u/whitelabeljuiceco

Clean and can host looking- check my profile if you want to see what I need help with at the moment 😵

I’ll try to keep it as short as I can, promise.

I started playing pickleball locally at the end of the summer of 2024.

I can remember clearly the first time I went to the courts, I saw a girl who was obviously good-looking but she also just hit me different for some reason.

She was kinda loud and goofy and had kind of a deep-ish (in a good way) voice that doesn’t really match what you would expect.

She was also clearly quite a bit younger than me. At the time I was married and not thinking of dating or looking for anything outside my marriage at all.

For the next year or so, I would see her at the courts all the time and always thought she was cute and had a tiny crush on her but never even talked to her or thought anything more of it because like I said, I was married.

I would also frequently catch her looking at me randomly or we would have that whole awkward eye contact look away type moment now and then.

Last summer around the end of July, and after 12 years of an extremely mediocre marriage, my then wife and I decided to call it quits.

We tried therapy so many times, moved across the country, etc. but we finally decided to give up on it this past July.

It was literally THE DAY we told our kids that we were splitting up, I went to the courts to clear my head a bit at night and she was there.

Somehow I just had this feeling like I knew she was gonna come talk to me for some reason while I was sitting waiting on the bleachers between games.

Idk why lol, she was just playing a game on the court in front of me and I just remember thinking, she’s gonna just come up and sit by me and start talking to me after this.

And then she actually did and I was on one hand shocked and on the other just like yeah this feels right haha.

That night we ended up just sitting on the bleachers for over an hour talking, I got her name, she told me a bit about herself and asked about me. We made eye contact the whole time and to me at least it felt like we were really connecting like long lost friends or something even though this was the first time we ever talked.

After that I just kept seeing her there, she would light up when she saw me, we started playing together all the time on the same team.

It got to a point where I was seeing her basically 5 times a week and spending time playing with her frequently.

There were a lot of repeated signs she was into me during this time and I’m not going to go into all of them but there just were a lot.

She would text me late at night before I was leaving on a trip to say have a fun trip, lmk when you’re home, things like that. Really sweet to me in general but mostly all pickleball related.

It eventually got to the point where multiple other court regulars were asking me if we were dating or asking me where she was when I would go by myself etc.

Needless to say, I developed some pretty strong feelings for her during this time but because of where I was with my marriage, the age gap (she’s 24, I’m 35) and the fact that she knows I have kids, I wasn’t as forthcoming with her about my feelings as I might have otherwise been.

I finally asked her to go to a different pickleball place with me as in like if you’re free tomorrow, I’m going to place and I’d love it if you could join me. (I know it’s not a super direct date invite lol).

This was right around Thanksgiving and she deflected saying she already had plans with a friend and so at that point I kind of just cooled off it.

But after that, she became way more flirty with me in person at the courts so that was confusing to me.

I let some more time go by of just normal interactions with her thinking maybe she just wasn’t ready or sure or idk what.

A week or so before Christmas, she was going out of town for a ski trip with her family and the night before she left, I texted her something like “Hey I hope you have a really fun trip, when you get back, how about we grab coffee and you can tell me about it.”

I was so nervous asking her to hang out with me again I almost died inside ngl.

But she didn’t respond until 2 days later and she didn’t even directly respond, she just “liked” my message.

At that point I was already so committed to getting clarity here, I just waited until I knew she was home and a couple days had passed and then I texted her again something like “I hope you had a fun trip, if you’re open to going for a walk on the beach this week, I’d love to see you.”

This was the week of Christmas and I know my timing is shit but I had to get to the bottom of this it was consuming me.

Anyway she replied the next day with something like: “This weeks a little busy with work and holidays but we should play pickleball soon, I’ll be there this week.”

At that point I was over it and just replied “No worries, I’m sure I’ll see you around”

And that was the end of that.

Over the next few months until now, I would see her at the courts but on opposite sides where we wouldn’t really have the opportunity to interact much.

I didn’t try to talk to her or anything like that. But I would still catch her glancing at me, make eye contact awkwardly, she would be standing there with her friend talking while they were both looking at me etc.

I had no clue what to make of it but I had decided to not pursue it any further since she wasn’t able to give me any direct clarity lol.

Eventually, I did run into her and even though it was a little awkward, it was also kinda nice and she was very nice to me “oh it’s so good to see you” stuff like that.

So months go by without talking, I have dated multiple different women since then (including other very beautiful women her age and some closer to mine as well) and had a great time, but like I said she just hits me DIFFERENT.

When she’s at the courts I feel it. Her presence affects me. I still get butterflies, and I could be imagining it and whatever but there is TENSION in the air.

So yesterday, I’m there and she’s there and my friend and I decide to go play a game on the social side of the courts where she hangs out normally.

We were playing separate games on different courts next to each other and between points we locked eyes and we both just held it for like 4-5 seconds and I felt it again haha. She smiled really big and kinda gave me a little flirty wave idk how else to describe it.

So I woke up this morning and just had the thought “Oh I think I’ll text her out of the blue” and so I sent something like “Good to see ya yesterday, we should get a game in together again soon 😊” and then immediately regretted it haha.

But she texted me back like 20 mins later, “loving” my message and saying OMG Yes! So good to see you, and we definitely should.

And then we just bantered a bit and made plans to play later this week, she actually invited me to come play with her tonight but I am a little bit tired and decided I would stay home.

Anyway, idk what to do. Am I just signing up for more torture lol. She HAS TO KNOW that I’m interested in her romantically after all my invites, there’s no way she doesn’t.

My gut is telling me to give it time and to be patient but another part of me wants to go after what I want with her.

If it were me and I was in her shoes and someone who I knew liked me and I wasn’t interested in randomly reached out again after months of not talking, I think I would just ghost them and not reply 😂

Anyway if you read this, thanks. Helpful for me to just write it out ❤️