Inadvertently Triggered a Platonic Female Friend

[tamajane]

Originally Posted by SnazzyB

"She has always been a little bit distant."

It seems like she has let you know from day one that she's not interested in you. Point blank, period. Friendships are a 2-way street and she's telling you she's a dead end

This is what I think too.

[MrSykes]

Originally Posted by usayit

The difference is that expectations were set with this female friend AND more importantly there is no history between the both of you. It is admirable you had made it abundantly clear to this woman that you were not interested in anything beyond friendship.

You have to tailor your communications to the audience and in this case... the individual.

Similarly (posted earlier), I have a former girlfriend and we are pretty flirty with each other in texts. She still calls me "love" and I still call her "babe". We have long-established expectations that we both had our time together and we were better as friends. So while we are flirty with each other in communications, we know it is all in fun and jest. I would never text like that to my other female friends as they would definitely take it as I was flirting and hitting on them.

It is my experience that women tend to inject and look for underlying meaning in messages and communications while men are more literal. I have a lady friend who has a habit of saying "fine" when she really means "no'. That has caused a lot of miscommunication. So a lot of these misunderstandings are simply the result of that difference. As I mentioned in my previous post, I think you could have improved the situation by empathizing with her triggered reaction and assuring her that you meant nothing by it. By saying you won't send her a message again, it simply escalated the situation in the wrong direction. She probably thinks you are mad because of rejection when that is father from the truth.

Fair points, all around. Thank you.