I am a threat to an existing relationship....

A diamond in the rough.

I am in a complex situation that is completely foreign to me on every level.

I have been in one six-year relationship in my lifetime that began as a long distance deal, involved both of us moving across the country at some point and eventually living together for another two-and-a-half years. I had found true love and I understand what it's like to have it. I had been a mostly unhappy person for most of my life and I had conquered obstacles that no one thought I could in a fight for love. And I won.

Then after a massive misfortunate fallout involving circumstances well beyond both of our control, my life began to collapse on other fronts, she was a stressed-out student who already worked too many hours as it was and I had a string of stinging bad luck that eventually pushed us out of the apartment. She moved into a place of her own and I moved back in with my parents. From then on, the relationship itself took a slow and sour collapse as things continued to fall out of my favour on the luck front and there seemed to be no stopping it. It's hard to say exactly when it was over, but I remember her asking me once as I left her new apartment, "how long will it be before you get another girlfriend?" I didn't really have an answer, but I remember driving home through tears and eventually regretting that I didn't turn back.

I spent three years very lonely after that, and she didn't talk to me for nearly all of the last two when all I really wanted was a chance to apologize in person. Those three years were extremely difficult after overcoming so many obstacles, finding love and having set the bar for happiness so high that as time wore on, it seemed impossible to reach ever again. At first, I was more intent on correcting what I had done than I was on "finding another girlfriend," but when I finally realized that the relationship I had would never come back, everything changed a little. At first, I had a hard time finding interest in other people and few would jump out at me. A lot of these past years are a bit of a blur, but eventually it had come to the point where I realized that nobody seemed to be interested in me at all, regardless of how I felt about them. When really, for all of these years, I have been thinking about NOTHING ELSE. Love is what I'm living for and trying to find every hour of every day. I KNOW that it's the secret to happiness because I found it once before. But for whatever reason, I was repeatedly turned away and it began to wear on my self-esteem in an unpredictable way. I became a bit of a walking sob story, towing along a tale of lost love and more emotional baggage than any girl was willing to deal with, apparently. Lonely and desperate. Who wants that?

Today, still towing that emotional baggage, I work in an office environment. An office temp who was covering a shift for a person that works in my area began to get to know me pretty well through a series of cigarette breaks and car pools to work. Eventually, the individual she was covering for left his job permanently and moved to Singapore and she was hired on full-time. Since then, the car pools have continued, as have the snippets of conversation. She is jaded like I am in some ways and writes introspective commentaries like I do. We have a lot in common but we have lived very different lives.

In early February, I received a text message from this girl that said, "Wanna go to a play on V-day if we're still in town?" followed by an equally dumbfounding, "I enjoyed our little holiday last week, babe. I had fun with you. :)"

Now, I'd be more than happy to jump on this kind of opportunity with this girl who is completely on my level and finishes my sentences all the time and everything...but there's a problem, because when she says "we're still in town," the "we" refers to her and her boyfriend... They were going to Cuba a few days after Valentine's Day.

The play didn't happen because she had been called in to work at her other job. Since then, not much has changed and it has been several months. She is undeniably flirty and it's fairly obvious to everyone around the office that there's a whole lot more going on than there actually is. The problem is largely that we don't get the chance to have a real conversation very often. It's always little half-hour car pools or 20-minute smoke breaks and she's pretty busy on the weekends and even the weeknights sometimes. However, at this point there is no clear evidence that she intends to end her current relationship, yet she still spends a fair amount of time complaining about her boyfriend nonetheless.

I've been a high-strung, stressed-out case for a long time, but this is a new and interesting kind of anxiety. I'm not sure how to handle it. I'm not in a position to be making "advances" and the decision ultimately rests with her. But what am I to do in the meantime and how do I know that the meantime isn't going to last forever?

I realize that's a broad question and whether it sounds right to me or not, I like to hear anonymous input.


ANSWER

I think that the best thing you can do is to bring the situation to the forefront with her.
Be honest and tell her how you feel.

You don't want to play the guessing game forever, and she sounds like she'll respect you enough to give you an honest answer.

Whether she decides to break it off with her boyfriend or not, atleast you'll know what she's feeling and wont be left in the dark.

It might be difficult to bring up, but thats the only way you'll know for sure.
Otherwise you'll go crazy waiting, and trying to interpret all the signals.


- Hope that helps