And by “it” I mean:
I feel like I’ve been pretty good about not doing things in order to be noticed and just not posting about it as it’s been a couple of months now. Short story short, I found out I was blocked on a new Instagram of hers. Of course, I don’t exactly know why I’d be blocked there and not elsewhere, but, regardless, I guess that was a sign to me that this person was intent on keeping me at a distance in certain ways without wanting me to know. As you can imagine, and as has been the pattern, this felt bad lol. Instead of posting about it again, though, I decided to unfollow on everything and actually get even more distance.
Personally, the blocking thing is enough for me to feel like I don’t really know how to interact with this person without feeling like I’m overstepping in some way and not actually knowing. And, still, there have been signs (assuming this is her) that she could be reading this substack, especially when I write about attraction or her specifically (and probably looking at my likes, too).
And I think it’s possible that I just make her kind of nervous, especially when I write stuff like the above or post my yearnings. It’s possible she’s liked me the whole time (just not “like that” but also possibly “like that”) and that’s the reason for the ambivalence. It’s even more possible it’s some combination of just not being able to know enough about another person online to land firmly on what feels like a comfortable amount of distance/association, particularly someone that says the things that I say.
Still, there are clear boundaries in place with respect to how we can interact and it seems to me that, if it’s my openness about how I’m actually feeling that causes someone’s nervousness to the point where they can’t respond, it’s likely we’re not even compatible as friends or anything else. I’d rather people be comfortable, but, in this case, it seems that would require me to be way less direct, which is in the opposite direction of where I would like to move.
Anyway, after a short while, I went back to viewing her posts but not in a way where they could show up on my feeds without my choosing to see them at that moment and would still like her posts but not in a way where I would leave a notification and that’s where I’ve been pretty much.
Honestly, if a friend told me all of this, I would tell them the reasonable thing to do would be to get as much distance from it as possible to get over it. But, also honestly, I feel like I don’t really want to get over her because it’s still quite obvious to me that I’m smitten with her (yes, still lol).
At this point, I don’t feel comfortable initiating any sort of contact because the last few times I did there was no response and it feels too pushy and like I’m intentionally ignoring what are typically implied signals of disinterest or discomfort on top of being blocked on one account. And, though I might come off more “over it” at times what I think I really want right now is to just ask how she feels instead of trying to guess and for her to be able to respond in a way that doesn’t have to be public and is legitimately the most comfortable for her.
Anyway, I’m almost certain that when something’s right (and that could be a passing connection, a friendship, a relationship, etc.) that it’s actually just way easier than this lol. But, when I get fixated on someone, especially romantically, it becomes easy to forget that.