Personal / dating / whatever life situation general advice thread

[gol4pro]

Dating advice question;

I was dating a girl for the last month, and at first everything was awesome. It is definitely my tendency to at first be really attractive and in control, and over time become a wuss.

Last week, we had a talk. Essentially, she said that she feels like I've become a friend to her. I know some of this has to do with my wussy-like behavior of late, but there are other complicating issues. She had a really hard childhood and is really close with her family as a result-- college (we are both freshman) is the first time she has ever been away from them and it has been really hard on her. Furthermore, since she always took care of her younger brother and sister, she is not used to people caring about her and it's hard for her. Emotionally, she has a lot of guy-like qualities like she tries to take care of things on her own, she does not trust people easily, etc.

I'm convinced she has started to see me as a friend for 2 reasons;

1) The family thing sort of forced me to act more like a friend than a boyfriend-- she needed someone to talk to, so I was there.
2) I have acted like a wuss of late
3) I have acted like a wuss of late
4) I have stopped doing non-wuss things like poking fun at her and calling her out when she's being ridiculous.

Essentially, I stopped doing the things that attracted her to me, and started being a friend. We're technically not dating right now, but the way we left it was we'll see how it goes after everything is sorted out with her family. Honestly, I'm not sure she needs to be in a relationship at the present moment. She's seeing her family this weekend (through tuesday, we're on break), so these next 2 weeks back are going to be very important in determining which direction this goes.

I can also report that the situation is improving. We're back to flirting like we used to, so that has to be a plus. I'm not used to taking a long time to get over break ups (usually less than a week), but I actually decided that she would be worth fighting for, so I'm not giving up on it quite yet. So as far as getting her back goes, I figure there are a couple ways I can go.

1) Act like I'm just meeting her for the first time, and be myself (girls generally like me at first because I like to make fun of people in a nice way).
2) Go the "serious" route and talk about it with her. This seems -EV, but I'm not so sure about option #1 either. However, if I do go this route, I think it's very important that I maintain CONTROL and do not become a wussy as I have the last couple weeks.
3) Keep going the direction we have been the last couple days, with flirting, etc. The hope would be that it naturally develops back into a relationship.