Unrequited love - what to do?

[nature\\\'s_hated]

I'd like 2+2's advice on what to do about a girl I'm helplessly in love with who feels nothing for me. I first saw her across a crowded room in 1999 when I visited a protest event at her university (I was at a neighbouring college) and was spellbound, couldn't look away. She has an Annie Lennox look and an incredible smile. By good fate I got to meet her a fortnight later, at a random house party. But I'd drunk half a litre of vodka and when I left, inviting rejection, asked her "Can I have your phone number or shall I just f--k off right now?" Perhaps I was scared she might give it to me. She said "That depends on in what sense you want my number." I walked away.

A year later in 2000 I found myself at her university for a graduate programme, and I saw her at another protest event and re-introduced myself. I'd often bump into her around college and we'd stop and talk a long time. I sent her an electronic Valentine's card quoting the line "when you smile, hot dog men all over town burst into song." She didn't reply, and next time I saw her I hurriedly said let's just be friends, because I could see otherwise she wouldn't talk to me. We went for drinks a few times - I really don't think they were dates, but we got on fabulously. She brings out the best in me; she's so funny, and makes me funny too, and we talk about everything. I felt she must see this too, but then she stopped answering my calls. I felt terrible, missing her and desperate for her approval, so I'd call her more often, she wouldn't answer. I just couldn't understand why she didn't want to see me. By early 2001 she'd cut me off completely.

Late 2001 at the beginning of a protest march I saw her standing on her own. With great courage I went up to her, feeling like a comedian in front of a hostile crowd having to talk his way into favour. Miracously - since she will have basically viewed me as a stalker - I managed it, and spent the day with her and her friends. A few months later I sent her an email saying I was gay - not actually true, but at the time I thought it might be, since I was such a disaster with women and couldn't get laid. Thankfully I never did anything with guys, just didn't want to. Bumped into her soon after in mid 2002 at another protest, and this time she gave me her number. She called me, we met up. This started four years of friendship.

We'd meet every couple of months, usually just one on one, and I also went to her house parties and got to know all her friends. High points include spending the day in Regent's Park sunbathing by the lake, cycling into Soho and going for an Italian meal, sitting watching the crowds go by, then to a nearby pub. Going for a meal at a fish restaurant, then to a comedy show. Her coming with me to a house party, introducing her to my friends - being glad she could see I had a good crowd, am well-liked, not a weirdo. Whenever I saw her, I was reminded of the "Oh my God" effect she has on me. I'm so happy when I'm with her; I am so on form, so relaxed, and it feels like I'm talking to myself. Every time I've been with her, every time I've looked at her I've been thinking "I'm so in love with you."

She never talked about guys and I never saw her with a boyfriend in the first six years I knew her. If I had seen her with a guy, I wouldn't have been able to keep in touch with her, it would have killed me. The first time she mentioned a guy was last year when we met for drinks on my birthday. To my horror she told me she'd been seeing some guy for a few months. Unhappy birthday. I think she must really have thought I wasn't interested in her at that point. A few months later I finally told her I wasn't gay last summer - as if it wasn't obvious. This didn't seem to cause any damage between us.

I didn't see her in a while since I was away from London. Then by sheer coincidence I found myself living and working round the corner from her flat, which is in a hip part of town. I went to her summer house party, then one time she joined a friend and me in a late-night bar. I was drunk and told her I was still crazy about her. When my friend left I went back to her flat, just talking. She said she'd had a succession of three to six month relationships with guys. I don't know why she never had longer. I didn't notice much reaction to my saying I still liked her - I guess just the usual saying she takes it a compliment while really wanting to ignore it.

She called me up a month later in mid November last year when she'd finished some exams, and we spent the next day together. We went to a gallery, a pub, her house, for a meal with two of my friends, then without them we went to a bar and a club. We got on as fabulously as ever. That was the last time I saw her. I tried inviting her to a couple of things I was doing in the next week but she didn't reply. I tried to see her on NYE but she didn't reply except for a perfunctory happy new year text a couple of days later. I sent her a text saying I was moving out of the area at the end of the month so we should do fun things, I'd like to give her some music, and she didn't reply to that. So it feels like a delayed reaction to my drunkenly telling her I still liked her - it makes her uncomfortable. And when she doesn't reply, it makes me so unhappy. I have to have enough self respect to know I am as attractive as she is, as worthy of her love as she is of mine, and when I think about it I can't bear the thought of her not needing me, not missing me, not enjoying or seeking out my company in the way I do hers.

She's a doctor; I'm a English literature PhD drop-out. She has more money than me, obviously, but together with her responsibilities still leads a young person's lifestyle, going to bars and clubs and parties. She also smokes like you wouldn't believe and can hold her drink. My friends say she probably likes my slightly disreputable bohemian air, being a literary gambler sort with glamorous friends. But I guess girls like her enjoy spending time with degenerate guys like me, before settling down with a nice conventional doctor or lawyer.

It feels like there was an unspoken pact that I wouldn't tell her I love her and she wouldn't tell me she doesn't love me, and I've broken it. Having managed to keep in touch with her for so long, part of me is keen not to do anything at one period of time to jeapordise knowing her in future. I might one day meet some other girl, and be glad of her friendship; or, equally improbably, there might be the When Harry Met Sally ending and we'll get together. But another part of me knows that so long as my definition of happiness involves being with her, I can never be happy. So I should cut her loose forever.

What do you think, 2+2?

Cliff notes: Spent nine years in love with a girl who doesn't love me, who's happy to be friends but won't see me that often, and runs a mile if ever I tell her how I feel.
I should lose touch with her, but she's my favourite person in the world, I'm at my happiest with her. What to do?