Scarleteen

This is a follow up to How to Tell a Bad Texter Likes You:

I want to tell my crush I love her and would like to date her, but more importantly meet her when I come back to the USA. I want to try to use Scarleteen’s tips on asking her whether that is doable to date her or not, but at the same time, she takes a long time to reply to messages, like 3 weeks last time in between from my last message
since she last messaged me on a dating app. Its been nearly 4 weeks since she last messaged me on Instagram. I don’t want to bother her nor obsess about her too much. However, she said one time that I shouldn’t apologize and that she said she doesn’t answer her phone and apologized twice for going MIA (and for not answering) and says that she doesn’t answer her phone that often. She usually responds in detail, asks questions about me, loves the graffiti pics I send to her and appreciates and thanked me for the sweet messages I send to her.

So, I don’t know what to do anymore. I am worried that she is not liking me back and I will push her further away, but I really want to tell her my feelings and want to know hers. I don’t want to overwhelm her, even though she said she doesn’t mind it.

Edit: She saw my social media story recently and that may have been a sign, but also she created a new profile on her dating site after deleting one again (she matched with me twice, the first time when she initially created it and the second time when create a nee one, so that must be a sign too?) Idk what to think, but I want to know how get signals that she wants to be either friends or something more from her and to express feelings.

Hey there.

My impression from your other thread is that you and this person haven't actually interacted that much yet: do I have that right?

If I do, it seems premature to me to go to talking about love: we have to know someone pretty well in order to start to love them, you know? Too, it sounds like this person has been a lot slower with her pace of interacting with you, so bringing something this big to her feels like it won't be a good match at all for her much slower pace.

Personally, if I were in your shoes, I'd give this whole thing more time to develop before talking about love feelings (and I also might be doing some self-examination to be sure I wasn't just lonely or projecting). I'd also consider that it sounds like this person and you might not even be the best match: it sounds like you're someone who needs a good deal of regular communication and affirmation, and that isn't how this person is likely to operate, even if she does have romantic interest in you. How do you feel about that?

Yes.

Also that sounds like great advice, I won’t do that right now, but I may do that when I meet her or get to know her more. I mean, I really want to be with her and I am willing to wait out her much slower pace because of our common interests such as the very same movies (Hereditary, Parasite, Ex Machina, Midsommar, Rosemarys Baby), we both have a Letterboxd account, we both are cancers, we both are atheists, similar types of fashion and we both have a connection to ABA (just haven’t told her yet).

Having common interests is certainly a good starting place with relationships of any kind. But I would -- as you give this time and experience more of whatever your interactions are -- think about your needs and try and be honest with yourself about them. Just because we have common interests with someone doesn't mean we want the same things or will be compatible in deeper ways.

For sure, it may be that what's got you wanting more contact is anxiousness or insecurity, in which case it could be good for you to be involved with someone who doesn't keep you in that, but at the same time, wanting people to be in some kind of regular communication is not unhealthy or about problems, and I do think it's pretty fair to say that if and when people are in something other than a casual acquaintance they will often want to be in touch more often than she's getting in touch with you, you know?

You don't have to make any big decisions about that, like I said. I'd just be observant around it and how you feel in your interactions or lack of them. If this is something that more often makes you feel bad or anxious than good, that's generally a signal of relationships that aren't a good fit for us. <3