Our letter this week comes from beautiful Jaime, who's getting mixed signals from a man she's interested in and she's wondering if he's into her or not.
Here's her letter:
Hi Jane,
I've been getting mixed signals from this man that works at the same place as me that I find attractive for a couple of months now. One minute I'm absolutely sure he's into me, the next he's ignoring me completely.
I wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation so I left it at that. But then he tells my friend he finds me attractive even though we still don't interact much outside of work related matters.
He apparently is always inquiring about me so she arranged for a night out with people from work including him.
We talked a little "group conversation" about work mostly, exes, etc. - whatever topic someone brought up. I again concluded based on the way the night went that he wasn't into me and put it behind me.
I found out from my friend that he said he felt pressured and that he didn't know what to do with everyone around.
He got my number from my friend and texted me a few days later. He said we didn't get to talk and he wanted to know if I was free the coming weekend and asked if we could get together for drinks. I happened to be free so I said OK.
This was a Wednesday, it's late Sunday night now and I still haven't heard from him.
Was I wrong for assuming he'd follow up to confirm? Should I have contacted him when I didn't hear from him? Is this even worth pursuing?
- Jaime
My Response:
Oh Jaime, of course you’re confused. This poor guy is confused himself!
That’s what you’re picking up on, his confusion. That's why he's giving you mixed signals.
He seems like he’s interested, even talks to your coworkers about it, makes you feel like it’s just a matter of logistics, and then when the opportunity presents itself in a way that he can’t miss it this time, still nothing.
Confusing indeed!
First of all, let’s clarify this piece.
You weren’t wrong for assuming he’d follow up to confirm. If you didn’t have specific plans made at that time for the important details – the when and the where at the very least – then you obviously needed him to follow up to confirm.
Now should you have contacted him when you didn’t hear from him? Well, you certainly could have. But should you have had to? No, absolutely not.
The beautiful, confident, radiant woman knows what she wants in a relationship, and someone who's going to set up vague plans but then not follow through is definitely not what she wants.
Contacting him to ask if he's still interested in getting together would send the message that you're okay with this kind of behavior.
If he was sitting around waiting for you to follow up at the eleventh hour, that’s probably not a pattern you want to set up right from the beginning.
And if that was his expectation, that’s also not something you want to reinforce for him.
I’m guessing you want someone to pursue you, to follow up with you, to follow through with a date that he set up with you. Without having the specifics of the date, of course you would have assumed that he would be following up with you and when he didn’t –and it’s now late Sunday night - this tells you a lot about him.
Is this even worth pursuing? Well, at this point, I’m going to assume that if he really is into you and interested in beginning something real with you, he’s going to be contacting you to follow up and clarify what happened.
Some kind of explanation is definitely needed here if there’s anything worth pursuing here. If there isn’t anything more from him, I think your answer’s pretty clear.
And it better be a good explanation, considering you essentially got stood up.
Could he just be a confused, shy guy who needs you to do more of the work before he can take your lead?
Yes, he could be.
But without knowing more about him I wouldn't know. He may be a very shy, awkward kind of guy who's not used to dating, and maybe he felt too nervous to actually follow through on officially asking you out. These can be some of the best guys if you give them a chance.
If you think this describes him, then reaching out to him would be fine on your end. If you want to. Meaning if you think you can handle being in the driver's seat in the relationship.
On the other hand, he might be a narcissistic leaning guy who's just stringing you along but keeping his options open for something better to come along. And maybe something better came along this particular weekend.
Again, that's why an explanation is in order.
I was in a similar situation back in my single days, Jaime, as have many women here on the blog. I think we can all say we’ve been similarly confused and unsure of what we were dealing with when encountering a guy giving us mixed signals like this.
What I’ve learned about these types of scenarios is that you really don’t have anything to lose.
If this is just a confused, shy guy who isn’t all that comfortable with social nuances, he may need a little help to get things going and he’ll be fine from there. But this also tells you something about him. That he may be on the shy side, that he might be a little unsure of his role in a relationship, but also that he may be a sensitive, sweet guy worth getting to know better.
So take that as information to keep in your back pocket if you do choose to pursue this enough on your own to see what it might be.
You really don’t know and you really can’t know without more information. But whether you want that additional information or not is completely up to you.
This is where you insert your own thoughts here. Do you want to know more? Then reach out and ask him what happened. Keep in mind, you're not agreeing to go out with him, you're just asking him why he flaked on you.
Then, if you're okay with his explanation, and he says he still wants to see you, make it clear to him that you're not holding any time slots open unless he gives you a firm date and time right then and there.
If he asks anything long the lines of "Are you free this weekend?" tell him that you do have some plans (I'm sure you do, for at least some of the weekend, right?) and ask him when he was thinking. If he says "How about Saturday?", then ask him what time.
Don't let him off the hook until you have a specific date and time.
Don't make any assumptions - once he confirms a time, say something like "Okay, so you'll pick me up at 7 on Saturday", or, if you're going to meet somewhere, "Okay, I'll see you there on Saturday at 7."
That way, there's no confusion and you won't have to be wondering if he's going to call you or not. This also ensures you're not afraid to make other plans for the rest of the weekend because you're trying to keep everything open for him.
Remember, YOU are doing the choosing here, and it's up to you to decide if HE gets to go out with YOU. Beautiful YOU!
Hope this helps!
Love,
Jane
What do you think? Should beautiful Jaime give him another chance and see where this goes with this man who's giving her mixed signals, or should she just forget the whole thing? Let us know your thoughts below in the comments!
Maybe my story will be helpful, Jaime.
In the past year (I am 67 years old!), I chose to continue trying to get to know (for about 6 months) a confusing man who was clearly interested in me and had been trying to engage with me for three years, but I hadn't been ready to engage with him. Then, last spring about this time, he asked a mutual friend about me and a special day in my life. He asked me out for breakfast when that day came, after our mutual friends had gotten together one morning. I couldn't have been happier (so I thought at the time). It has been so rare in my life for men to actually ask me out that I was instantly sure that I had finally found (or been found by) the man for me, forgetting that I married one of the few men who asked me out when I was 23 -- a major mistake).
The recent man asked me out for breakfast one other time. After that, he stopped asking me out for breakfast and began to say, "Keep in touch" or "Give me a call" or "Call me" after we would talk together at length when our mutual friends would gather. I was puzzled, but began to do most of the footwork to keep things going. I called him. He would always return my calls within 24 hours, and we would talk at length (actually he did most of the talking -- it was hard to get a word in edgewise -- but I enjoyed listening to him. In the beginning, there was much laughter between us). Within a few weeks, I was completely baffled by his behavior and was fortunate to find Jane's website. I kept expecting him to ask me out again. I kept expecting more calls from him. He did call occasionally.
Then one day he called at 5:30 in the evening to ask me if I wanted to go with him to a gathering related to his life's passion. The event was at 7 p.m. He said that he wasn't a good planner and that he knew he should have called me earlier. I politely declined. Thank goodness, I had been following Jane's website. The old me wouldn't have hesitated to say yes.
The new me was still not willing to give up on him, despite the fact that he wasn't asking me out or introducing me to his children or including me in his life except in a limited way. All we did was talk on the phone at least once a week and take long walks together. I thought that he might be one of the shy awkward sensitive men who was worth the effort.
For my birthday in early October, I asked him if we could get together for a walk. He said yes. When I thought we had arranged the time and place to meet, I said, "Okay, we have a plan." He said, "No, we have a possibility." This conversation took place on the phone. I assumed that he would call me when he was sure. My birthday morning came, and he hadn't called. 15 minutes after we had arranged to meet, he called and said, "Where are you?" I said that I had been waiting for him to confirm. I said, "When I said that we had a plan, you said that we only had a possibility, and I was waiting for you to confirm that we had a plan." He became angry and annoyed with me. He had been "joking." I had not picked up on the joke. He said that he was so tired of the games women play!!!!! He said that I had intentionally tried to create a drama. I was totally baffled, but I did go to meet him. He had gotten up early and baked me a little cake. He had flowers for me. When I expressed happiness about the little cake and the flowers, he was abrupt. He said, "This is not going to ruin my day." We did take the walk, but nothing was quite right after that. Still, I wasn't ready to give up.
He did ask me out to another gathering related to his passion in life in late October. That time he called a few days before event. It went pretty well, but I was so nervous that I forgot to turn the lights out in my car and the battery died! I forgot to say that this man doesn't have a car! The dead battery issue was resolved, but I realized how stressed I was in connection with him.
I came out of my denial and began noticing his pattern of only calling me when he needed help with something.
I'll stop here, except to wind this up. I still didn't give up on him until the day before Thanksgiving. He is a shy awkward sensitive intelligent attractive (to me)and baffling man that I could not give up on until I realized that I didn't like the woman I was becoming in connection with him. I am grateful to have had this experience. He isn't the one I want in my life for the rest of my life. I have learned so much from this experience. I am no longer attracted to that type of man. I am back to liking the woman I am becoming.
He isn't a bad man, just a very unusual one. It has occurred to me that he might have Asperger's or early dementia. He was definitely an unusual man with unusual behavior and thought processes. I hate to say it, but he was much like my father in some ways. My father loved me from a distance.
I want to be loved by a man who is present.
I am healing from old old wounds. It is never to late to heal. I don't have to do what I did before in order to be in a relationship.
I was in a similar situation with my ex. He would make vague plans and I would always confirm with him about the plans. Like Jane said, this is a bad habit to start in the beginning of the relationship. He'll think it's ok to do this all the time. Which then leads you into becoming the chaser in the relationship. I know it's hard, but sometimes you have to really think about what you want in a relationship. If you're ok with confirming plans all the time, then this situation will be ok for you. But, if you want a guy who will respect you and your time and follow up with you, he isn't the right one for you. I noticed that guys that make vague plans are usually confused themselves on what they want out of life. Unfortunately, some of these guys string woman along on their time frame of trying to figure out what they want from a relationship.