AWKWARD ZOMBIE

So I observed (directly (inadvertently)) a phenomenon I figured I'd share with you guys.

Everyone knows about relationship chicken at its various stages, between starting off and the breakup (maybe not everyone, this is just the introductory sentence), but then there's the hesitation everyone feels when starting off a relationship. As it turns out, if you or the other person in question are hesitating in any aspect of the relationship, and using the fact that you're escaping a potentially aversive situation as reinforcement for that hesitation, you may be accidentally sending a message that you don't like the other person.

It's like this:

Your thought process:
"I don't want to start any conversations with them and be a bother..."
Their thought process:
"They never reciprocate any conversation material, maybe they don't like talking to me..."

Your thought process:
"I can't make any adamant decisions when making plans, otherwise I'll seem picky and controlling..."
Their thought process:
"They never have input when making plans, do they really want to do anything at all?"

What it means is if you're unsure about an ambiguous situation, throw yourself into it, that way if it falls apart, it's their hangup and not some issue with miscommunication.

that "you can be the prettiest peach in the world but there'll still be somebody that doesn't like peaches" quote by Bacon von teese is unfortunately v true
but hey free drinks

Turns out I must be pretty good looking or have a great personality or something. I know of 3 better than average looking girls that want to date me. Thing is, I don't really like any of them beyond just being friends and one of my friends keeps giving me hell over it saying "You can't do better than them, just go for it man." Which is pretty annoying. He's the type that dates just to get into people's pants though, so I guess I shouldn't expect any different from him.

I'm still kinda feeling down about my breakup like a month or two ago, which is stupid because we only dated for like a month and a half. She was my first girlfriend though, and the first person that actually gave me much attention, so it just hurt me I guess when we split. Oh well, I'm definitely feeling a lot better than I did at first, now I just need to find someone else that I like and see if I can't get them to like me.

You should swear off women and join a monastery, it is the one true path.

Oh man, dude, if you go that route, you should get into plainchant and organum and sing glorious Gregorian and Aquetanian pieces yesssss

Sounds like fun. How do I get started?

Well, for starters, you gotta cut off your manhood.

Yay, the one girl I thought it would be possible with just asked me to promise to always be a True Friend. And that include not trying anything with her, apparently. Yaaaaaaaay.
Good thing she's a very good friend, it means I get to be her friend too and that's already something I like. I'd just like to find a girl who reciprocates once in a while.

"You're not allowed to want more out of the relationship"?

That sounds...like a shitty thing to say to anyone regarding any sort of social interaction. Unless it's all about sex for her, which could be debated as being worse...

Like...she explicitly told you this distinction?

EDIT: It just occurred to me that your comment could contain a touch of sarcasm and that the interaction went more like "I will never like you as more than a friend."

No sarcasm here. She litteraly told me "Promise we'll always be friends". I asked her what I had to avoid doing to stay a true friend and she told me a number of things like "avoiding me", "being dishonest with me" and "trying anything indecent with me".

"avoiding me"

wat

Well, I'm cutting all my hair off as part of my Halloween costume this year, so I've got that covered. I'll be working at a monastery in no time.

Maybe she's just not into sex? Like she's asexual. Or demi sexual. Point is being friends with a girl is good too.

EDIT: I'm actually gonna elaborate on this.
Sometimes a girl or boy just really wants to be good friends. They don't want romance/sex/crushes to get in the way of what could be a beautiful friendship. They don't view exclusive relationships as being 'more' than friendship. And when a friend pulls away from them because they got 'friend-zoned' that has just told them that their friend viewed them more as an object of desire than as friend.

God I can empathize with that.

I don't really feel setting ground rules is the best way to communicate the desire to just be friends, it makes things awkward and make the other person worry a bunch about offending the other person, or doing something out of line. A simple "I don't want to date" should be enough, and anything more than that just shows distrust or paranoia, in my completely honest opinion.

The way she phrased that though ("promise we'll always be true friends") makes me wonder though if something happened recently involving another friend of hers, you might want to ask if she's ok if that comes up again.