Facebook conversation

[bluestealth]

Hello, I wanted to share a Facebook conversation (attached images) I started with a girl who used to go to my church. We've never met in person but noticed each other in church. She went off to a Bible college about 2 hours away so I never see her around anymore, which is why I sent a FB message (only way to communicate). I'm pretty sure she's single and we have several mutual friends.

Please note the dates of each message in order to have the right perspective. After my initial intro she read my message within 20 mins but actually took 7 days to respond. Her response was quite positive. After I replied it showed the message as "seen" within about 20 mins but she never replied. About 4 days later I sent her the huge smiley face (it was actually an accident) and a funny animal website as part of the same message. This was marked as "seen" within the day but no response. About 6 days later I just basically said Hi, but this was never marked as seen and I don't think she's even been on FB since. A few days later I sent a friend request, which is still sitting there since I don't think she's been on.

Since she doesn't appear to be that active on FB it's been difficult to carry on a conversation in a reasonable amount of time. Currently I've asked a mutual friend to contact her for me via email or phone to gauge her interest and to help move things along.

Any opinions on this?

 

[Wookiee]

In all honesty, I think you may have come on a little too strongly at the end of the Christmas message ("You seem like a very special person and I have much more that I'd love to share with you."), which could possibly be why she didn't respond.

If she's interested in getting to know you, she will likely reply to your messages when she gets a moment. But it's very possible she might feel you're coming on a little too strongly and didn't know how to respond.

 

[bluestealth]

I think I did come on a little strong there but hopefully not enough to completely scare her off. I was trying too hard to compliment her and should have reworded it. Sometimes you can see quite a bit about someone on FB and I think that inspired my wording. I think I did at least make a good initial impression and she seemed to show at least a little interest in the beginning with her response.

I honestly can't tell that she's even been on FB since around Jan 6th. That's why I thought it might be effective at this point to have a trusted mutual friend who knows her fairly well send her an email. He'd put in a good word for me and let her know that I'm interested in getting to know her better so we could be friends and then possibly something more.

 

[Wookiee]

Just to throw in my own story: I'd met a girl at a camp that I was mildly interested in (I think because I was on the rebound because my ex-girlfriend had broken up with me a month before), so I tried e-mailing her. And she replied once or twice, then because I wanted to find out more about her, I threw her a heap of questions - and very likely strong compliments (she is a VERY good singer) - and never ever got a response.

I did see her at the next camp six months later, and it wasn't awkward; we talked about things we'd been up to, genuinely interested in each other's lives to that degree. I honestly think I did put her off, but we do at least have a friendship somewhere between friends and acquaintance.

I think an important part of building a friendship with someone of the opposite sex (interested or not) is try to treat them like a sister (in Christ, hey!). Before you say something to her, think about whether or not you could say it to your sister without sounding stupid or her giving you a weird look.

I honestly can't tell that she's even been on FB since around Jan 6th. That's why I thought it might be effective at this point to have a trusted mutual friend who knows her fairly well send her an email. He'd put in a good word for me and let her know that I'm interested in getting to know her better so we could be friends and then possibly something more.

I think you have to be rather careful about the "and then possibly something more part", especially letting her know about it.

I mean, think of it from her perspective:
"Oh hey, this guy's sort of cool... and now I'm uncomfortable because I barely know him and he's trying to hit on me."

Sure, you're genuinely interested in being her friend. But think about how off putting it is for her that you have this crush on her, knowing you're pretty keen on asking her out at some stage already, and this is the first conversation you've ever ever had with her.

There's definitely nothing wrong with wanting to be her friend, but have you even prayed about your relationship even going as far as that at this stage?

For the record, I'm definitely not saying your situation is impossible for a relationship: I'd been talking to my girlfriend for about four months on Facebook and we'd never met (she added me through mutual friends), and we've been together 10 months now.

Part of what worked for me, is that I'd completely pushed aside any additional feelings I had for her (part of it being she lives 2 hours away and I didn't see anything coming out of it) and just talked about the things we both found interesting, joked around, etc.

If God's involved, and you take things easy, you'll at least have a decent friendship with her.

 

[bluestealth]

Thanks for all the input. I've been praying about this and I'm still being led to her. At this point I'm just trying to have a friendly conversation with her, but there's something wrong with her FB account. It's either been hacked, deactivated, or FB has technical issues. Something similar happened a couple of weeks ago too. I haven't been blocked or anything because one of her friends can't see her page either.

I know this friend of her's very well and he's willing to help out. He didn't have any of her contact info outside of FB, so he messaged her brother who he knows very well. He basically just asked him what she was up to, that I was interested in getting to know her better, and what his thoughts were.