Congratulations! You motivated me to also share a story regarding these lines:

This reminded me of my last day giving lessons to kids still in school while I was studying. I was paid by Schülerhilfe, an organization to help kids struggling in school, and used their rooms. This meant that during my time there, I often met fellow teachers in my age who also studied at the same university as me.

There was a girl that I really liked. I don't remember that we had many conversations before but we must had some, since I knew I wanted to get to know her better.

After some encouragement from a female friend, I asked on my last day if I could have her number¹ so we can stay in contact. I was so happy when it looked like I just made her day and she gave me her number; happy to stay in contact. It took me by surprise because I prepared for her saying "sorry, I have a boyfriend" or something like this. I considered saying "does that mean you can't have male friends?" in that case but as mentioned, we didn't get to this point because she already gave me her number.

We basically immediately started texting and it went really well. We already had conversations that were only missing agreeing on a specific date for the things we mentioned we could do (like smoke weed together, lol). This went on for days and I was still in disbelief what was happening. My female friend told me that if she gave me her number, she was definitely single and interested.

After a few days, I was spontaneously walking past the building where she was currently teaching and I must have remembered her schedule since I knew that she was about to end her lessons and come out. I think that was also her last day there. I decided to wait for her to come out so we could walk and talk for a bit. Usually, I am a very shy person and I am afraid of being surprised by someone I know in the streets but since the conversations over text with her went really smooth including the few conversations we had in person, I was actually indeed looking forward to see her (and I assumed she wasn't anxious like me about people surprises).

After some time, some other teacher I've met before came out. I asked him if Alice (not her real name) was in there and he said yes. We've talked for a bit and during the conversation, he mentioned that her boyfriend was in there with her.agreed

I immediately wrote my female friend that she was wrong and I was right: She is not single!

However, what I did next was a mistake: I wrote Alice that I didn't know she was in a relationship. She confirmed and asked if that's a problem. Instead of remembering my own words "does that mean you can't have male friends?" I told her that I thought she was single and our ideas for what we could do together were date ideas. She replied with "Oh, I see."

After that our conversations were awkward and I told her it's fine if she doesn't want to text me anymore, lol. But I think I was the only one who made it awkward; she would have been fine with still meeting me casually. I could have just become good friends with her. She was so cool and I threw it all away just because I got disappointed. I still think about her sometimes.