I like her and I want her to be my friend

[noval]

Hi. I met a woman in a program among with others and now has finished. I dont have much friends and I like her as a person and I think she also likes me although we havent been talking much in the class cause Im introvert. But we all connected in a social app and I can approach her more easily now. My question is what to say throught the internet in order not to look desperate? She is attractive but Im only looking for a friendship. 

[Batya33]

Message her privately and wish her happy holidays and ask how she is doing.  Are you both single? 

[noval]

No we are not single. 

[boltnrun]

3 minutes ago, noval said:

No we are not single. 

What does your wife/girlfriend suggest?

I presume you've discussed your desire to be "friends" with this woman from your program with your wife or girlfriend.

[noval]

Of course I have. I dont have mine friends only friends from my wife side. So my wife agrees because she want me to have friends. I just sympathize her a little bit more than others. I also met a very nice guy there and we had so much fun in class but with men its much more easier to connect. The program hasnt been finished cause now we are doing it from our screens. 

[Batya33]

I would ask this woman if she and her husband would like to meet up with you and your wife for brunch. 

[Batya33]

I wanted to add I am all for women and men having platonic friendships whatever the marital status but if it’s a new person you meet on your own better to start off where it’s clearly platonic and then since your wife is ok with this and if this woman’s partner is then you can plan appropriate one on one conversations or activities.  

[noval]

Now you made it even more complicated, haha. So I'm guessing no one can answer my question. 

[boltnrun]

6 minutes ago, noval said:

Now you made it even more complicated, haha. So I'm guessing no one can answer my question. 

What's complicated?

Invite her and her husband/partner to join you and your wife for lunch/brunch or coffee and dessert at a cafe. The four of you could hit it off and end up doing all sorts of fun things as two couples. 

[Batya33]

7 minutes ago, noval said:

Now you made it even more complicated, haha. So I'm guessing no one can answer my question. 

So honestly I am very surprised you didn’t mention the crucial fact about your marital status up front. I didn’t make it more complicated unless you want to keep your options open because you find her attractive.

I’ve had a few situations where I would have liked to be friends with a man I just met -  on both occasions I met them through our children playing together - but in one case I ended up contacting his wife - to arrange a playdate for our kids - and in the other case I was in contact with him but literally he’d text me “hey my son and I will be at (location near me) today-can you and your son meet us?
 I never tried to be friends outside of our kids - we did chat in a friendly way while our kids played (husband was working and or needed a break !) - but it was clearly a friendship based on getting the kids together. oh and I have close male friends for many years and would never give them up. But making new male friends has to be done appropriately or not at all. IMO. 

[noval]

If I make a friend and he is a man I can just hung out with him, one by one. But if its a potentiall friendship between a man and a woman why we should hung out as couples? I don't want somebody else to be involve at least at begining. I want to earn her as a friend by my self. Am I saying something strange? My wife already has her friends but I dont have friends. Why is it so hard to understand. This is my answer to bolotnrun. 

[boltnrun]

5 minutes ago, noval said:

If I make a friend and he is a man I can just hung out with him, one by one. But if its a potentiall friendship between a man and a woman why we should hung out as couples? I don't want somebody else to be involve at least at begining. I want to earn her as a friend by my self. Am I saying something strange? My wife already has her friends but I dont have friends. Why is it so hard to understand. This is my answer to bolotnrun. 

Because it's inappropriate. Have you told your wife you find this woman attractive?

Can you clarify if your wife is encouraging you to spend time with this woman one on one?

[Kwothe28]

Oof. Single or not single you really shouldnt care if you would look desperate or not. Even more because you are not single. As it seems you are not going for hook up. So you could organize something and invite her and her partner(I assume she also have somebody) to hang out.

Also, sorry, you hanging 1on1 is weird and gives the wrong vibe. Wouldnt reccomend that.

[boltnrun]

1 hour ago, noval said:

If I make a friend and he is a man I can just hung out with him, one by one.

Also, I didn't see you describe the man you befriended in your program as "attractive".  That's why it's OK to hang out with him "one by one".

The fact that you find this woman "attractive" is why it's a bad idea to try to be her "friend".

[Batya33]

1 hour ago, noval said:

If I make a friend and he is a man I can just hung out with him, one by one. But if its a potentiall friendship between a man and a woman why we should hung out as couples? I don't want somebody else to be involve at least at begining. I want to earn her as a friend by my self. Am I saying something strange? My wife already has her friends but I dont have friends. Why is it so hard to understand. This is my answer to bolotnrun. 

Because very typically the woman's husband would not like that.  You can make a one on one friendship as long as at first it's very clear it's platonic.  The only appropriate way to do that IMO is to first meet as couples.  There's no "earning" - often in couple friends the people involve click at different levels and it is not always gender based.  I had a close platonic male friend and when my husband and I started dating again after a 7 year hiatus my friend by then was married. 

I really didn't click much with his wife -but my husband did. Now they never got together one on one but in larger gatherings he often would speak with her separately -they had more in common than he did with my male friend.  Totally platonic.  On both ends, very obviously. 

 

[noval]

2 hours ago, Batya33 said:

So honestly I am very surprised you didn’t mention the crucial fact about your marital status up front. I didn’t make it more complicated unless you want to keep your options open because you find her attractive.

I’ve had a few situations where I would have liked to be friends with a man I just met -  on both occasions I met them through our children playing together - but in one case I ended up contacting his wife - to arrange a playdate for our kids - and in the other case I was in contact with him but literally he’d text me “hey my son and I will be at (location near me) today-can you and your son meet us?
 I never tried to be friends outside of our kids - we did chat in a friendly way while our kids played (husband was working and or needed a break !) - but it was clearly a friendship based on getting the kids together. oh and I have close male friends for many years and would never give them up. But making new male friends has to be done appropriately or not at all. IMO. 

Wow, this so conservative.

[noval]

37 minutes ago, Kwothe28 said:

Oof. Single or not single you really shouldnt care if you would look desperate or not. Even more because you are not single. As it seems you are not going for hook up. So you could organize something and invite her and her partner(I assume she also have somebody) to hang out.

Also, sorry, you hanging 1on1 is weird and gives the wrong vibe. Wouldnt reccomend that.

Sorry as well, because I don't agree with you.

[Batya33]

4 minutes ago, noval said:

Wow, this so conservative.

"Wow you're so evasive."  I actually am not conservative at all.  I have close male friends and I have for the last oh about 40 years or so.  My husband has always had close female friends - for almost as long.  Right this moment I'm actually not sure if he has a very close female friend but when we were dating he did - we relocated so some of our friendships faded. I know of many couples where it would be a no go to have any one on one friendships with members of the opposite gender other than maybe an in-law.  

I've never heard of a married man asking for advice about starting a female platonic friendship and not mentioning that he is married and so is she.  Hmmmmmm.  

Oh here's an example.  I did jury duty in 2006.  My husband and I were exclusively dating.  A fellow juror was handsome, charming and married. We all hung out during breaks as a group.  I met J, a woman who is 20 years older than me -at the time single/widow and she commented to me how cute the guy was (no interest in him just commented).

A few of us stayed nominally in touch after the trial.  Around 6 years later this guy emailed me.  Turns out he and wife separated.  He said some very nice things in the email.  A little flirtatious.  (He was NOT flirtatious when he was married and we met at jury duty - and neither was I.  At all.).  He also asked if I knew of any really good family law attorneys.

Here is what I did.  I showed my husband the email.  I said - what I think I should do is respond with well wishes, and respond with the family law attorney I know of.  My husband was not thrilled with the flirtatious comments in the email.  My husband agreed with my idea.  So that is what I did.  I also told my husband I was connected with him on LinkedIn and thought that was ok.  Husband agreed.

In that case where this man seemed to cross a line I decided to share this with my husband and be transparent. My husband is not overly protective at all but I knew I wanted to help this person with a good referral and yet I didn't want to "lead him on" -so with my husband on board I felt comfortable.

This guy was never flirtatious again and our contact over the last 8-10 years has been that when he has an event for his creative skills he posts on linkedin and if I have friends in his city who might be interestd in attending I let them know and let him know. He really appreciates that AND now he gets the boundary of -contact for the purpose of networking/being friendly but NOT anything remotely flirtatious.  

I don't think I was being conservative.  Were I not married I might have - flirted back. I might have met up with him as a friend or potentially as a date once he was single.  Who knows? I don't need to know because I look at reality -a married woman receiving an email from a newly separated man that is flirtatious - my status was front and center and would have been ridiculous for me to ask someone who didn't know I was married what I should do and not share the marital status.

[noval]

40 minutes ago, boltnrun said:

Also, I didn't see you describe the man you befriended in your program as "attractive".  That's why it's OK to hang out with him "one by one".

The fact that you find this woman "attractive" is why it's a bad idea to try to be her "friend".

Now you are playing with words. I can easily do the same, let's not do that. Please leave your stereotypes away. Are you married? I wonder why you have this conservative point of view. As I said my wife knows all my intentions plus I dont care if she goes out with a man or with a woman. Why? Because I simply DONT JEALOUS 🙂

[boltnrun]

6 minutes ago, noval said:

Now you are playing with words. I can easily do the same, let's not do that.

Those were your words, not mine. YOU called her "attractive".

I'm glad you and your wife are fine with having friendships with people you find attractive. That's great.

Why not contact that woman and ask her if she wants to spend time with you "one by one" and tell her you don't want her husband to be around? See if she too is "conservative" or not. 

[Batya33]

9 minutes ago, noval said:

Now you are playing with words. I can easily do the same, let's not do that. Please leave your stereotypes away. Are you married? I wonder why you have this conservative point of view. As I said my wife knows all my intentions plus I dont care if she goes out with a man or with a woman. Why? Because I simply DONT JEALOUS 🙂

But this woman's husband likely would care and he might be a lot bigger than you get what I'm saying? Certainly if you and your wife have an arrangement where you can pursue friendships with members of the opposite sex you find attractive go for it - but presume that most people including this woman's husband or partner likely wouldn't take kindly to you contacting her and trying to start a "friendship" where you ask her to meet one on one. 

If you contact her I would tell her you enjoyed meeting her at ___.  Wish her happy holidays.  My best guess -if she is a typical married lady is she will respond politely and work in what she and her husband/partner are doing for the holidays.  And might ask what you and your wife are doing.  From there I don't think you're going to be able to leap to "how nice that you and your husband are visiting your in-laws! When you're back do you want to meet for coffee?"  

I was contacted by a man who didn't list his marital status on FB and we had a number of mutual friends going way back.  He wanted to friend me. 

So I responded that I see we have mutual friends and wrote "I know ___ because my husband went to grad school with her.  How do you know ____"  Then he responded that he knew this other person through his wife.  Then we exchanged pleasantries about where we and our spouses grew up. 

I then accepted his friend request because it was obvious he is happily married and wasn't flirtatious and we live far away from each other but we share these common friends and we're on the same wavelength as far as appropriate contact.  He hasn't messaged me again.  If he does and if it's at all inappropriate I will block him right then.  

[noval]

7 minutes ago, Batya33 said:

"Wow you're so evasive."  I actually am not conservative at all.  I have close male friends and I have for the last oh about 40 years or so.  My husband has always had close female friends - for almost as long.  Right this moment I'm actually not sure if he has a very close female friend but when we were dating he did - we relocated so some of our friendships faded. I know of many couples where it would be a no go to have any one on one friendships with members of the opposite gender other than maybe an in-law.  

I've never heard of a married man asking for advice about starting a female platonic friendship and not mentioning that he is married and so is she.  Hmmmmmm.  

 

You asked me... so I'm not evasive. I asked something specific, didn't thought that I would have been interviewing here lol. 

I actually care. If she doesn't want to hung out with for x,y,z reason that's ok. She is an adult. 

Nighty night. 

[Batya33]

2 minutes ago, noval said:

You asked me... so I'm not evasive. I asked something specific, didn't thought that I would have been interviewing here lol. 

I actually care. If she doesn't want to hung out with for x,y,z reason that's ok. She is an adult. 

Nighty night. 

It was evasive to play things off like you were a single guy looking for a platonic female friend who is single.  Marital status is not an interview.  It's basic to this situation and changes everything.

[noval]

7 minutes ago, boltnrun said:

Those were your words, not mine. YOU called her "attractive".

I'm glad you and your wife are fine with having friendships with people you find attractive. That's great.

Why not contact that woman and ask her if she wants to spend time with you "one by one" and tell her you don't want her husband to be around? See if she too is "conservative" or not. 

First all I didnt said that about attractivness for me and my wife. This is just your false conclution. 

Why saying that I don't want her husband to be around? Your ideas are so extreme and you continue playing with words. Its boring...

But it makes me wonder why you are so defensive. Did I triggered something? 



 

[Batya33]

2 minutes ago, noval said:

First all I didnt said that about attractivness for me and my wife. This is just your false conclution. 

Why saying that I don't want her husband to be around? Your ideas are so extreme and you continue playing with words. Its boring...

But it makes me wonder why you are so defensive. Did I triggered something? 



 

Not at all!  You took a chance being evasive and the responses you are getting to me are extremely middle of the road/common sense.  

I'm done -you're interested in being right and attacking people for their opinions.  Just again please know that most women's husbands do not like their wives being hit on and he will know how to find you if he's upset or worse.  Watch your back IMO.  Good luck!