Hi guys, I'm just after some advice, as I think I know what to do already. I'm one of these people however, that if someone comes to me asking for advice on this type of thing I'm very logical and level-headed, yet as soon as I find myself in the same situation, I fall to pieces!

Anyway, the situation. I've been friends with this girl for around 2 years, having met her at work, and during that time we've spent a fair amount of time together just as friends, as up until a month or so ago she was in a long-term relationship with her ex-boyfriend. If I'm honest, I always did have quite strong feelings for her throughout this time, but I'm not one to condone cheating or anything stupid like that, so I did the honourable thing, and just stayed friends. There were times that despite her being with her boyfriend things got a little "awkward", and felt as if there was something else between us, but because of the situation, I chose not to act on them, and nothing ever happened.

We'd had a weekend away organised for quite some time in advance (this happened 2 weeks ago now, but we'd been talking about it for months, even while she was still with her previous boyfriend) where the 2 of us, and a few other friends were going away for the weekend. Due to other things coming up, other people ended up pulling out, and it ended up with just the 2 of us going. Long story short, we ended up getting together, and I was really pleased. I remember saying to her at the time words to the effect of "you wouldn't believe how long I've wanted this to happen!", and then she replied with pretty much the same thing to me, which really made my day.

We enjoyed the weekend together all in all, and then we went back to work as per usual on the Monday, having made plans to do something together one of the evenigns later in the week. She mentioned to me over the course of the weekend that she wasn't looking for a relationship at the moment, and I completely understood this, what with her having only recently come out of a long term relationship (a number of years) in which she lived with/bought cars with her boyfriend etc. They're now split up completely (as far as I know), they've moved out into separate places, and have deivided up possesions and all that stuff, so to the best of my knowledge that's over.

So, Thursday arrives, and I give her a call to arrange what we're doing that evening, and I pick her up, we go for a really nice meal, lots of laughs (she's very affectionate, lots of reaching over the table to hold hands/kiss and soppy things like that :P). One of the things we laughed about is how we both thought the other party would wake up on Monday morning thinking "oh god, what have I done, that was a mistake!", but neither of us did. We then went for a movie, which was pretty standard couple-going-to-themovies kind of thing, cuddling up to each other and kissing and all that soppy stuff again :P

I dropped her off at home afterwards, having had another really nice evening, and that was that. She texted me the following day to say she really enjoyed herself, and that it was good to see me etc, and that she would see me again soon.

Over the weekend she was away (visiting her parents), and I dropped her a message on the Saturday night just saying how I was getting on (I'm currently looking to move house, so had spent the whole day househunting!), to which I received no reply, but thought nothing of it, as it wasn't the kind of message that really needed one, if you see what I mean. On the Sunday, I thought I'd give her a call to see when she was getting back, and see if she wanted to do anything that evening, she didn't answer, which I pretty much put down to her driving or something, and again didn't think much of it. No callback, but again, the message I left was words to the effect of "hope you had a nice weekend, give me a call if you fancy doing soemthing this week" rather than "let's meet up tonight!!".

And that's pretty much the whole thing, and I know, it doesn't even sound as if there's a problem. But there is... me! In the past my experience with the whole "dating" thing has been pretty limited, in that I don't tend to do much of it! I generally hook up with people that I've known for a short while at least beforehand, and it's pretty much one incident that starts a relationship from the outset, rather than a long-term dating and "get to know them better" thing before making it anything more serious.

I have an awful tendency to overthink things, and also to jump in head-first at the first opportunity, and would hate to think that by doing so I would scare her off given her current situation. My last relationship ended because the girl I was seeing was persistently demanding my time, much more so than I wanted to spend with her, so I know what kind of effect that kind of attention can have on people. The problem is that I *really* like her, and having been in this unrequited situation for so long, and suddenly have the whole thing stepped up a gear has kind of thrown me off balance, and I don't know what to do.

All I want to do is spend time with her, but obviously I don't want to barrage her with phone calls or anything like that, because I know that will just act as a deterrent, but at the same time I can't stop thinking about it! She's pretty bad at responding to phone calls/messages at the best of times (we even joke about it on a regular basis), yet since the situation between us has changed, even knowing this for a fact, I find myself constantly overthinking "why isn't she calling me back?" literally no less than a day after I've left her a message.

I have no current plans to try and make something serious out of what we have, but I obviously still want to keep seeing her, you never know what may happen somewhere down the line. But, how often is "too often" to be calling/messaging her? Should I be worried that she isn't answering my calls? SHould I even be calling her at all? Do I leave it to her to contact me now (knowing how bad she has always been at this in the past, even when we were just friends)? If so, how long do I wait before thinking something is wrong?

I know these questions are very silly, but like I said, I've never really been through the whole "dating" thing, which I guess is the closest thing to what we have going on at the moment. It's always been a clear cut "single" or "in a relationship" for me, so this is all a bit... strange. The fact that she has only recently come out of another relationship just makes things even more complicated.

Apologies for writing practically a whole esay to describe such a simple problem, if anything I think it has helped me calm down a little bit just by typing all of this! But anyway, any advice would be great guys, thanks in advance :)

Oh, and one other thing that's probably worth a mention is that I'm probably going to be moving in the next couple of weeks. It's not miles away (about 30 minutes or so by car), and we both drive, but I'm kind of worried that it may have an adverse effect on my chances of making anything work!

Everything affects the relationship, including that move. Don't think it won't. The only one who can say HOW it will affect it is you two.

Meanwhile, there really isn't a "you two" right now at all. I could speech for quite awhile on this topic and still not say much more than you've already said. I think you just needed to vent a little, eh?

You know there's no big deal here. If you had REALLY waited a long time for this to happen, did what happen REALLY represent what you wanted at the time? It sounds like what happened was a quick hookup that didn't go anywhere after that. That's what you'd been waiting for for so long? I don't think so.

Learn that lesson, OK? Quick hookups lead to quick endings as well.

I would make a GRAND TOTAL of 4 attempts to contact her and stop. No stress, no pain, no fretting the loss that isn't really happening, just get on with it. Life is ahead of you.

If she doesn't contact you after 4 non-clingy attempts, there's not much here to fret anyway, eh? Start to play that field dating several girls to distract yourself and perhaps stumble onto a great one you didn't have to "wait so long for".

You're totally right about venting, as I said, I felt loads better after simply typing that drawn-out post!

You're also right that what I wanted wasn't strictly speaking to hookup completely out of the blue like that, although at the time it seemed perfect. I'm just going to stick it out. Will give it a few days and drop her a line, and see what happens.

End of the day, nothing ventured nothing gained I guess. I just need to chill out a bit, and try not to think about it quite as much!

Definitely chill out.

Definitely DON'T try not to think about it. If you try to not think about it, you are technically already thinking about it. Don't control your thoughts much at all. But DO give yourself every opportunity to be distracted by mind-focusing activities, like talking out loud to other people...

Yeah, that part isn't too much of a problem, my job has me doing that pretty much all day. That's the easy bit ;)

I really think you need to keep a healthy balance in your life, to serve to slow you down and not make her your whole world at this time.

The thing we screw up at the beginning is putting too much thoughts into one action when all you should be doing at this stage of the dating is HAVING FUN GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER BETTER, and leave the serious stuff and what ifs alone. Be happy and share it with her, but don't do it at the expense of your daily activities, and the other people in your life.

Limit your calls, texts, so she has time to call you, even if it means days or a week. What's the freakin' hurry to crash, and burn, because you complicate what should be fun?