Does He Really Like Me or Does He Just Want Sex?

I’m in the Army right now and going through some training for a school and there’s this guy that I really like. It started when my friend and I were walking back from the PX with him and his friend John and he offered to carry my really heavy case of water. I started talking to him on breaks during class and I noticed he was really funny and outgoing with a great personality. My friend happened to be interested in his friend John, so after school we would start going out, all four of us, on long walks around the base. My friend and her guy started progressing a lot faster than it was going with me and this guy, and they would flirt a lot and it made me a little jealous. At this point, it seemed as if he really didn’t care one way or another about me, just as a friend. Well, one night my friend and her guy kissed. That night I sent him an e-mail telling him that I thought he was cute. The next night he seemed just a little bit more friendly. When my friend and her guy stopped to kiss, he and I kept walking. We walked all over the base and through the woods a little bit and finally he ended up putting his arm around me. We ended up stopping and then I kissed him, he ended up taking me into the woods and we made out for a while.

More of my friends started getting guys and so more of us would start going out on group dates together until eventually there were eight people and four couples. I noticed that whenever we went out the other couples would be really affectionate and a lot of hand holding and such, but he wouldn’t really pay any particular attention to me. He has an outgoing personality, as I said, and it seemed more like he would be making jokes to the whole group and making them laugh then paying attention to me.

One night we were all walking and the other couples had been holding hands for a while and it took him at least an hour or more to finally grab my hand.

Then there’s this other girl he is friends with. She is really pretty and very outgoing and loud and energetic. He always talks with her very animatedly and he always seems so excited to see her that whenever I see them together it just makes my heart fall. She already has a boyfriend, but it doesn’t seem to stop them from flirting with each other all the time. He even gave her a nickname that he calls her affectionately all the time. He gave me a nickname too, but he hardly ever calls me it anymore. He’s always smiling really big when he is around her and they are laughing and joking and he just seems so happy when he is with her, I don’t know what to think but that he likes her a whole lot. Today he got really mad when he wasn’t there when she went through his station and he made a big fuss about it.

The eight of us have all gone out to watch movies at the recreation center and we’ll get our own room and all sit together. All the guys will have their arms around their girls, and I noticed he held me when we were sitting on the couch.

Basically, he seems somewhat indifferent to me most of the time. I’m not energetic and outgoing at all like this other girl, and in fact, I am very quiet until people get to know me and then I open up well. That doesn’t mean he ignores me though, he smiles at me when he sees me and we talk a little. But he always seems focused on other people and telling jokes and stuff. He seems like the kind of person who is more interested in talking about himself than finding out about me.

The first time I met him he couldn’t stop talking about all the girls who wanted him when he was with the Navy and all the people he had sex with and it was like he was somehow trying to impress me with that information, like that would make me feel better about him.

I’m beginning to think that he is really just interested in sex out of me and that as far as a relationship goes it’s nothing special to him. My friend told me that her guy John who is good friends with him told him that he wants me to make the first move. But I would much rather he did, that way I would know if he was really interested in me to make the first move or not.

Then he confided in my recently that he hadn’t had sex in over a year and he didn’t want me to tell anyone because it would hurt his “manly pride”. He also told me he has a son with an ex-girlfriend who he is not with anymore and that he was afraid that if his friend John who is dating my friend found out anything was really going on with us he was afraid he might accidentally let something slip infront of his ex and she would take the baby and run-off. I’m not sure how this information factors into the whole scenario. His friend John is good friends with him back at home and is dating my friend now and is one of the ones we go on the group dates with.

I just don’t know what to think! Basically, I’m thinking his indifferent attitude means that’s how he really feels about me. I don’t want to go out of my way for him, even though he told his friend he wanted me to make the first move, I would rather he came to me. But I am beginning to think that is not going to happen. It’s really hard because I have to see him everyday in class and I have to see him talking to this girl all the time. She even comes back to the barracks at night and she sleeps next to me then she will tell me something about them and I just try to laugh and make it sound like I think it is amusing, but it really hurts me inside. She knows that we are together, but maybe she thinks it’s just innocent what she says. Afterall, she is dating another guy. I just can’t control the pain it causes me though. The way he acts around her is the way I wished he acted with me. But I am afraid I just don’t click with him the way they do together. I know there’s not much I can do about it if we just don’t click, but I want to know if I should try to pursue a relationship or is it just not worth my time?