Honestly I'm losing the will to lie about this. I'm a terrible liar because I just don't do it very much. I'm in perpetual danger of being caught.

Might want to just fall back on the safe, low-percentage play of going through with the movie and trying to get her over for drinks afterward as a pregame thing. Along with a vow, of course, to take Onetax's advice and quit putting up with this **** in the future. Still very much regretting not just offering up a cancellation to begin with.

Meh, I don't know, I'll decide in the morning.

so dont lie. tell her you cant go now because you decided you didnt want to see a movie in the afternoon. or do what you just said. you know better than we do. its not like the movie then drink attempt line is horrid its just probably not gonna movie anything forward from where you are.

yes! because we want to be at a bar not a movie theater

LKJ was the only person I expected to get the joke. Grats on your googling.

how could you not laugh at my 12(b)3 motion to dismiss

or my request for rule 11 sanctions

I was too busy filing a 12f motion to strike that post because it was immaterial.

I'm kidding, I did actually appreciate the law school reference. Probably my hatred for civ pro at the moment prevailed in any case. That fiasco of an exam this past Friday is the biggest obstacle between me and a good GPA. I still might be okay though.

Some good suggestions last night. Some poor ones. Don't over think this. Nothing in your text about Friday night. Let her suggest it.
The hunting excuse is good. If you do see her Friday night you can just tell her you didn't go, weather sucked or my buddy canceled, etc.

Don't know what kind of lawyer you plan on being but my guess is Corporate Tax Law or Estate Law. 90% of lawyers have to be able to fib or outright lie. Doesn't seem to match your personality.

I seem to be able to ease my conscience by spinning like crazy instead of outright lying.

I'm guessing that this will meet with some resistance for being too wishy-washy, but to me it seems pretty good.

"Unfortunately I realized that I may have double-booked myself on Friday, and the daytime probably won't work for me as far as the movie goes."

This sentence stands alone and doesn't mention the night time. It does leave a ton of rope for her to either make the night happen though, something I feel like I need to do with this one given her personality. And, like I said, the primary value of this is seeing what read I get out of it.

The "may have" and "probably" (which I do realize are outright lies instead of spin by the way) are simply to further cover my ass when it turns out that I did nothing else that day.

Pending a possible quick exchange over how I double-booked myself, I'll probably get one of two reactions:

(1) Oh okay, too bad. Coming out to the bar that night?
(2) Oh, well I'm not set on the 4:00 show, we could do one of the later ones if those would still work.

Obviously the hope is #2. If I get #1, I'll give some kind of non-committal answer that leans toward no under the guise that I'm already planning to party hard on Thursday night.

Anyway, obviously I'm committing way too much analysis to this, but I think it's what I'm going to go with.

I sent the message from my last post. She responds,

"that's okay. we can go see a movie when we get back from break instead, since we'll be back early without anything in particular to do."

Yeah, this thing's done.

That is what I figured. She viewed going to the movie as a friend activity so it was no big deal you had to cancel.

Now let's see what her next text will be. You have to wait for her, do not under any circumstances text her.

Yeah don't worry, I have no plans to. This thing is obviously a waste of time.

I do certainly appreciate your help though, by the way.

No problem.

Good chance you will hear from her later this week. Have a plan.

In all honesty, does it matter how I respond to her? Should I not be chalking this up as a total loss and moving on?

Seems to me like I'm clearly in friend zone with almost no wiggle room to get out of it. Only chance I see her suddenly seeing me differently is if she starts seeing me go out with other girls and gets jealous. Keeping an eye toward other girls is likely the best plan even if it won't get her jealous; if it changes things with her and I'm still interested when it does, great. If I meet someone I like better, great.

But while we're both entirely unattached, I don't see any reason to believe I can change the situation.

You are on the right page but remember woman aren't logical. I have reread your posts and you don't discuss her relationship background at all.

She may see you as BF material and for her this is the normal dance to that stage. She may not have any interest in you as BF and just wants to be best pals. Tough to figure it out.

I would recommend to keep redirecting her away from the friend zone. I would always be nice and non-confrontational. Definitely keep looking.

I don't think you are done with her unless you meanly blow her off.

I don't really know her relationship history. She vaguely mentioned an ex-boyfriend one time just to hint at how annoying it is when people are set in their ways and won't try anything new (this was in trying to get me to eat at the nearby Indian restaurant for the first time). That is the extent of my knowledge. She's a Christian girl and seems pretty much on the traditional side, same as me; that might have been worth mentioning earlier in the thread since that makes for a different dynamic than others in this thread generally deal with, but I always fear that the mere mention of religion will cause a thread derail.

I'm going to honestly guess, though, that the number of past boyfriends is limited with this one.

And of course "keep looking" is a default when I'm single, even if I have a specific girl I'm interested in at the time. No reason to limit yourself to one option before you have to.

If she texts me later in the week, it'll be to see if I'm going to the bar. I can't see another reason she would. I guess my "plan" is to go if I feel like going out and drinking more or to not go if the previous night has left booze to be very unappealing to me. I'm not going to jump at the chance to go out on Friday just because she's there.

Anyway, I won't meanly blow her off. I don't really have that in me unless a person really wrongs me and provokes it.

I forgot about the Christian thing. That changes things a little, but not a lot.

Forgive me for using this word, but how prude do you think she is? This could be important.

She could definitely be on the prudish side, I've never seen evidence to the contrary and I honestly doubt she's particularly experienced. That's just a gut feeling though.

Yeah, I dunno. Maybe she's skittish about getting in a 1-on-1 situation with you. Most people assume that an attractive girl by the time she's 24 or so HAS to be somewhat experienced. **** even I assumed this up until like 3 months ago. I've seen 2 instances since then which have absolutely disproved this. I'm talking girls who were in multiple, long-term relationships too. I dunno how that happens, and I'm 99 % sure they weren't lying (either that or they are superb actors).

Rate my line:

Girl has been showing interest for a couple weeks... fellow law student. Invites me to study with her (not as a group, but just in the same location) a few days ago. I decline, show up to the other lib the next day and she flags me down and sadfaces me about not studying with her or whatever. It's not important.

She texts me yesterday "wanna get food with me?" (i found the wording of the text interesting)
i reply 2 hours later (didnt see her text) "haha just got your text i assume you already ate"
she replies "yeah im eating now damn"
i reply "that's ok i can take a rain check. i dont have any food at my house anyways."

no reply but with this girl that's pretty standard. she falls off a cliff replying to texts sometimes and other times she serial texts me like 3 times (without me responding) in a 10 minute span.

my play was gunna be to text her later today at 4ish and say "hey im gunna get something to eat at 6ish before i head over to study. you in?"

waiting or pulling stall games isn't an option as we go away for 3-4 weeks on friday, so i'd like to explore something (albeit briefly) before i leave. plus ive done enough distance push/pull stall games with this girl already (and not intentionally tbh. ive just been so distracted with finals and the other chick i was dealing with)

I guess I don't know what you're referring to with regards to being skittish about getting in a 1-on-1 situation with me. We've been in quite a few of those. Several in my apartment, once to go to the bar and watch a football game together, over coffee the other night, etc. And the movie thing was canceled by me, not by her. She just created the cancellation by putting me on the back burner.

I'm not really seeing how this latest development isn't game over. Her last communication essentially says that she's happy to hang out with me if there isn't anything else to do. "Yeah, let's do it in a few weeks when clearly there will be nothing better available."

Yeah it definitely seems like you've done enough ignoring her, even under the TUTS theorem. I can't see what harm it would be to feel the situation out here; if you're interested, consecutively ignoring her several times then not seeing her for 3-4 weeks might kill whatever interest she seems to have.

sucks that she answered like that, but imo the part "when we have no particular other thing to do" is a good line for you. to me that is her hinting at the fact that she wants to be with you alone.

at any rate i would probably just do one of two things:

1. just treat her like a friend. like a guy friend. dont try to bend over backwards for her in any way. dont do activities with her that you wouldnt do if she wasnt going. just be honest if she asks you something, like "hey you want to get coffee" "no i dont feel like it". etc.

2. continue to try to isolate her, but make much more advances on other girls to broaden your scope. this will hopefully make her jealous, and also allow you to get with someone else or something.

You're good here.

haha yeah i know i just felt like i should post something on the thread about my life for a change lol