chris wrote:

both?"? How do you know If somebody likes you? I don't mean simply 'likes you', but " 'likes you', likes you". You know. It's just that I don't know whether this girl, who is basically one of my best friends, likes me as a mate, or whether she likes me more than that. I'm too gutless to ask her

and emanuel wrote:

check it: i have managed to fall in love with a woman who, while in love with me, happens to be previously entangled with another fella. he happens to be overseas at the moment, but will return sooner than later. why do i get the sinking feeling that i'm an all day sucker?

then there's the story of the girl best friend who had for months been afraid to confess her massive crush but finally one night asked the boy whether he had crushes on anyone. amazingly, he replied that he had had a crush on her, and started to apologise, when the girl blurted out her feelings, too. they both put the crushes in the past tense, but it was pretty apparent that they still existed (the biggest sign being that the boy and girl always made excuses to spend time together). so the next few weeks were beautiful as the admission of their feelings brought them closer, yet the girl was more angst-ridden than ever because she had also been, and still was, "entangled with another fella" for a number of years. she didn't quite regret confessing the crush (it was the first time she had done this sort of thing, except to her list crush ;) -how is he, by the way?- and it was exhilarating) yet she would sometimes lie in bed in a state of misery, wondering why she had ever dared to ask the question. now she might be losing both of the boys, or rather running away from them because it's all too much to handle. anyway, dear chris, despite my sad (true!) story, i might advise you to create a similar situation in which you can draw out your friend's emotions before exposing your own (particularly if the signs point to a strong possibility that she does *like* you). it's a decent avenue for the gutless, except if the girl is shy or prone to masking her feelings, it might not get you anywhere. hmm. as cheesy or cliche as it may sound, belle and sebastian and looper have really helped me in this mess. i was about ready to bury myself in the snow when "up a tree" arrived in the mail. at least now i'm wandering about again, with my headphones on, and feeling ok to be alive. wheee! (but still not writing any papers for class - hi teri) --emily scratch my name on your arm with a fountain pen (this means you really love me) ... rusholme ruffians +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+