Hello. This is a very long and confusing story, but I'll do my best to recap everything that's happened in the last 3-4 months of interacting with this woman. To summarize, I (25M) was pursued by a woman (23F) who is currently in a relationship and want clarity on what happened / is happening because it's been very confusing. I am interested in this woman and want to know if its something that I should be invested in, or if I should move on. I'm also relatively inexperienced with relationships and want feedback on whether or not my thought process makes sense or if I'm making any critical errors in my judgement.
I met her in late January of this year at a shared sport league that I run in my local mid-sized town (120,000 pop). I recognized her name when she registered before the season began from an activity I attended with some mutual friends last March, but we ran in different circles so I didn't see her after then. She was drafted onto my team, and I (re)introduced myself to her when she arrived for our first game. We hit it off right away and were chatting on the sidelines and after the game. She wasn't just responding to things I was talking about or asking her either, she was actively asking about aspects of my life. She mentioned in passing that she had a partner that she cohabits with (and 1 additional roommate who owns the house) when we were in a conversation with a small group.
Two days later, she grabbed my number off of the registration site and texted me asking to meet for a run so she can "get in better shape" for our shared sport league. I agreed, and we met the next day. The run was good, we chatted during the run for about 3.5 miles, then walked back. The conversation was amazing the whole time, and we both were clearly having a lot of fun. Once we got back to our cars, she asked if I wanted to get a coffee at a nearby coffee shop. I agreed, and we met there. She went through the line first, ordered, then the barista asked her if she wanted anything else and she turned and asked me what I was getting then paid for my drink. At this point, I'm definitely realizing that her angle is not just friendly, but she's actively checking me out / evaluating me romantically. The conversation during the walk (and for the next hour at the coffee shop) were definitely about topics that were very "first date"-coded; she asked about interests, beliefs, attitude towards drug use, etc. Relationship conversations came up a couple times, and I asked about her boyfriend once and she gave a small detail and quickly changed the subject. I also shared that I was in currently in a relationship that I was about to leave because it wasn't right for me. She had made one or two comments that suggested that she's no longer alligned with him (i.e. "He's not the same"-esque comments). She said she joined our shared sport league to "meet new people". We left once the coffee shop closed, and I asked if she wanted to stay out and migrate somewhere else. She suggested that we get together two days later at a local park, which I accepted.
At this point, I'm thinking that she's interested, but I'm aware that she's not available and I'm doing what I can to explore our obvious connection in a safe and controlled way that respects her current relationship. We meet at the park, have another good outing and conversation, and end up sitting in her car and chatting for a bit before leaving. During our conversation, she mentioned how she just wants to "act her age" (when her boyfriend is 28... and she mentioned some misallignment with where they are in life). She suggested that we grab lunch after our game that weekend.
Before our game, she says that she might not be able to do lunch because one of her friends is sick and she might need to take them to the hospital. She says she's not sure, but should know by the time she needs to make that decision (after the game). A group of my friends in the league end up putting together a group outting for lunch, and we pivot and join them. She arrives to lunch after me, and sits next to me. We're having a great lunch as a group, talking with everyone, occasionally sharing some good 1-on-1 sidebars, and occasionally I'd be talking to one side of the table when I'd hear her saying something about me and I'd join in on their conversation. I decide to press a little and slide my leg into her area under the table, she finds it and holds contact until lunch is over (about 10-15 minutes -- definitely not deniable). As she leaves, she taps me on the shoulder and says "let's run again this week", I start to pick a time and she says "text me" and leaves.
The next day, she texts me and basically says "happy monday!" and makes some small conversation about the game from yesterday. We chat a tiny bit (it's the work day, she's in class and I'm at work so we're taking a bit to respond) and I ask for a time to run that week. We settle on Wednesday, then are all set. On Wednesday, she asks to reschedule, and we settle on Friday morning.
On Friday, we meet and run and everything is great again. Tons of great conversation, lots of verbal flirting, and on our walk back our arms are practically bumping into each other the entire way. I ask if she wants to grab coffee again and she accepts. I buy her coffee this time. We sit off to the side on the same couch, but it's not a great spot and the sun is hitting both of our eyes through the window. We're there for a little under an hour again when our normal spot in the corner opened up and she suggested that we move over to "our spot". I agree, and we move over there. About 3-5 minutes after moving to our normal spot, her boyfriend shows up on a work meeting with a work client. She sees him immediately, says "omg there's my boyfriend" and says hello. I introduce myself and shake his hand, then he leaves to get his coffee and return to his work client. I restart the conversation with her, and she basically cuts me off and says "welp, we should be going now", so we left. I hadn't even made it to my car in the parking lot before she had already texted me apologizing for the abrupt ending and thanking me for the coffee.
Everything is normal when I see her a few days later for our game. She's still almost exclusively talking to me on the sideline, we're having some good back and forth, and she's being outwardly flirty and I'm matching her intensity (not leading, because I'm not trying to pressure her). I passively refer to the woman I was dating as my "ex" in a story when we're in a conversation with a small group. I immediately see her face light up and she smiles. Later that day, I'm trying to get her to come to a Super Bowl party at a mutual friend's house and I'm being really cute and persistant about it. At one point, I jokingly flirt that she just want's me to beg and she cutely smiles and hides her face. She says that she "cant go", and I say something like "Oh, because it's complicated... I don't want it to be complicated. But it is a group activity..." and the subject drops. She does not end up coming to the party. I asked her for details about something she had mentioned on Friday about an event in-town that she was interested in going to and said that I would be there.
That event was the next day, I get there, and I had communicated with her again that I was planning on being there. She seemed oddly quiet about it even though she suggested that I go there with her on Friday before we ran into her boyfriend. I'm waiting outside for her to arrive before I go in when she shows up with her boyfriend. Not being an awkward individual (and because things are still plausibly deniable), I press forward and go to the thing anyways. More of her friends are there too, so I'm talking around to everyone -- including her and her boyfriend. She was still warm with me, noticed me looking at her at one point and smiled, made a few points of contact with me, and things went well. She still was showing interest in me at this point, but not as blatently as she did when we're outside her world. I made my first major mistake when I asked her for a run that week in front of her boyfriend when we were saying goodbye. She tried to spin out of it, but said maybe.
I text her later that week for a run, she says Wednesday, then asks to reschedule for Friday, then says she's cramping and asks to just have lunch on Sunday after our game instead. I'm not pressing her for a "firm reschedule", she'd always ask to reschedule when something would come up (if anything was actually coming up...) and let me know what times worked without me asking. Then she shows up to our game quite hungover and says she isn't ready to eat yet. We're still flirting and having a good time basically by ourselves at the game, she'd always stay after the games and talk with me on the sideline while I ran the scoreboard for another hour or two. After the last game finished, she helped me carry stuff back to my car and we chatted there for another hour. She brought up that I mentioned that I broke up with my girlfriend the week prior and asked about it. I told her a little bit about it, mentioned how I told her that I was planning on doing that, then said I had called my ex a little while later to chat and my ex was crying during that phone call. She said "I'd cry too if I lost a blonde-haired, blue-eyed..." and drifted off (this is the level of obvious flirtation that she'd do btw). I laughed, and moved on with the story. Later she said something about a high school relationship she had and how she wasn't much of a swooner, and I teaser her and said that she "swoons more than she thinks". Eventually we both left.
I try again that next week to get together with her and she accepts, but then flakes. At this point I had decided that it seemed like she decided 1-on-1's were a red-line for us, but she was still flirting with me at our shared sport league where it was comfortable for her to do so. She was leaving later that week for a 12-day vacation to France to visit her boyfriends sister who was homesick, so I let her be for a little bit and didn't push anything beyond this. Before she left, she suggested that we should get together for coffee once she got back. She also agreed to be "baggage" with each other (meaning we're playing on the same team and have to get drafted as a unit) for our next league that was starting in about a month.
No contact while she's abroad, because I don't want to overstep and cross that line. I wait a day after she gets back before I reach out and ask for coffee. She excitedly agrees, then picks a time and place. We get a lot of snow that morning and she asks for a reschedule. I press a little and offer to pick her up, but say that I'm totally good with a reschedule too, which ends up happening and we agree to go on Tuesday. I reach out on Tuesday to see if she's still good, she takes forever to respond then flakes. Again, during her post-boyfriend incident pattern of "agree, commit, reschedule, flake", I'm not pressing for specific reschedules and it'd be super easy for her to say something vague like "eh, maybe another time" and I'd get the message and move on, but she wasn't acting in a manner that would suggest that was her goal.
After that flake (her 3rd or 4th now in a row post boyfriend-run incident), I see that clearly this approach isn't working or isn't appropriate any more, so I stop asking for 1-on-1's. Instead, I just shift my focus towards interacting with her in the space that she's comfortable with: our shared sport league. Our winter league has now ended and I no longer have that weekly regular contact with her, but Spring League is starting soon. I remind my captain to reach out to her about getting registered for Spring League (the registration for this league is weird in particular and would be confusing for first-timers), and suggest to another person to reach out to her for a tournament that's coming up in a few weeks out of town. I later hear from both of these people that they reached out to her, and then a few days later she texts me asking about details on both items. She seemed unsure / leaning towards "no" for the tournament, but was excited for Spring League.
A week or so later, I pass along the ride-share spreadsheet for the tournament in-case she had changed her mind. She says that she "doesn't think she's going to the tournament", then immediately asks me if I'm staying in the big AirBnb. I say I am, and she asks if it would be uncouth for her to change her mind. I welcome her to the team, and we end up in the same ride share and leave for the tournament later that week.
The tournament is a 3-day trip (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) in a city 6-hours away from home. We leave on Friday, and her and I are sitting in the backseat. The atmosphere is a bunch of fun, and I let her have the passcode to my phone so she can change the music (I was the only person with a phone that had an aux port). Everytime she'd change the music, she'd rest her arm on my knee. Things are going great, we're laughing, I'm teasing her, we're sharing stories, it's just really solid all around. Once we hit town, the driver stops at a park and says "I'm here to meet a friend for a quick bike ride, are you guys good going for a walk or something?" (as if we had an option to say no lol), so her and I and the other passenger in the car hang out at the park for a bit. We're practicing our sport, she's joking around with me, we get into a little foot race and it's really cute. Eventually we get to the airbnb and we have fun as a team for a bit at the arcade (very cool airbnb) while we wait for everyone to arrive. Once everyone's there, I turn on some music and we're having a good time. I brought a bottle of wine for anyone who wanted any (just her and I had some -- she really likes wine, so I brought it for her) and I told her that I had her favorite card game that she had mentioned in a conversation a month prior. She lit up and was very excited to play that with me. We played that together while the others were at the table playing something else.
Drinks are going around, there's good music, and we're having a lot of fun playing her card game by ourselves. A third person tries to join us and she basically just throws her phone at him with the game pulled up and tells him to learn how to play. At one point I attempt to help her reset the board and she stops me and jokingly says she "doesn't want anything from me" in the context of running the game. I reply flirtily, "Oh, you don't want anything from me?" -- not meant as an innuendo, just a throwaway nothing line that I'm saying to be cute, and she lightly laughs and said I needed to "chill out". Later during that game, I was talking and looking at her during the game (which requires both of us to be looking at the board) and she told me that I needed to look at the board. Before we went to our rooms, she asked why I didn't mention that I had brought this game when I was talking about the other games I had packed, and I mentioned that I wanted it to be a surprise. I definitely pushed a little too hard this night with my flirting and actions, but all day my behavior was getting reinforced, so I figured I'd try to lead the action a little bit. Also the whole premise of going from "i'm not going to the tournament, oh wait, are you staying at the house? ok, i'll go" sent a clear signal that access to me was being factored positively in her decision on whether or not she was going to the tournament.
On Saturday, she's a little more guarded and distant. We'll talk for a bit, but she's bouncing around and talking to everyone. She's still running the music on my phone. I sit next to her at lunch and she's talking towards the center of the table, but still made a point to make a couple side-bars with me at lunch. Things feel a little tense. We go back to the airbnb and all take turns showering and getting ready to go out to the bars. I pregame a little bit, and we head out in a large group to a karaoke bar (that ended up not having karaoke). We played pool and darts together with a few other teammates while the others sat at a table. Eventually half the group split off and she wanted to go to a club for some dancing, so I and two others got dropped off at that venue. I'm pretty well smashed at this point, but somehow the bouncer lets me through (despite me asking the stamp man at the door for a second stamp). We continue drinking, she attempts to teach me a few things for swing dancing, but then stops. The four of us dance in a circle together for a while and continue drinking. I end up getting fairly drunk and everyone decides it is time for us to leave around 2am. We walk home and I'm joking around, but I don't really remember details. It's not really like me to get this blasted, but I will admit I was definitely drinking some emotions. My friend assists me while I get sick twice, then puts me to bed. I confess to him quietly about the whole situation and how her and I had been on a few dates that went well, but now she's continuing to withdraw from me.
Sunday is worse than Saturday, she's even more guarded and distant. The car ride back is a lot quieter, but we're all tired so it sort of makes sense. She no longer rests her arm on my knee when she's changing the music.
Spring League started 5 days later and we're still on the same team since we baggaged together. She's responsive to me when I approach her, but not flirty and doesn't make much opportunity to initiate with me. Same thing happens the next week during our next game, though with 1 or 2 times where she initiated contact with me. She doesn't stand next to me in the huddle any more, and she isn't glued to my hip like she was in Winter League.
That's where things are today. I guess here's what my read of the situation is:
There was some mutual attraction, but the situation and timing prevented it from being realized.
Running into her boyfriend while we were essentially on a date forced her to recognize the consequences of her actions and created a lot of guilt in her (which I also had early on while I was still technically involved with my LDR girlfriend).
2a) Her boyfriend may have made a comment after seeing us together on a date.
She pulled back because things were developing positively and she wasn't ready to detonate her life (shared housing, shared friends, etc), not because she was rejecting me as a potential romantic partner.
The more I pressed, the more she strengthened her boundaries.
Additional info:
*She never talks about her boyfriend -- even with other people. She doesn't mention him when people ask what she's going to do after she graduates in a week.
*She's going a 6-week hike this summer alone.
*She expressed interest in living abroad for 6-9 months by herself (suggesting again, she's not keeping her boyfriend in her plans).
*She does NOT flirt with other people in the same manner that she did with me, suggesting it's not about the attention.
*We've never talked about anything that's happened between us (although I'm planning on doing this casually next time I see her after she graduates)
*I did not leave my ex because of this new woman -- I knew that I was out of that relationship in early December and just was waiting for a better time.
*I was never aiming to cheat or to get her to cheat, I just had signals that suggested that she was openly looking to meet new people and was being present and showing interest back.
TL;DR - Woman pursued me despite being in a 2-year relationship, made it clear she wasn't with her "forever" guy, and I reciprocated and flirted back. We went on 3 dates that went really well, but her boyfriend ran into us on the third date. I still tried to explore the connection and over time her boundaries strengthened, despite showing a growing interest in leaving her boyfriend in the short-term future.
I'm really confused by the whole thing. I'm sure I've left out some details, but I'm curious what people have to think about the whole thing. I'll answer any questions that people post for a few days as well.