ArcadianX

Because I'm not sure of myself. I'm probably as shy as she is. Also, I really don't want to screw up with her. If I have a chance with her, I want to make the most of it.

Not trying to take a side on the question here, but I'm not sure if I buy that. It's happened a few times, but the first time it happened and I asked her about it, she thought that she was seeing a replacement for her old boyfriend instead of someone new. I doubt she'd let it happen again if it meant nothing; she knows what I think of it already. There's no way that I'm going to ask directly, at least not until I think we both know the answer. I trust her. What I don't trust at the moment is her ability to figure out what she's feeling; she needs more time to sort things out in her mind. She's fallen in love twice, and I have reason to believe that the two SOs involved didn't really love her, at least not on a deep level. So she may not be willing to admit it to herself if she's feeling something for me, just because she's afraid to get hurt. So asking at this point would be useless unless I was getting fairly clear signs one way or the other (as MetallicAguy and Glenda suggest). I'd rather watch, and wait, and reinforce her faith and trust in me as much as possible, both so that her feelings are more likely to grow, and so that she's more willing to act on them.

Well, that's the thing. If I weren't so confused about the whole thing and how she feels, I'd call what we've been doing "dating" without question. We go to movies, restaurants, spend lots of time alone talking, etc. And, like I said, I did fall hard for her, and then told her way too much. She knows I feel strongly for her. I just want to be careful what I do. I feel kind of trapped between the rock of her still-hurting feelings over her ex and the hard place of possible just-a-friend status, and for me the real challenge is navigating between them. But I can't really complain because I wanted a reality check on whether these were good signs of attraction, and I got it. So thanks.

I recently reconnected with an old friend of mine about six weeks ago. I fell hard for her from the start, but she was just dumped and is still getting over it. I told her too much too soon and she pushed me away, hard. But we talked about it later (two weeks ago) and she explained that she was still recovering from her ex (something I hadn't understood properly before) and wasn't sure if she could love again or how she felt about me. Also I told her in not so many words that I couldn't just be friends with her - I wanted the point to be clear. After we had that conversation we spent several hours together and had a really good time together. We went out the week after that, had a good time, and made some future plans as well. We are good friends, trust each other a lot, and share a lot of the same interests and goals, but I want more than that. If I thought I could actually just be friends with her, then we'd probably be the closest of friends, but she's so close to being what I want in an SO that it would be very hard on me (especially if she found someone else). She's told me that, at least on paper, I'm what she's looking for. That's all for the background, now I can ask my question. I think she's shy, so I'm not sure how to interpret what I'm getting here. She's happy to spend time with me and we always spend time alone together talking and walking around our college campus. She often laughs at things I say even when they're more witty than funny (I am very bad at making jokes, but I do have a lot of dry wit). She responds well to physical affection, like if I take her hand in mine while we sit, or if I stroke her hair. I even have a pet name for her (it's nonsexual) and she really seems to like it. The other day we both just sort of curled up into chairs and gazed into each other's eyes for a good five minutes. (She started doing it, so I mirrored her.) Sometimes she seems to want to keep her distance, though, and she doesn't usually initiate anything on her own. I haven't noticed anything else, but I'm normally pretty blind to these things (I'm shy myself), and I'm only noticing with her because she's so thoroughly captured my attention. Are any of these real signs of attraction?