(And, fwiw, I can't possibly imagine college tommyrot, even on his very worst days, coming anywhere within shouting distance of the crazymeltyland of this particular "nice" guy on his very best days.)

Yay!

Also, I've done the "secretly pining for someone but didn't tell her" thing, but when it didn't work out I knew that I only had myself to blame....

It can be more than unfortunate when it doesn't work out the way you'd wished, but you can't love someone into loving you.

Well, occasionally you can, but the key part is that you actually inform the someone of your intent.

I shudder to think of all the time and energy I wasted through high school and college and embarrassingly far beyond with silent pining, trying to make this friend or that love me through the sheer power of my (silent, cryptic, completely passive) mind.

Took me a while to realise that being a hyper passive-aggressive son of a bitch didn't really make me "nice".

I had some of this too. There's a kind of bitterness that comes from feeling like you're being passed over for being "nice" but eventually you have to realize that bitterness and the behavior it inspires stem from emotional immaturity, and it's the latter factor that's a big part of the problem. I had already started to realize it on my own and change my behavior and attitude, but it finally sunk in when I met a guy who reminded me a lot of myself at his age and I could actually see how annoying that behavior was to others.

I shudder to think of all the time and energy I wasted through high school and college and embarrassingly far beyond with silent pining, trying to make this friend or that love me through the sheer power of my (silent, cryptic, completely passive) mind.

It's even worse when, in retrospect, I realize how many REALLY BLATANTLY OBVIOUS openings I was being given, if only I'd had the balls to say something. Thank the gods I met DH early in college and stopped dealing with that bullshit once and for all.

Also, I've done the "secretly pining for someone but didn't tell her" thing, but when it didn't work out I knew that I only had myself to blame....

Been there, done that, realized I was an idiot. (Though the realization really didn't hit until much, much later.)

I've also had the misfortune of pining for someone who did know how I felt, but told me she "couldn't figure out" how she felt and thus strung me on for quiet a while. That was less stupid on my part, but still stupid.

Well, occasionally it can, but the key part is that you actually inform the someone of your intent.

I don't think so. The force of your will is not enough. They do it. You might set up an environment in which it happens, but they do the heavy lifting.

Pining, I'd imagine, is good because it's not embarassing. But you'll probably only get what you want by luck. But no humiliation! Yay!

I don't think I'd ever be the shower-with-flowers sort of a person, not as the first move, but instead of pining I'd prefer to kill the feelings all dead.

There's a middle ground that goes from readable gestures to having the talk that I'd hope scares the beejeezus out of everyone, just because it makes me catch my own breath. It wouldn't be fair if it were easy for lots of people. Yet, it would be sensible.

I realize how many REALLY BLATANTLY OBVIOUS openings I was being given

Oh, fuck yes. Not in the pining department, but in the I'd-rather-not-think-about-it department I managed to miss an opening as obvious as an attempted kiss. I pretended so successfully that it'd never happened that I forgot it for over a decade. I had to be reminded of it by my sister.

Today ita is my favorite!

Does that make her the nicest?

runs away

runs back

He spent years passive-aggressively investing time and energy in a friendship not for its own sake, but for the sake of some emotional payoff he wanted his friend to intuit without his having to risk anything emotionally himself by, you know, saying anything.

Oy, this sounds painfully like someone threw my younger self in a time machine, beamed his ass to the present and gave him access to the Salon letters page. Apart from the lashing out after the object of affection found someone who actually, you know, attempted to engage them on a direct romantic level, that is. Not that the Salon access would have actually made me vent publicly on this sort of thing.

Of course, that was my younger self in high school and very early college. It didn't take more than one or two of these types of "friendships" to clue-stick me into not being a passive-agressive fucktard (or at least trying my damndest not to). Still makes me cringe to have any kind of flashback to that behavior, though.

There's a middle ground that goes from readable gestures to having the talk that I'd hope scares the beejeezus out of everyone, just because it makes me catch my own breath.

It scares the bejeezus out of me, I know that. That's when I feel the most vulnerable. I *hate* feeling vulnerable.

Unrelatedly, someone has finally invented a self-charging smoke detector. It plugs into a light bulb socket. You can shut it up by flipping the light switch.

Also,

Also, I've done the "secretly pining for someone but didn't tell her" thing, but when it didn't work out I knew that I only had myself to blame....

Tommoyrot said what I was trying to say better than I did.