Reader Question:
I was seeing this girl for few months. She has been very inconsistent by sending me mixed signals. I guess this is mainly due to her last BAD breakup experience, which she still has not fully recovered. We had a big fight and I told her I need to move on.
After a month, I text her once mainly just to say hi. I didn’t ask her out because I want to let us both cool down. However, I do plan to try one more time. Currently I have two approaches:
1. Contact her two to three weeks later and ask her to have lunch or coffee.
2. Don’t contact her until her birthday. I will call her to say happy birthday and ask her out for a lunch or coffee. I will also get her a small but thoughtful present.
-Bill C. (Iowa)
Dr. Wendy Walsh’s Answer:
Forget the sneaky game playing. Deal with this now. Avoiding conflict is not the same as resolving a conflict. If you had a fight, the issues won’t go away because you took a break and then sent her a gift.
Call her now. Tell her you’d like to talk about what happened and work to restoring your friendship. Tell her you don’t have to be more than friends for now but you’d like to better understand what happened.
If she isn’t interested in this, then she isn’t interested in developing a relationship.
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