I really liked her, but…

[jul-els]

…I’m not sure why. Disclaimer; this is kind of a long story, so here we go. About four years ago, my life went through what felt to me at the time like a major upheaval. My mother broke her hip, I was the only one in our family who cared, and I moved into her home and I took care of her while working full time. A year after my mother’s fall, she passed away and during this time I dated a woman who  had a mental illness and she severely verbally and emotionally abused me. My breakup with her coincided with my mothers death and I was left completely devastated by these events. At the same time, I was let go from my job of 20 years due to the pandemic. I was left lost, alone, and in a severe amount of pain.

I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I went out immediately and got a new job.  I worked there for a year, I hated it, and I quit. And I was back in the same spot, not knowing what to do with myself. At this point I decided to do something I had always wanted to do but had never  pursued for several reasons; I decided to become a massage therapist. I now love my work, and it’s one of the greatest things I’ve ever done for myself.

While in school, I met a woman at an event I was working as an extern, we’ll call her Ann. She’s Vietnamese, has been living in the U.S. for seven years and has been a massage therapist for 20 years. She speaks no English. I was attracted to her on the day I met her, and I got her card from her and booked a massage with her shortly thereafter. I didn’t care about the massage, I just wanted to get to know her better. I started to pursue her, and we went out a few times together. We would speak to each other using google translate. 
 

After going out a few times, I told her I was attracted to her. Her response was she said she thought I was cute. Sounded good to me, and reason enough for me to continue seeing her. At this point though, the already challenging language barrier started to break down further. She decided she didn’t want to use google translate to speak to me anymore, because she said she wanted to practice her English. The problem with this for me was that she has no grasp of the language, and when she would speak, it was completely unintelligible. I couldn’t understand any of it. This was definitely going to make it tough to try to get to know each other. I thought maybe I could express my interest in other ways. I would try to show her affection. I would give her my hand, but she wouldn’t receive it. I would try to kiss her, but she would refuse. 
 

So I asked her if she was interested in me and I mentioned how she didn’t really show much interest in my attempts to get closer to her. She said yes, but she’s shy and she’s a traditional Vietnamese woman, and I’d have to be patient with her. So I complied to her request and paused any attempts to show affection or warmth. 
 

And we continued seeing each other on a semi-regular basis. But I couldn’t find anything out about her. When I would ask her questions about herself she would just ignore it and talk about something else. If I ever said anything fun or flirty to her; same thing; no acknowledgment and just changing the subject. I would try to give her opportunities to get to know me better, and she showed no interest. She would only ever show interest in talking about two things; her work and her sadness. And the two things seemed to be inexplicably intertwined. She lives in a deep state of sadness that seems to be all consuming for her, and it is literally the only thing she expresses an interest in talking about.
 

I would try to be a friend, often helping her with very simple and menial tasks that any functioning adult would be able to execute easily, but she couldn’t due to her language limitations. During all of this there would be times when I’d want to kiss her or show her affection, but I wouldn’t because I didn’t feel like getting rejected. Eventually I graduated from school and entered the field as a working professional. Sometimes she would have jobs that she needed help with and she’d call me and give me work, which was great, since I was new, and I needed all the work I could get. 
 

Our friendship went on like this for a year at which point I started to see a shift in her behavior. She started calling me more often, wanting to do more things together, and even gave me a couple of gifts. I took this as a sign that she was warming up to me. On her birthday, I bought her a card and some sweet and simple little gifts and took her to dinner.

After dinner I gave her the gifts, and I asked her how she felt about us. She said we were friends and she didn’t want to do anything to ruin the friendship. She said she thought I was “approachable”, but she wanted to let things develop naturally. This made no sense to me since we had known each other for a year and all I knew about her is that she’s Vietnamese, she’s very sad, and that she works far more than she wants to. All she knows about me is that I’m starting a new career and I’m super happy and excited about it. And she knows what the inside of my car and apartment look like. That’s it. *shrug* I told her if she liked me, our friendship could be more, to which she replied, “no, we’re friends”. So I respected her feelings and I was fine with it. I just wanted an honest answer, and she gave me one and that was good enough for me. 
 

She then immediately texted me as soon as she got home, saying she was touched by the gifts, that she was sorry for rejecting my interest in dating and that I shouldn’t be sad. I told her I wasn’t sad, I just wanted an honest answer, and that I appreciated that, and that I respected her feelings. 
 

She then went on to ask me if she ever got a boyfriend, would I still spend the same amount of time with her, because friends are friends and boyfriends are boyfriends and two people don’t have to be in love in order to go together like that. I asked her why, did she have a boyfriend? She said no. I said if she had a boyfriend, I don’t think she’d be too concerned about how much time I spent with her, because that’s just the way it is when you get serious about someone. And I said, but you don’t have a boyfriend right now and I don’t have a girlfriend, so let’s not worry about it. 
 

Over the next couple weeks she started calling me more often and the number of favors she wanted steadily increased to the point that it was becoming unreasonable for me. She was asking for help with simple things that any self sufficient adult could do for themselves and expecting me to arrange my schedule around them. This was too much for me and I felt she was being unreasonable and I pretty much stopped talking to her. I’d had enough and I was tired of trying. 
 

It has now been a few weeks and we have stopped talking to each other. Although a part of me misses her, I’m fine with it. It was just too draining and I don’t want to be sad. I want to be happy. 
 

Im kind of baffled as to why I wanted her so bad. Because at a certain point, I really did. I guess it was just a physical thing, because I do find her physically attractive. I also thought the fact that we work in the same profession and are both really hard workers were great things to have in common. I also have empathy for her because I was also in that same trap of sadness that she’s currently in. The difference is I found my way out of it. I don’t think she wants to. But whatever the reason is, it was definitely not meant to be. It has now become another closed chapter. Oh well. 

[Kwothe28]

41 minutes ago, jul-els said:

She then went on to ask me if she ever got a boyfriend, would I still spend the same amount of time with her, because friends are friends and boyfriends are boyfriends and two people don’t have to be in love in order to go together like that

Translation: I would still like the same amount of attention but without me dangling that maybe something will happen like I did before.

Its a good thing you got rid of her.

45 minutes ago, jul-els said:

Im kind of baffled as to why I wanted her so bad. Because at a certain point, I really did. I guess it was just a physical thing, because I do find her physically attractive.

I think its just the state of mind kind of thing. Often when our mind isnt in the right place we project that on our choice of partners. You saw something that isnt there just because somebody dangled keys in front of you. It happens. Live and learn. 

[MissCanuck]

1 hour ago, jul-els said:

I guess it was just a physical thing, because I do find her physically attractive.

I imagine this had a lot to do with it, because otherwise, you two were totally unsuited to each other. 

When you can't even communicate without the support of technology, it is a dead end. I say that as someone who also lives abroad and has learned the local language. It is otherwise impossible to have a functional relationship. Add to that the fact that she kept rejecting your advances, and the writing has been on the wall for a long time. 

Perhaps you were also at a more vulnerable or lonely point when you met her too, so she seemed like a reasonable option because nothing else was really happening. But this was never a very realistic prospect. Best to have walked away, and keep it that way. 

[TeeDee]

You were attracted to her because she was mysterious & exotic.  However, you never really got to know her.  The language barrier was too much.  

Please accept my condolences about the loss of your mom.  

You have this job you love.  Focus on that blessing.  Love will find you.  

[Batya33]

28 minutes ago, TeeDee said:

You were attracted to her because she was mysterious & exotic.  However, you never really got to know her.  The language barrier was too much.  

Please accept my condolences about the loss of your mom.  

You have this job you love.  Focus on that blessing.  Love will find you.  

Same exact from me -all of it.