Am I just rubbish at reading signs?
I met someone in May, she was a friend at the time nothing more as I was in a long term relationship. Met her a second time again in July for a birthday thing and some drama went down between her and this guy that she’d been talking to for a couple of weeks. A week later my gf cheated on me (we’d had issues before this) and we tried to make it work but we broke up at the end of August.
Towards the end of September I got close to this friend as we were both kind of going through it and we naturally started just talking. At the time she made it clear she wasn’t ready for a relationship and neither was I. I was in a vulnerable place and wanted to process that.
My friend and I started talking every single day and over time we just started doing things that I interpreted as more than platonic
We spoke every day from September until about a month ago, often 300+ messages a day
Got very emotionally intimate (and I love that shit)
Hung out every other weekend
Would positively compare me to her ex
Would excitedly tell me that she can’t wait for me to meet her friends
Drunkenly told me she missed me
Said it was weird when I wasn’t around when I was at hers
Lots of energy matching and leading/following
Playful flirting
Tried to tickle me a couple times when she found out I was ticklish, leading to me grabbing her wrists and staring into her eyes which felt very loaded
Would wake me up by sending me voice notes that began “good morning gorgeous”
Would escalate physical contact, so when we hugged goodbye she would kiss me on the cheek and I’d put my head on her shoulder and she’d kiss my cheek
Lots of forehead kisses
I’d help her get up for work and she’d pull me on top of her on her bed, first time I was like eh, fourth time that means something
Then gave me a romantically charged pet name and when I asked why it was because I had the biggest heart and I make people feel safe and bring a group together, when I walked into a room people light up.
I tried second guessing myself at every opportunity because I was very aware that I had just come out of a 7 and a half year relationship but actually everything we were doing felt right, so I confided in some friends and they basically said if it feels right go for it as it’s clear she’s into you.
Eventually, I caught feelings and told this friend at the end of January/beginning of February. She said it was purely platonic. I said that we should have a chat because some lines clearly became blurred for me.
We had a chat on a car ride home from one of our hangouts where She basically was like “i didn’t allow myself to consider you, but i thought about it and considered it because it was so easy with you and things were ambiguous, and even wrote about it in my journal and thought “is it supposed to be this easy”, but I don’t think I’m mentally well enough to have any form of relationship, maybe in time but I don’t want to give you hope”
She agreed with me when I said that that we basically emotionally were in a pseudo relationship.
She also said that when she pulled me on top of her it felt like the most normal thing in the world and then it’s like a lightbulb would go off which she likened to a trauma response and she didn’t want to allow herself to get her hopes up and have to crawl out of that pit a third time in 3 years.
She also said some things that didn’t sit right with me but I left it there, like she wanted someone who didn’t know her past, whereas I know the full story.
Since then she’s told me that she thought I understood her pulling me on top of her was platonic because I didn’t question it. We agreed to take space but when I came back to her she told me that I’d ghosted her and gave her whiplash by announcing that I’d gotten feelings and has since ended the friendship.
So am I just rubbish at reading signs after so much time away from dating? Or is this just an unfortunate one off?