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.

is all this talk aimed at me? I refuse to believe that being the nicest is anything but positive and awesome and flowers and GOOD.

you all can try to beat me down and tarnish nice, but it will not work. LALALALALALALALALA

LALALALALALALALALA

See? Exactly what I was talking about.

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.

Me no like The Talk. Not even when it turns out well.

Well, duh, msbelle. "The nicest" is categorically very different from "nice."

One is all sunshine and puppies and fluffy crinoline skirts and the freedom to call ita a fluffy bunny and ita bobita without consequences, and is indisputably you; the other is cold rain and unsalted rice cakes and ita killing you with her pinky out of irritation that you expected her to read your mind.

Also, msbelle=the total opposite of passive. You may continue to rest on your laurels of the nicestness.

Project Runway fans: A story about Emmett's new store.