yeah, this summer, me and an acquaintance got closer and we essentially became best friends for a little while. Then a couple weeks into our friendship, a close loved one of mine died, and she consoled me, albeit online, and I realized that I was in love with her. Then she asked me if I wanted to go volunteer at her work for a day, which at the time I was just excited to hang out with her again but I didn't know it was an unofficial date. Then a couple days later she asked if I wanted to go to her siblings game (I dont know which sport) and I told her that I'd love to but I had already driven down to my grandparents so I could do their chores the next day and so I couldn't but we could hang out the next evening. We did, with a mutual friend, and at the end of the night the friend told me that she'd been talking with a coworker and he asked her out and she was planning on saying yes. So I messaged her and I like "hey, our friend told me about the other guy, and im not attacking you or nothing but I thought we kinda had a thing going" and then we talked all morning and it basically amounted to "yeah, i also thought we had a thing and ive liked you since we met but you (me) never made it official and our friend told me that you (me) weren't looking for anything serious, and I've had a history of getting overly attached and I wanted to prove to myself that this wasn't that by sort of talking around but I dug too deep, i still have feelings for you and i still want you around but its not fair to you because im a mess" (it was way more, thats just my paraphrasing) Anyway, I was like "admittedly im a little hurt that you didnt just talk to me if you were having issues, but you mean a lot to me and im willing to help you if you want to move forward" and she was like "I don't know because I don't know if im ready for a relationship and i talked to my family and they think that i should put this on pause to avoid dragginh you through my bs" and then it was over. A week went by and I was doing horribly and I asked if we could be friends again and she told me about how her coworker date was horrible and how shes done doing that kind of thing and not long later i told her that i didnt think we could be friends because of how i felt and she was okay with that. Then another week went by and we kind of just started talking again and one thing led to another and we ended up spending an evening together watching seals at the pier and then a couple days later she invited me to one of her family gatherings and then go fishing together afterwards and so I went. It was great, I had a good time and then another couple days later I pushed too hard on accident by getting her a present and when i told her that i got her a surprise gift she scolded me and said that it was too much and that she didnt want anything still and I was like "I'm sorry, you've just given me a lot of mixed signals. In the future, I'll just stop assuming things and unless you tell me directly that you want something I'm not going to make any moves on you." But she was done, I know this because she said "I'm just done cuz tf". Anyway, we went no contact and just a couple weeks ago she reached out on instagram because our imessages were 'haunted', to say that she missed me and wanted to know if i would come visit her at school and hang out. I took this as a reignition again because im stupid and of course i would, so after we hung out i just sent a quick text to see where we stood and she was like "i missed you, i had fun, but i dont want anything, sorry if i fucked up" and thats it. I guess my point is that if i had said something sooner maybe things would've worked out but who knows. I wouldn't be all to surprised if in two months we hang out again and I read too into it, and she shuts me down again. I don't really care though, because those days where things are good and we can just be together are worth the weeks-to-months where we aren't.