I (m) have this friend, she nice looking, out going, funny. We met in school and hit it off as friends, we hung out together or as a group, or me and my girlfriend with her and her bf a few time a week. We have never really been single at the same time, so I never really noticed her romantically, I mean I noticed she was attractive but never though of her romantically.
I ended up breaking up with my gf and a few months later she broke up with her bf. Well because most of our friends are paired off at the time, we end up hanging out like 4 days a week.
I wasn't aware I was starting to catch feelings for this girl until someone pointed out I stopped dating and approaching other women. I really hit home when she went on a few different dates and I noticed I was jealous.
So I sat her down and had a chat, told her I have noticed recently I was becoming interested in her, I absolutely hater seeing her go on dates with other guys. And wanted to see if us dating would be as cool as our friendship so far.
1st she smiled (big happy excited eyes). Then something happened, her smile turned unsure. She explained she had though of it as well and is interested in giving it a try. But not to the end of the summer.
Confused I asked why the end of the summer. She explained she was in her hoe phase (her words) and she wanted to have a "summer of fun" b4 she settled down. The rest of that day was awkward I cut things short. When she asked I told her we were fine, my pride was brused a bit and I was feeling disappointed. But not to worry we are definitely still friends.
I have to admit the second she chose potentially random hook ups and getting run through for the summer over a relationship, all romantic feelings died. I wasn't mad at her, she did nothing wrong, but the way I viewed her had changed. She was forever in the friend zone for me. I took a few days put my big boy pants on and we started hanging out again. But it was different, I only saw her as a friend and I only was interested in seeing her every now and again not all the time like b4. I started dating other girls again. I had no hard feelings I genuinely enjoyed being around her only like b4 when we both had spouses.
Anyway, one night we were our as a group we all had a few drinks and she says. "Hey good news, summers almost over". Oblivious to what she meant till later I say " that sucks I love summer". Then I got distracted by other conversations being had. I did notice she was cold towards me the rest of the night.
October rolls around she wants to do lunch just her and I. We meet up, having a great talk, we talked about our summer. She talks about all the guys she dated over the summer. She used this to steer the conversation to "us". She wanted to let me know she was ready to settle into a relationship and wanted to go back to our earlier conversation.
I told her it's cool, I valued our friendship and think we should stay just that friends. She wanted to know what's changed, and would not let it go. So I had to be honest.
I told her that her choice to put me on the back burner for "hot girl summer" was hurtful and I feel like if she actually liked me she would have wanted to be in a relationship with me. She said she knew we would be the real thing and she needed to "get through her hoe phase" to give us an honest shot. I let her know the fact she fealt we could have been something and she still chose potentially to get run through by a bunch of strangers instead of starting something real tells me she doesn't feel about me the way she thinks she does. I accept that and stayed friends with her with no hard feelings. But the second she chose to put me on the back burner I lost all romantic feelings for her. Forever because it feels like she was shopping around all summer and settled on me. And I am nobody back up plan.
She got Mad, stopped talking to me, our friends think I should apologize and give her a chance. But those feelings just arnt there.
What do you think, AITA?
I should probably add a time line, this was last summer. We have seen each other around but she avoids me if she can. The reason I wrote this now, is because a mutual friend and ib were talking about last summer, how the fall went, then pointed out she is still single and asked me recently if I have/would changed my mind. I don't think they were asking for her because they said she still thinks I'm an ass.