I had a party at my house last night for a friend-of-a-friend's birthday (a surprise thing) and I met this girl. She was cute, and when we started talking I discovered that she's pretty smart and fairly interseting, as well.
There were only two problems. First, we talked for about 20 minutes, and I asked her a bunch of questions and listened to her go on and on about herself and her life, but she never asked me anything about myself. That's a real turn-off. I like talking to people, and I enjoy listening to their life stories and that sort of thing, but it's polite to at least pretend to be interested in my life, too.
The second problem was that all the guys who knew her who were at the party were all over her, and she didn't seem to care. I found out later that one of them was actually her boyfriend, but who could tell from observation? A half-dozen guys were hanging on her and following her around, which is super not-cool. After we talked and I wandered off, I saw her glancing at me from time to time during the rest of the night, but there'd always be some (different) guy standing right up next to her. Sorry babe, not my style.
So here's my analysis. She probably is a really cool person, but she's addicted to the attention she gets and thinks that's how all guys should relate to her. When I found out near the end of the night that she had a boyfriend, my only thought was that if I were he, I'd be pissed at how she had been acting with everyone else. He probably felt lucky to be the one to chauffeur her around.
I know a lot of pretty girls who would be totally awesome, but are difficult to tolerate solely because of how their beauty affects their relational mindset.
Stay away from this one. She is all about one thing and you would never be it.
Or she could be very interested and behaving oddly because she was so nervous. The more important someone is to me, the weirder I get. And I start out pretty weird already.
I tend to agree with Dave. It's hard for me to imagine a woman being intimidated by me. Anyway, she had a "boyfriend" of some sort.
MW: So what? If you admire her, let her know even if she is already in a relationship. Letting someone know you find them interesting is a *compliment*. Simply expressing interest isn't coercive; she can choose how to respond.
When my wife and I first got involved, she had a boyfriend of about 5 years standing. They were planning to get married. Now she and I have been married for 7+ years and everything is going great. (Interestingly enough, we're both still friends with her ex, who is now also married to someone else, and everybody involved agrees in retrospect that it worked out for the best.)
Bottom line: her SO doesn't own her, and expressing interest isn't poaching. That said, her behavior would make me think twice about whether I was actually interested or not.
MW, it certainly would be nice to find a girl who was pretty, smart, and humble. However, if I were a man looking for a woman, I'd settle for the latter two, because they're more important and more permanent than pulchritude. "Pretty" won't last more than about twenty or thirty years, but you want a marriage to last longer than that.
So why, dare I ask, are you going to parties and selecting pretty girls to converse with to see if they're smart and humble, then getting disappointed when they're not everything you are looking for? Why not select a humble girl and then see if she's both smart and pretty?
WH: Hey, the party came to me! The hard part is actually finding smart girls, in my experience. There are lots of pretty girls, and lots of humble girls (not the same ones).
Sorry, for some reason I missed the detail that the party was at your house. You'd think, being female, I'd pay more attention to details like that. OTOH social affairs have never been of much concern to me. I hate parties and I skip them whenever possible.
RUN.
RUN LIKE HELL.
Women like that who are big on the attention they get from tons of guys are very, very bad news, particularly when they're willing to do it in front of the boyfriend.
Such was the Horsewoman of the Apocalypse...
WH: I'm not big on parties, largely because I don't drink. People who drink may be entertaining to themselves, but they're not that fun otherwise.
TAC: Yeah, that's a pattern that wouldn't change even when she gets married. No thanks.
Michael - oh my gosh! That was you? I'm so sorry. Ha,ha - just kidding!
If she had a boyfriend, maybe he wasn't the jealous type or maybe he wasn't all that worried about losing her. The guys I've dated would NEVER have stood idly by while other guys hung on me. I'd like to think I'm at least ok in the looks department and I've tried not to date psychos (and mostly succeeded) but none of my BFs would have been cool with that.
Also, as my parents always told me (and obviously as KH can attest to), nothing's final til there's a ring on her finger.
As for not asking you any questions, she could have been nervous (I tend to ramble on when talking to an interesting guy - never fails) or she could have been a jerk. A little more hard to tell on that one.
KH: I didn't notice your comment last time I was here. I agree as far as expressing interest, it was her behavior more than anything else that turned me off.
P: It's possible, but yeah, most guys wouldn't be cool with that.
MW: How old was this girl? Sounds like me when I was younger. I've always recieved ten times the attention I knew what to do with. Beauty can stunt people's growth emotionally because we all tend to learn certain social graces only when we have to. When people let you get away with whatever you want and don't give you any signals to show you that it's inappropriate--you just don't know any better. I don't think it's necessarily true that she is hopelessly self-absorbed and will never change. If she really is intelligent, she will realize eventually what she is doing and work to change it, but only if the people around her give her clues to help her become more self-aware. Next time you're in that situation, maybe you should say politely, "Don't you want to know anything about me?"