity. At this stage the reason doesn't matter. Give the space and tell her to call when she wants more. Enjoy the time you had :) You shouldn't feel disrespected, confused sure.
Unless you are getting used or abused, then ignore all that.

Particulars are important. Without those we cannot know if she has a dying mother for example which would explain everything.

But based on what you've written if there is absolutely nothing going on with her family, pets, job or everything else…
She noticed either from you or within her that what's supposed to be friendship only became a crush or obsession. Or maybe both at both. :)
Nothing wrong with having some time away to clear heads. Definetly no reason to feel disrespected.

What do I do? I get drunk and sleep it off. Remember, our species evolved on alcohol and not for no reason.

I would leave her completely alone (no calls or texts) for a week, then send her flowers with a note asking if she is ready to see you again.

I read the unedited post, and well, either she thinks you are hitting on her (you say she's very pretty etc which indicates at least some interest from your end?) and she's interested in friendship only and she wants to be clear about that.

But it can also be that she's ok with the relation but its just that spending so much time with one person gets a bit tiring in the long run. I'm like that, i don't think there's a single person i want to spend time with for entire days, this includes girlfriends too (not to begin with usually but..). I really want my alone-time. The exception can be if i've been alone for an extended period, then i can probably be more social and think its pretty nice to be around someone else for days.

It can also be that time of the month and it's nothing strange that you might see a whole other person during that time.

Give them space and let her be, freedom of choice is a big deal for most folks. I would back off and let her make the next move. Doing the opposite could likely put everything in jeopardy.

Agree on the space thing. I've been married for decades and there are times that each of us need alone time to process.

As everyone else said, give the space.

As for feeling disrespected and confused, remember that you can only control yourself, not what others do.

You may feel the need to "do something, anything" to fix the situation. That just leads to anxiety, and essentially you're letting an outside force control you. Let go of the things you can't control, and work on yourself during that time. When that "space needed" is over, you'll be either able to deal better with a negative outcome, or you'll compound a positive one. Either way, you'll come out a better person from it.

Can't say, I never developed enough skills for that with my 20 years of a sociophobia.

There are, however, "Yoyo-people" out there, although this is - as far as I know - rather attributed towards men.

Especially sensitive or / and introvert people need more "space" than extrovert people.

The upshot: Women control this stuff, as it should be. Don't be afraid to make your intentions known, but after that, it's up to the lady. She'll come to you, or she won't. That's how it works.

You might want to ask how long is the longest enjoyable relationship are from any respondents and maybe use that to calibrate advice value (of course of us like me might have forgotten because nearly 35 years is a long time!)

Thanks for the advice from everyone. I was able to get it resolved for now. I gave her space, and we are back to being communicative again. She literally told me when I questioned her about it, was that what she meant by "space", was to just let her come to me. I guess she had been feeling smothered or crowded, or something. And she eventually did so - reached out to me. So all is well once again, and we are on the way to becoming close friends. In other words, the saga continues…:biggrin:

Anyway, just wanted to give an update, and again, the sensitivity shown and good advice from folks in the thread is really appreciated. :) (obviously, in hindsight, this thread is a bit embarrassing to me)