I had an awkward situation with a female team mate at an out of town weekend club competition. The situation started a couple months before when I sent her a friend request. At the time I sat on the same bench as her, and she was friendly when I spoke to her the time before the friend request. The next time she was totally different, and as soon as there was a brief pause in the conversation she started scrolling on her phone, so I walked off. It was obvious she had the idea I fancied her, though she had thin evidence to go on.
I tried to make the issue go away in the following weeks, avoiding conversations, shifting my seating position to a different bench, and mainly avoiding getting on the same court as her. The teams were then announced. I turned up at the next session to practice with the team. Things went back to normal when I was with her on court, but since this was only on court my suspicions were that this was just a team thing.
We took a van down, and I was concerned when I found she was the second last on and I was the last on. I figured this meant we might be forced to sit next to each other, which could be problematic for her.
I expected if we had to sit together I would see some indicator she wasn't happy about it, but I never expected she'd do what she did. The van door opens, everyone else but her says hi, and she doesn't even look at me. It was then a question of where I would sit. There were only two seats not occupied by a person. One was in the back, and it had a big bag on it that couldn't be moved without blocking exits. The other was next to her, and she had a bag on that seat that could easily be put in front of her. It was clear from her body language that she did not want to vacate the seat. I knew how problematic sitting next to her would be, so I didn't want to look keen to sit by her. Eventually someone told her to move her bag. I then sat down and said an individual hello to her, which she ignored.
I was already prepared for a frosty reception, so I went into damage control to try and save the trip. The idea was that I'd act exactly the opposite to how she expected on the way up. I made one or two very brief comments to her right at the start, one being to show her a picture from a badminton tournament I had just been to after showing it to one of the guys. The rest of the several hour long trip I didn't speak to her, apart from saying something when she wanted to be let out when we came to a stop. I spent most of the time watching live matches at the badminton tournament I went to with headphones on. I was trying to communicate the message that I'm way more into badminton than her. Her body language the way up was just bad. She sat on the far edge of her seat, never looked remotely close to me, and always had her phone facing away from me when she used it. It made me quite uncomfortable, and despite it not being warm I had to reapply deodorant a couple of times despite showering before I left.
When we went for dinner I waited for her to sit down on one corner, and then sat on the other end of the table. Sitting far away from her when possible was something I did the whole trip. Aside from I think one brief comment to her and another team member about a team match, the only other time I talked to her on the trip after we got there was when we were playing together. I was trying to diffuse the situation by avoiding giving evidence that might suggest I like her.
There was quite a difference to how she behaved around me when we played together to the rest of the trip. When we played together she morphed into an unrecognizably different person, who was chatty and comfortable around me. The rest of the time she avoided talking to me (unless you count twice telling me I played well after matches with other team mates), avoided being near me, and kept her eyes away from me when I came towards her to discourage me from speaking to her.
Just before bed the night we got there I spoke to the team manager privately about the situation, and my concerns that it could hurt the performance of both myself and her if not resolved. He asked if there was anything he wanted me to do about it. He didn't offer anything specific, and in retrospect I think I should have asked him to speak to her. Whether she would have admitted to anything I don't know, but she would now know her actions were being watched.
The next morning before play I was still quite upset, and since I expected my performance to be affected if nothing was done I was getting a bit desperate, and decided to message her about the issue. I mentioned my observations of how things had got uncomfortable after sending her the friend request and why I thought that was, and said I am not going to ask her out. She replied thanking me for the clarification, and saying we should just focus on our games. Although she made out things were now fine, I noticed no difference in her that day. Things weren't worse, but they weren't better. At first I thought maybe something about the message made her uncomfortable, like she might be worried I'd bring up the matter with her in front of someone else. As it got to evening, this just didn't seem plausible, and it was clear to me that she just pretended that things were now fine and told me what I wanted to hear.
By the second day I was pissed. I didn't warm up for the first rubber and my play was definitely affected. Her being so friendly during play only made things worse, as she was only doing so because it would help her win. She obviously noticed something was up and told me to concentrate. If I had thought of it I might have said "If you want me to concentrate, try being friendly all the time, not just when we're playing together." When I heard we made the final I was horrified. I managed to get a grip for the final, and played well.
I think this shows the problem of spending an entire trip communicating to another person on your team that you aren't interested in them. You have to either be friendly to team mates who are friendly to you or don't come at all. The team manager told me when I spoke to him that she is engaged or at least in a long-term relationship, which makes the situation all the more ridiculous. If I did ask her out she has a good excuse to say no that wouldn't require her to reject me, so I don't see why she felt the need of doing what she did. During the latter part of the trip I was upset with her and wouldn't have gone out with her even if she were single and asked me out.
I tried to make the issue go away in the following weeks, avoiding conversations, shifting my seating position to a different bench, and mainly avoiding getting on the same court as her. The teams were then announced. I turned up at the next session to practice with the team. Things went back to normal when I was with her on court, but since this was only on court my suspicions were that this was just a team thing.
We took a van down, and I was concerned when I found she was the second last on and I was the last on. I figured this meant we might be forced to sit next to each other, which could be problematic for her.
I expected if we had to sit together I would see some indicator she wasn't happy about it, but I never expected she'd do what she did. The van door opens, everyone else but her says hi, and she doesn't even look at me. It was then a question of where I would sit. There were only two seats not occupied by a person. One was in the back, and it had a big bag on it that couldn't be moved without blocking exits. The other was next to her, and she had a bag on that seat that could easily be put in front of her. It was clear from her body language that she did not want to vacate the seat. I knew how problematic sitting next to her would be, so I didn't want to look keen to sit by her. Eventually someone told her to move her bag. I then sat down and said an individual hello to her, which she ignored.
I was already prepared for a frosty reception, so I went into damage control to try and save the trip. The idea was that I'd act exactly the opposite to how she expected on the way up. I made one or two very brief comments to her right at the start, one being to show her a picture from a badminton tournament I had just been to after showing it to one of the guys. The rest of the several hour long trip I didn't speak to her, apart from saying something when she wanted to be let out when we came to a stop. I spent most of the time watching live matches at the badminton tournament I went to with headphones on. I was trying to communicate the message that I'm way more into badminton than her. Her body language the way up was just bad. She sat on the far edge of her seat, never looked remotely close to me, and always had her phone facing away from me when she used it. It made me quite uncomfortable, and despite it not being warm I had to reapply deodorant a couple of times despite showering before I left.
When we went for dinner I waited for her to sit down on one corner, and then sat on the other end of the table. Sitting far away from her when possible was something I did the whole trip. Aside from I think one brief comment to her and another team member about a team match, the only other time I talked to her on the trip after we got there was when we were playing together. I was trying to diffuse the situation by avoiding giving evidence that might suggest I like her.
There was quite a difference to how she behaved around me when we played together to the rest of the trip. When we played together she morphed into an unrecognizably different person, who was chatty and comfortable around me. The rest of the time she avoided talking to me (unless you count twice telling me I played well after matches with other team mates), avoided being near me, and kept her eyes away from me when I came towards her to discourage me from speaking to her.
Just before bed the night we got there I spoke to the team manager privately about the situation, and my concerns that it could hurt the performance of both myself and her if not resolved. He asked if there was anything he wanted me to do about it. He didn't offer anything specific, and in retrospect I think I should have asked him to speak to her. Whether she would have admitted to anything I don't know, but she would now know her actions were being watched.
The next morning before play I was still quite upset, and since I expected my performance to be affected if nothing was done I was getting a bit desperate, and decided to message her about the issue. I mentioned my observations of how things had got uncomfortable after sending her the friend request and why I thought that was, and said I am not going to ask her out. She replied thanking me for the clarification, and saying we should just focus on our games. Although she made out things were now fine, I noticed no difference in her that day. Things weren't worse, but they weren't better. At first I thought maybe something about the message made her uncomfortable, like she might be worried I'd bring up the matter with her in front of someone else. As it got to evening, this just didn't seem plausible, and it was clear to me that she just pretended that things were now fine and told me what I wanted to hear.
By the second day I was pissed. I didn't warm up for the first rubber and my play was definitely affected. Her being so friendly during play only made things worse, as she was only doing so because it would help her win. She obviously noticed something was up and told me to concentrate. If I had thought of it I might have said "If you want me to concentrate, try being friendly all the time, not just when we're playing together." When I heard we made the final I was horrified. I managed to get a grip for the final, and played well.
I think this shows the problem of spending an entire trip communicating to another person on your team that you aren't interested in them. You have to either be friendly to team mates who are friendly to you or don't come at all. The team manager told me when I spoke to him that she is engaged or at least in a long-term relationship, which makes the situation all the more ridiculous. If I did ask her out she has a good excuse to say no that wouldn't require her to reject me, so I don't see why she felt the need of doing what she did. During the latter part of the trip I was upset with her and wouldn't have gone out with her even if she were single and asked me out.
. If you said something of the kind in her presence, something she heard, (it's an example you could have said something else) may be she felt uncomfortable. I'm not sure it's the right mindset to have nowadays regarding genders. All women are different. So are men. Women do not like their behaviour to be tagged as "typical" or because of their menstrual cycle.
