I suppose I'd better go back to the second last time we spoke. Catherine was 21 and I was 17. She was the most amazing person I had ever met, she just ...I don't know how to describe it...it was like explosions going off in my head. She liked me too...just the way she talked to me, the way I held her attention, the way she looked at me. I worked with her on weekends, and at work I told her how I felt about her and asked her for her number, which she gave me. I called her a few times during the week and she called me back a couple of times. Everything looked great, I turned up to work the following weekend and she spots me straight away and I wave to her. It was my last day of work and she knew it. I didn't get a chance to talk to her, but as she was leaving she said "Hi Joey" - as she was leaving. She gets in her car and pulls round to drive off and I walk out and stop her to say goodbye properly. I play it cool and she's exasperated and she clearly doesn't want to talk, and she's telling me that she needs to pick up her sister, and I ask her if I should call her and she just says "Yeah" in an offhand way and then one of Catherine's friends (another person at work), Frankie, tells me "She has to pick up her sister!". I take a step back and Catherine drives off.

That was in the July of 2007...so long ago. I didn't see her at all, bar once where we looked at each other and looked away, till Christmas. I was quite drunk at a pub outside at the benches and I was talking to a girl and I turned round and Catherine was sitting down behind me with two friends I'd never seen before or have since. my mates and I left the pub and headed down to the night club really early - nobody ever heads down that early. Then at the door I reached in my pocket for my I.D. and I forgot it! So my mates and I walked back up to the pub for a couple more drinks and on the way we met Catherine and her friends walking down to the nightclub incredibly early. Maybe she followed me down? I've never seen her in the club that early since then.

A couple of weeks later I was hung-over after a night out and a friend and I went into the shop where Catherine and I worked to get breakfast at the deli counter - I didn't set out to look for her. Frankie - that friend sees me and shouts out back "Catherine doesn't come out!" That was because of me and I just can't get that out of my head - did Catherine not want to see me? Why is Frankie getting involved? Why aren't things forgotten, it's been 7 months?

Another time in a nightclub Catherine was watching me tussling with two friends of mine that are in her age group and she probably knows. I was very drunk and Id been told by one of them that 4 guys were gonna jump me outside the club, the other guy was pissed and was trying to tell me who they were and the other friend wasn't very drunk and was stopping him from telling me who they were so I wouldn't be fighting inside the club. I could see Catherine and Frankie watching me. Catherine was just standing there. I got so drunk I ended up falling over and not being able to get up and the bouncers kicked me out, whether Catherine saw that or not....

I stayed sober the next couple of times and Catherine was there and a few things happened where we just sort of stopped and stared at each other - bumping into her on the dance floor, opening a bar door and she was standing with her friends.

Catherine's friends Claire and Ceirdre who work there and I see most days, but I never worked with them, never even talked to them. Theyre 21/22. They started talking to me, they got my name from somewhere so obviously I had been talked about. They were friendly and I made them laugh. Catherine's friends are talking to me.

I saw her last Friday in the shop where I buy my lunch during school, college must be over and she must be back to working. I ignored her.

Then on Monday - last Monday. I stood in the queue to her checkout and when it got to me she said "Hi Joey" really carefully. That ended 10 months of silence between us...and I stood cold, emotionless and said "Hi" to the counter and the looked up at her face and she was looking at me making eye contact....if I could find words to describe her expression, it looked sort of worried, anxious, upset...those eyes though, they looked so sad, big black pupils. I looked away put my stuff on the counter and talked to the girl behind me. I nearly drowned in anxious. Catherine gave me the change and I left without saying a word. I was euphoric - She talked to me! She made eye contact! Her expression!

Tuesday I stayed away from her - can't be too clingy. But I walked into the shop with my friends and we turn a corner and Catherine comes round it and we both look at each other and look at away.

Wednesday I decided to stand in her queue again and that I would be the first to speak cos I had been very cold...but when I said Hi first it sounded cold, and she said Hi back and it was cold too. I nearly drowned in awkwardness...at least I had a friend to talk to behind me.

Today, Thursday she saw me first as I was getting a drink in one of the coolers and I just happened to look to my left and she was walking towards me - towards the tills behind me and she was looking straight ahead and looked at me when I looked at her, but again we both looked away. I didn't stand in her shop and leaving the shop through my peripheral vision I saw her look at me.

She's 22 now and I'm 18. There's still 4 years between us, everything that happened is 10 months ago. I met her well over a year ago for the first time. I still feel the exact same way about her as I did before. Everyone here had been telling me to move on, and that she doesn't care and I'm only going to come across as a creepy-ass-stalker. It was depressing me and I wasn't able to move on and then Monday turned everything around, if she didn't care would she of made eye contact? Would she of said "hi Joey"? The coldness on Wednsday scared me.

Look guys I just want your opinion on this, does it sound like she cares? Is there any hope for me? What approach do I take?

I won't see her till at least Wednesday, when my exams start.

ES

EDIT: I'd better explain how I feel. Im upset, im hurt and im still kind of cross with her. When I see her I step into this mode of not caring, which I do when I care about something, and I hold an emotionless expression and when I talk its cold...just words, nothing else. I was cold to her. Ive ignored her when I was in the shop - I dont want to appear desperate to her. So maybe she thinks I'm cross with her, maybe she thinks I dont care? But the awkwardness on both times we talked was tough and I dont know how she feels...

Post edited at 7:06 am on May 30, 2008 by ElephantStone

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Punctured bicycle on a hillside, desolate,
Could nature make a man of me yet?

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But you can't just change the way you feel about someone, can you? You feel that way whether you like it or not...

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well, it basically hits the nail on the head. You can't help how you feel, you're feeling this regardless of whether or not you want to and it sounds like you've accepted that you just feel this way, not even knowing why. I absolutely promise you - it's ok to not fully understand why you're so attracted to her. You just are, and the important thing is that you accept that, and then make a decision regarding what you want to do with it, yeah?

There are a couple of things I want to pick up on before I say anything else. Firstly, I honestly don't think it's doing you any good, at all, to be going back and analyzing every past event. I know that's hard for you, and I know it's maybe something you automatically do, but it is not helping you. I think the sooner you actually accept this and try stopping yourself from doing that, well, the easier things will be for you personally. You're putting yourself through hell, you really are. Needlessly, too. You can go through all these past events in excruciating detail, but it's not going to change them and it's not going to help you. All you can do now is pick yourself up and learn from these events, and with that, decide where you want to go in the future. I mean, maybe she did follow you down to that club that night, or maybe she didn't. Maybe she deliberately told Frankie to alert her when you were in the shop, maybe she didn't. The simple fact of it is that you don't, and probably won't, know the answer and there's no changing it. All you can do is move on from it, learn to forget about it, and deal with the situations that present themselves to you in the here and now.

You're going round and round asking yourself questions - questions you're never going to get the answers to, so why continue doing it? Again, I know it's not easy, but it's not helping you. It's making you feel worse, if anything. You don't want that, right? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if she saw you forget your ID, if she saw you get kicked out the club... anything like that. It simply doesn't matter anymore because those things aren't happening now, and in regards to Catherine, all you should be doing is focusing on the here and now and focusing on where you want to go with her.

How do these memories make you feel? Ashamed, angry, embarrassed, frustrated? See, my logic is that the longer you cling on to these memories - analysing them and questioning them - the longer you'll feel all of those shitty feelings.

It doesn't matter if she sounded cold when she spoke to you, the fact is, she spoke to you. It doesn't matter if she's just looking at you - it only matters if you DO something with it, if you see what I mean? Reading into things too deeply can actually be so very, very harmful for you, lovely. Honestly. You were ecstatic on Monday, but on Wednesday you were frightened because of how cold it all felt. I don't think it's healthy for you to be letting her actions dictate your feelings.

You know what else I honestly think, too? She's probably quite confused! I mean, there was no argument between you or anything like that - a year ago, you were both on quite good terms and then suddenly, somehow, things got weird and bad and things changed. I don't think you're really clear on the reasons for that, and I bet she's not either. There's also a huge amount that's happened in the last ten months. Things HAVE been weird and awkward between you both, and it's something you're both very, very aware of. If you two start properly being friendly again, that's probably something that'll have to be recognised and perhaps spoken about at some point.

I don't know if she likes you, and I don't know if there's hope. I do think she'd start chatting to you again and I do think you could get friendly again. That's what I think you should be focusing on, more than anything, and see if that takes you anywhere further in a romantic sense. Focus on being friendly, saying hello regularly, smiling at her, asking her how she's doing. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't do these things. You're not going to know how she feels until you become friends with her again, y'see? I really, really do understand that you're feeling sad and upset and hurt, frustrated and a little angry with her, but you HAVE to start getting on with your life one way or the other. You're kind of caught in limbo at the moment, not moving on with your life and not going for it with her. You're just caught in the middle. I think it's so important, and about time, you made a decision either way. And whatever you decide, you must really push yourself through the actions - whether  they be smiling at her at the checkout, asking how she's doing or simply making that decision to cut her out of your life. It's got to be one or the other, and you've got to decide.

You know where I am.
x

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i think you're the same as me, we see things they'll never see