Girlfriend says she needs to find herself and other things
Me and my girlfriend were dating for 3 months. We took things slow (never did more then kiss or hold hands and she said she is fine with the pace that we are moving at) we never had any arguments, were really happy, hung out a lot and nothing seemed to go wrong.
Well before last year I had zero experience with girls, I pretty much never even talked to a girl. Then one day in orcestra class this girl who I didn't know thought I was staring at her but I was actually just tired. She thought I was good looking though and one day at her friends house her friend convinced her to friend request me on Facebook. So I decided that I'll eccept it because she was cute. Every once in awhile she would send me a rondom message asking me a random question to start up a conversation. Eventually after talking for awhile in orcestra and online she invited me to play laser tag with her and her friends and let me take one of my friends along with them. That day I actually said a total of two words to her and felt like and that I ruined all of my chances with her. But that night she called and said that she feels bad that we didn't get to talk and that we should hang out one day to get to know each other better just the two of us. We started hanging out a lot and we eventually started dating.
When we were dating I let her know that I'm new at this and might go a little slow and she said that she was perfectly fine with that. I ended up going slower then expected though like I didn't hold her had till almost a month into the relationship. I constantly reminded her it was me holding myself back and the fact that I don't know what I'm doing that is holding me back and not her, she allways said she was fine with this and understands and wants me to take as much time as possible and that whenever I want to do something that I should just try it and shell let me know if I'm taking things too fast. Well even with her saying that it took me a day before out three month anniversary to kiss her.
Then that night online I was talking to her and things were awkward so I asked her if what I did today made things like a little awkward and she said no it's not what I did it's just that she is unsure if she wants to think of me as a boyfriend or a best friend. I asked her if she needed time to think about it and she said that she thinks she might. I told her that I understand perfectly and that she can take as much time as she wants. She said that she just needs time to find herself and that she needs to find out where she wants to be in life and if at this young of an age wants to be in a relationship as strong as ours because she said that she is afraid she may love me and is unsure if that's what she wants at this age. She told me she may get back together with me once she is less confused about everything but she wants me to move on if I find anyone and I told her the same. I also told her I will never pressure her back into a relationship with me and that I'm leaving it up to her to ask me back out if she wants too because I don't want to ask her out because I want to be positive she feels she is ready to get back into a relationship. I also told her that I value our friendship greatly and would rather just be friends and be friends forever then to jump back into a relationship again and ruin something between us. I also told her that I still like her a lot and I will never deni that fact and if she ever asks me I will tell her the 100% truth. I also had her promise that if their ever is no hope of us being more then best friends that she should tell me and she agreed with that but also said that that probably won't be for a long time.
I truly meant every word of what I told her and we still continue to be friends and hang out and talk a lot. There are still things that are bothering me that I wounder. We never had any arguments or anything during our relationship and I couldn't have pictured our relationship lasting less then a year. Also after kissing her I realized that I make too big of a deal out of things so I was considering that day to be sort of like a new era in our relationship and I was going to start doing all of those things that I wanted to do that I've sat there and thought hmm maybe I should do this and just never was able to get myself to do it. So when she broke up with me I was in utter shock because it was actually a ending but before that I was looking at it as a new beginning. Also I'm unsure if it's just silly thoughts in my head but at times she truly does seem like my best friend but at other times I get a vibe that she hates me or just doesn't want to talk to me. I don't get that vibe often but when I get it it seems to stand out a lot and stick in my brain.
I am looking at other girls and talking to other girls because I can't depend on the possibility of us going back out and I need to be able to move on if that never becomes reality. A lot of people tell me that I should just try to go with a system of abstinence and try to avoid her and it will leave her with thoughts racing through her head about me, which I don't doubt the fact that that is a useful system because I sure know that that system works perfectly on me, but it's also kind of risky and I look at her as a best friend also so I don't really want to separate myself from her.
I have devised a system of talking to as many girls as possible too see what is out their. Also I have noticed that lately she seems to be somewhat talking to me like more then usual like it seems like she's talking to me as much as we did back when we were dating. But we also haven't hung out in person in about 2-3 weeks so this is only judging of online experiences. But also she has been trying really hard to find a time where we can both hang out, I do not think that this is because she is interested in dating again I just think it's that she just wants to hang out and talk to me moree (which I'm happy about because I was kind of dooing a half abstinince system). Well until we are both able to find a space in our schedules where we are able to hang out I have been talking about fun times we had when we were dating just to bring back happy memories and I still talk to her about normal things and joke around with her but I've been brining up a lot of old things lately. Once we do hang out I want to take her some place really fun and just have a great time. I also want to find a way to kind of hint at the fact that I still like her without just flat out telling her.
Now you may be confused about what exactly my questions are so I'll write them here:
1. Do you think that their could be a different reason for why she broke up with me? Because I want to believe in what she told me but my mind doesn't work like that and keeps giving me negative thoughts.
2. What are ways that I can hint to her that I like her and if I was to let her know that I like her and she just looks at me as a friend would that make things awkward between us? (I know that the second part to that question depends on the people but I'm woundering what is the higher chance)
3. Do you think the strategie I devised would help in any way?
4. Any other advise that you would like to give
{I know that I should just forget about dating her and move on but that's what I'm trying to do as I do this I figure that if I am talking to her and hanging out with her anyway I might as well try some things and see if they work out, I could do a lot of better plans but if they don't work out they could ruin our friendship so I'm careful in what I do because I truly do value our friendship also I'm unsure if this may help you in any way but we broke up like probably 2.5 months ago}
*any help would be greatly appreciated and also I'm not the best typer/ speller in the world so I appologize for any trouble you may have reading this and I also appologize for the lengthyness and possible too much detail I may have added to the story