MurkyIntersection

It sounds like it's all just in your head. I would ask myself the question, "do I want a casual or serious relationship?". Either way, you are as deserving to be happy as all the women you meet. Try being vulnerable around them. Be yourself and be interested in what they have to say. Practice active listening. Hopefully that will in turn prompt your dates to want to know you more as well.

I'm in my mid-thirties she's in her early fourties. I spoke with a friend about her today and she picked up on the situation. Same advice: "don't fall in love!". I'm really trying but I already like her a lot. Anyway I don't wanna mess things up, so my thinking right now is to just act as a nice friend/housemate, always respect her boundaries, treat her like she deserves etc, and I'll re-evaluate in one year or so. That will be plenty of time for me to heal from my breakups, work on myself and get to know each other. In one year the lease will expire and I'll have to evaluate what to do anyway, so that might be a good time to confess feelings—assuming they'll still be there!

Thank you all. I think I might have some lingering emotional attachment issues (I got disorganized/fearful-avoidant attachment, have been in therapy), or maybe it's just that I feel a bit lost and needy having recently got out of two relationships, one of which lasted 10 years. However now I know that hitting on my new housemate is a terrible idea. I definitely won't pursue a romantic relationship with her for now, though she's really cool, we share values and I wouldn't rule out a serious relationship at some point. But yeah, as I said I will try taking things as slow as I can. I'll enjoy the journey no matter the destination. Thanks all.

Thanks, yeah, I'll try taking things as slow as I can. We had some sort of date yesterday, spent the whole day together and it was wonderful. But yeah, I really wouldn't want to make things awkward since we just signed a lease contract. I had a family member suggest me to "strike while the iron's hot"—I don't think it's a good idea, but since I'm going on holiday next weekend, I thought that maybe on Friday I could tell her how I feel before I go, with the idea that if she says no to a potential future relationship, at least we'll both get some time apart to digest. Thoughts? Edit: I got out of my previous relationship last month.

So my new housemate and I really like each other. I've only known her for a week, but we seem to have so many things in common and I'm falling in love with her. Now, I just got out of an abusive relationship. I feel like meeting my housemate and going to live with her, just the two of us, is one of the best things ever happened to me, because she respects me and she's very nice to me. My dilemma is that I don't know if I should tell her how I feel. It just seems way too early for that, because I want to take things slow and heal from the recent breakup, which she doesn't know about, but at the same time I would like to let her know that I'm available and interested in her romantically. However, I'm scared that she might not want a relationship with me. One of the very first things she asked me, when we first met, was if I was single and looking for a relationship—she immediately said that she wasn't going to be dating, and I replied the same. This was the truth at the time, since I was completely overwhelmed by the breakup and I genuinely had no intention of dating another woman anytime soon. Things have changed now that I started developing feelings for her, but I really don't know if I should communicate that. One thing that's unclear to me is if she actually likes me romantically, or if she just likes me as a housemate. I wonder if what she said about the dating was simply to set boundaries as housemates, or if it was actually a subtle way of agreeing to monogamy from the very start. Could this be a possible interpretation or am I reading this wrong?

We were vacationing in the tropics. Everything was great, until a sudden thunderstorm came in the late evening. I did have an umbrella —however, the weather was severe. Our taxi arrived to destination. I got out and immediately seeked repair from the heavy rain, leaving her behind. She exited the car as well, crossing the road by herself— just like I did, except without an umbrella. She yelled at me—she had never done it before—for not helping her out. She said she couldn't even see because of the rain on her eyeglasses. I gave her a blank stare, immediately realizing how selfish I had been, but unable to say anything other than sorry. Not to justify my behavior or anything, but I can't stress enough how extreme the rain was. It was so bad that I found it amusing, and I was actually having a great time watching how heavily it was pouring down. I hadn't seen anything like that before. Even the locals were saying that it was much stronger than usual. Needless to say, she didn't find it amusing at all. She was very angry at me. I realize I messed up badly in this situation, and that my partner now doesn't trust me anymore. I couldn't help but put my own safety first, completely disregarding her's. I am now wondering what I could do, if anything, to save this relationship. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.