[M24] Gal keeps staring at me after rejecting me?
Hey I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I asked someone I was interested in out and she had rejected me. Afterward I tried to talk to her but she seemed really uncomfortable with me, so I tried avoiding her instead. I want to understand why she acted she did and why she is so upset with me. I don't want to hurt the people I care about again.
To add some context we had met 2 years ago at a training thing for work. I thought she was cute and fun to be around but I never really tried to get to know her since I thought we would never meet again. Then she ended up working at the same branch as me and telling me she got married, so I was a little bummed out but I thought we could be friends because she seemed pretty cool.
Then she messed up, she told me "I wish I had never gotten married" at the moment I didn't know but I think that was the moment of my downfall.
We went through the same branch orientation and we did a bunch of work stuff together but eventually time to get assigned to our offices and lo and behold she is in the office next to mine. Naturally we started talking to each other, doing volunteer stuff together, going to the gym together and it was nice. Though she didn't stop occasionally joking about getting a divorce.
Then the 2nd time she fumbled, she kept telling me how much she appreciated me, seemed to genuinely enjoy spending time with me, and go out of her way to help me. I am just a guy, you know, if you are too nice to me I'm gonna start catching feelings. I spend a lot of time alone and I dream of better days.
At some point I realized I started catching feelings for her but I am no homewrecker. My first response was to treat her more coldly and be more distant. Spend less time with her and such. But I felt that the more I tried to push her away, the harder she tried to keep me in her life.
It was easy for me to deny my feelings because I could always say to myself "She's married, she's not interested in you." I even met the guy and they seemed to be pretty into each other at least in public but then the 3rd issue came up. They got divorced, at the time I had felt sad because my friend was hurt but a part of me was happy because she would now be single. At the time I had deluded myself that she was interested in me too, all my friends and family were feeding into that thought as well.
So about 2-3 months after they broke up, I asked her out. (She had been with this person for 2-3 years.) I originally was planning to ask her out later but the people around kept telling me to do it and I found that the words she said and her actions had a great effect on my emotions and I figured I should just ask her to get it done with. I probably should've had more tact but when I asked her if we could talk in private about something she joked about us having the same gym crush and gave me the most beautiful smile I have ever seen. I... I thought she already knew, maybe she was just happy that I was relying on her, I don't really know.
Then the day I was going to ask her out it seemed that she didn't know and I lost my conviction but she seemed to notice that something was off about me, so I decided to just ask her.
I was pretty awkward, I'm usually not like that when I ask someone out but she listened and she told me "I'm sorry I just got out of a relationship, I got alot of healing to do and it wouldn't be fair for me or for you if we got into a relationship."
After that I let her be for a week and when I went to greet her at work she said "I'm sorry" and stormed off. I didn't think that it was a big deal to ask her out, I have been asked out a couple of times and when I rejected those people it was awkward for a bit but then we became friends again. I probably should've been a better friend and have been there for her while she was going through this jazz but I didn't wanna keep torturing and lying to myself. About a week after that I sent her an essay on why I did what I did and she in turn sent me an essay on she felt about things and how we probably couldn't be friends again for a long time.
Then I left her alone until I noticed some odd things, whenever she was in the same area as me, she would be staring at me with either a really happy or really sad expression, the same kind old people make when they want to be spoken too. So about a month after I asked her out, I sent a text saying "I think you want me to leave you alone but I keep catching you staring at me and it makes me confused. If u want to talk again, just let me know." She read it pretty quick but never responded, so I assumed she wanted nothing to do with me.
But the staring never really stopped, I tried to ignore it but the most recent instant really ticked me off. I was driving home and listening to music when suddenly I felt an intense stare, and it was her staring at me through the rearview mirror. I had been training myself to look away and leave the room whenever I saw her. So when I saw her, I naturally looked away from her. Then I remembered I was driving and looked back and stopped myself from rear-ending her car. This bothered me so much that I asked her to quit staring at me. I did it via text and she still seemed rather angry with me.
I just wanna understand what I did wrong and could've done better. Could you help me, strangers on the internet?