Is it possible to get this girl who is in a relationship?

[Igor_]

I like the girl who has a boyfriend. At the end of September 2023, along with two other girls, we started renting an apartment together. We're all students.

As for me, I'm in my final year of studies and work full-time in IT. I've developed strong feelings for one of my roommates, even though we've only known each other for a month, we already know quite a bit about each other, and we talk a lot.

We chat in the mornings before heading to classes or work, or for hours late at night over tea or while preparing dinner (we've even gone out to eat together). We always fill the kettle for two people, knowing that the extra water will be for her or for me (and it works; almost always, one of us leaves the room to make tea and start a conversation).

To be honest, I haven't talked to anyone this much in such a short time in many years. I haven't let anyone get to know me so well in a long time. We're both introverts, yet conversation comes easily to us. We've even found a "common language" - we both love cats. We send each other Instagram reels every day, and for the past three weeks, we've been going to the gym together 2-3 times a week. I recently introduced her to a different sport, which is my hobby, and despite her initial fear of it, she was eager to give it a try.

We often go grocery shopping together, and once, I even helped her pick out the color of tights in an Action store XD. Our conversations are not awkward or stiff; they are very relaxed, and we maintain prolonged eye contact. We often share jokes, and recently, I made her laugh so hard that we both cried from laughter.

It seems like she doesn't mind my company because, despite my apologies (which may have been unnecessary) for talking so much, resulting in 5-10 hours of chatting in the kitchen until late at night, she herself said that I didn't need to apologize because if she didn't want to talk, she could have ended the conversation and gone to her room.

She even asked me not to laugh and showed me some of her old photos to show how her hair used to look, which was somewhat random, but I also complimented her hair, and vice versa, I showed her some of my childhood pictures. It seems that we may have broken some kind of personal space barrier during our conversations because sometimes, when she wanted to show me something on her phone, she didn't mind getting close to me or pulling her chair right next to mine.

Recently, she mentioned that she liked how I optimized the space in my room and asked for help in rearranging her entire room. During one of our conversations, I managed to slip in a question about why she no longer lives with her boyfriend. She mentioned that they had a big argument, and their relationship was on the verge of breaking up, so she decided not to live with him for now. I was cautious and quickly returned to our previous topic, which seemed to go quite smoothly.

To be honest, it gave me hope when I heard that their relationship had recently been hanging by a thread. I've noticed a few times that her boyfriend texts her when we're talking, but she puts the messages aside and doesn't reply for many hours during our conversations.

In the past month, he has only visited our apartment twice for a few hours and once for a night (first day of renting). The first time, it seemed like she might not have wanted him to come because it was right after our late-night tea talk when she went to study, and her boyfriend suddenly arrived. She didn't seem excited to see him, but rather tired and somewhat reluctant in her tone when she said, 'Why did you come? I told you I'm studying.'

The second time, they baked an apple pie, spent time in her room, and then her boyfriend left (the apple pie was tasty). Maybe I'm just being naive, or maybe I'm right in thinking that I might have a chance with her, even though she's still officially in a relationship. I don't know what to do.

I'm starting to weigh the pros and cons of telling her how I feel. I don't want to ruin the atmosphere in the apartment, but at the same time, I'm trying to subtly let her know that I don't see her as a stranger in the room next door. Would confessing my feelings scare her away? I'm 22 years old and have never had a girlfriend. I've never really flirted with any girl, I'm terrible at reading 'signals,' and perhaps I'm imagining things that are just normal among women, and I come across as an idiot.

[Wiseman2]

16 minutes ago, Igor_ said:

I like the girl who has a boyfriend. At the end of September 2023, along with two other girls, we started renting an apartment together. I managed to slip in a question about why she no longer lives with her boyfriend. She mentioned that they had a big argument .boyfriend texts her when we're talking, he has only visited our apartment twice for a few hours and once for a night 

Unfortunately the arrangement is you're university roommates and she's acting like a roommate but you have a crush on her. Not only does she have a BF but he stays over.

Many of the interactions you describe sound like she thinks of you as a male-girlfriend. Please step back and maintain appropriate boundaries. 

[MissCanuck]

You're going to get hurt if you keep this up, OP. 

She could easily break up with the boyfriend if she wanted. But she hasn't done that. She is hanging on to him, and you're making it easier for her to do that.

Why? When you become someone's emotional-support filler when they're in a bad relationship, well, it gives them less incentive to end it. You're there filling in the gaps that he isn't, and so it makes it easier for her to keep doing what she's currently doing. If you stopped behaving like a surrogate boyfriend, she would find she has a real choice to make about her relationship. 

Keep in mind, she might not want to date you anyway. There is no guarantee that if she dumps him (or he dumps her) she will come to you. But what you're doing right now is not going to help you in the long-run. It will hurt you to keep getting cozy with her and watch her stay with him at the same time. You need to step back here, for your own good. Unless and until she is actually single, this is a waste of your heart and time. 

[Kwothe28]

She is in a relationship. So until she breaks up she is off limits. You never had a girlfriend so you are maybe entertained by somebody expressing at least some form of interest in you. Even though that interest may be just from roomate standpoint. But you dont need somebody else girlfriend. Even if they break up, you are her roomate. Its messy to date a roomate as, if things go awry, you make things ankward. Heck you might make them ankward if you try something in a first place. Not to mention that, people who are willing to entertain somebody else when they have a relationship, will not stop that once they are in a relationship with that somebody. So its a bad idea overall.

Doesnt she has some nice single friend? Because that would actually be a good idea to entertain and to meet some of them. This one here would just make you troubles and again its not a good idea at all.

[rainbowsandroses]

OP I don't suggest you go "spilling your feels," in fact, please DON'T!

But what you can do is assertively tell since she has a boyfriend, you're stepping back and out.  And that if her situation changes, she knows where to find you.

I agree with @MissCanuck that as it stands now with you being a strong emotional support, you are making it easier for her to stay with her boyfriend.

If you pulled out now, she'd have an opportunity to miss that, miss YOU, miss what you have to offer and thus reconsider remaining in her current situation wherein she feels unhappy and unfulfilled.

She won't be able to do that as long as you remain in the picture being her "white knight" (Google it).

 

[catfeeder]

I would not speak a word of this to roommate or anyone else. Let nature take it's course between her and the BF, and you will thank yourself for that. If you try to influence her, you will position yourself badly, even if she responds favorably, because you've introduced disloyalty. That can mean you're being disloyal to her and her trust in you, or it can mean that you expect her to become disloyal to her BF.

From that point forward, even if she breaks up with BF, it can be attributed to your influence--so even if you appear to win, you lose. You'll enjoy the victory for about 5 minute before it will occur to you that her disloyalty to her boyfriend is now something you will need to fear from her going forward. You'll never be able to trust that on any given bad day she's not talking up the next guy to trade YOU in.

Skip that, and be smart. Allow roommate to play out the course of her relationship without any influence from you. You will thank yourself later, regardless of the outcome.

[boltnrun]

So you're hoping to take advantage of the fact this young woman's relationship is struggling?  This is a young woman whom you claim to care about?

It wouldn't come across as very caring if she sees you attempting to leap at her while she's going through a crisis in her relationship.

I would imagine there are literally hundreds of single, attractive young women at your university.  Why not get to know some of them?

[SherrySher]

9 hours ago, Igor_ said:

I like the girl who has a boyfriend. At the end of September 2023, along with two other girls, we started renting an apartment together. We're all students.

As for me, I'm in my final year of studies and work full-time in IT. I've developed strong feelings for one of my roommates, even though we've only known each other for a month, we already know quite a bit about each other, and we talk a lot.

We chat in the mornings before heading to classes or work, or for hours late at night over tea or while preparing dinner (we've even gone out to eat together). We always fill the kettle for two people, knowing that the extra water will be for her or for me (and it works; almost always, one of us leaves the room to make tea and start a conversation).

To be honest, I haven't talked to anyone this much in such a short time in many years. I haven't let anyone get to know me so well in a long time. We're both introverts, yet conversation comes easily to us. We've even found a "common language" - we both love cats. We send each other Instagram reels every day, and for the past three weeks, we've been going to the gym together 2-3 times a week. I recently introduced her to a different sport, which is my hobby, and despite her initial fear of it, she was eager to give it a try.

We often go grocery shopping together, and once, I even helped her pick out the color of tights in an Action store XD. Our conversations are not awkward or stiff; they are very relaxed, and we maintain prolonged eye contact. We often share jokes, and recently, I made her laugh so hard that we both cried from laughter.

It seems like she doesn't mind my company because, despite my apologies (which may have been unnecessary) for talking so much, resulting in 5-10 hours of chatting in the kitchen until late at night, she herself said that I didn't need to apologize because if she didn't want to talk, she could have ended the conversation and gone to her room.

She even asked me not to laugh and showed me some of her old photos to show how her hair used to look, which was somewhat random, but I also complimented her hair, and vice versa, I showed her some of my childhood pictures. It seems that we may have broken some kind of personal space barrier during our conversations because sometimes, when she wanted to show me something on her phone, she didn't mind getting close to me or pulling her chair right next to mine.

Recently, she mentioned that she liked how I optimized the space in my room and asked for help in rearranging her entire room. During one of our conversations, I managed to slip in a question about why she no longer lives with her boyfriend. She mentioned that they had a big argument, and their relationship was on the verge of breaking up, so she decided not to live with him for now. I was cautious and quickly returned to our previous topic, which seemed to go quite smoothly.

To be honest, it gave me hope when I heard that their relationship had recently been hanging by a thread. I've noticed a few times that her boyfriend texts her when we're talking, but she puts the messages aside and doesn't reply for many hours during our conversations.

In the past month, he has only visited our apartment twice for a few hours and once for a night (first day of renting). The first time, it seemed like she might not have wanted him to come because it was right after our late-night tea talk when she went to study, and her boyfriend suddenly arrived. She didn't seem excited to see him, but rather tired and somewhat reluctant in her tone when she said, 'Why did you come? I told you I'm studying.'

The second time, they baked an apple pie, spent time in her room, and then her boyfriend left (the apple pie was tasty). Maybe I'm just being naive, or maybe I'm right in thinking that I might have a chance with her, even though she's still officially in a relationship. I don't know what to do.

I'm starting to weigh the pros and cons of telling her how I feel. I don't want to ruin the atmosphere in the apartment, but at the same time, I'm trying to subtly let her know that I don't see her as a stranger in the room next door. Would confessing my feelings scare her away? I'm 22 years old and have never had a girlfriend. I've never really flirted with any girl, I'm terrible at reading 'signals,' and perhaps I'm imagining things that are just normal among women, and I come across as an idiot.

At this time, it is not advisable to mention any kind of feelings towards her at all.

She is still invested emotionally in this other man.

If she no longer wanted him, or if she no longer cared about him, she would break up completely and it would be over.

But she is still involved with him (by her own choice), and all you would be doing in confusing her and stressing her out by mentioning any feelings for her right now.

You may not feel what she and him have is important, but that's because you're an outside looking in at their relationship.

You don't know the feelings they both carry or what they've been through together, and truth be told, it's not your place to know.

It's for them to figure out on their own.

Your job right now, is to be a respectful roommate and friend.

If you push further or allow things to go further, you could end up being a rebound, or you could end up with her boyfriend very angry and wanting to fight with you.

Neither option is good.

Emotionally, it's a lot more complicated than you think it is.

His feelings, her feelings and yours are all at stake here.

Tread carefully.

Leave it, and just be her friend for now until they have called it off completely and she has been given space and time to get over him.

That will be awhile yet if they ever do decide to break up.

[smackie9]

You are an orbiter and she's just using you for the attention. Dude you are being bamboozled. She has no intention of actually dating you. 

[boltnrun]

I don't know if I'd call it "using". I know when my marriage was going bad it felt really good to be around people who didn't treat me like an annoyance. I spent a LOT of time with friends. 

[Kwothe28]

8 minutes ago, boltnrun said:

I don't know if I'd call it "using". I know when my marriage was going bad it felt really good to be around people who didn't treat me like an annoyance. I spent a LOT of time with friends. 

Was any of those friends "orbiter" who was just trying to be with you? And you knew that and used them as "surrogate husband" including them helping you pick color of your new tights? Because if not, I dont think your and OP situation is the same. Not to mention the motivations of everyone in story.