I need some advice. I’ve been talking to a girl I really like for about a week now. We’ve told each other things that we haven’t told more than a handful of people; we’ve both acknowledged the amazing connection, both spiritual and personal, that we have; she’s told me outright that she thinks I’m great. That said, she isn’t ready to get into another relationship yet. And that’s okay with me. I’m helping her with some things, mostly anxiety and self-confidence issues related to her last relationship. My question is, when is it appropriate to expect we might be able to transition to being in a real relationship? Maybe this sounds cheesy, but I fell in love with her the first time we talked. I just want to know what course of action to take now. I need to balance really caring about her with not screwing anything up.

Expectations are a bitch. Has anyone ever said that? Like, should I toss that in quotes with a - Ben Franklin after it or can I claim it as my own? Is there a quote registry out there somewhere? I definitely have a lot I want on record before some sub-ape simultaneously thinks them up. The collective hive is another bitch, and bitches will get their paws all over your thinking if you don’t do something about it. Worst part is: they don’t even know they are doing it because hive boundaries are fuzzy business, so when you do kick their ass, it won’t feel good. In fact, it’ll leave you feeling paranoid and pathetic, like getting in a time machine and finding the guy in the future who your wife cheats on you with, and kicking his ass in the “now” time before he does it. That’s what I’m talking about.

What I’m really talking about are your expectations of where this is going to eventually go. Because you’re at a crossroads here and there are two dusty trails ahead of you:

A. You continue to tell her how you feel while at the same time expressing that you can wait and all that sensitive stuff. You put your time in as “friend” with a gentle reminder every so often about what your true intentions are. This is really important, because if you fail and she chooses to forget, or deny them, which girls are really good at doing, you might end up at…

B. You nurse the bird back to health, all the while mistaking the bond that happens between the nursing and the nursed as a true intimate connection, until one day when little birdy is well enough to stand on her own two feet, flap her wings and fly away with some passing hawk. After all, what did you expect when handling wildlife?

Do you see what I’m saying? The last thing you can do is try to downshift to friend mode until it’s time to pounce, because she’ll be gone before that. You also can’t smother her with evenings of crying at the foot of her bed about her love being the breath that fills your lungs, while unintentionally adding the touch of your gasping, breathless sobs for dramatic effect. There’s a sweet spot somewhere in there that you need to stylistically ride like a winning camel jockey in Dubai.

But, truthfully, I’m not a big believer in the “I’m just not ready yet” line. I can see not being ready to date and dinner and “see what happens.” But if it’s intense connection being separated only by the close proximity of a past relationship? I just don’t really buy it. Every relationship has a get-over time that is directly proportional to how rad the new person is. It’s an abstract mathematical formula sprinkled with reckless, under-cooked, ape theory. The only thing you need to worry about is that your intentions are somewhere on the table, even if they are buried by junk-mail and old receipts. If there isn’t even a possibility of her being into it in the future, better to find out now than when she just has to “…introduce you to this great new guy, Bob. I told him all about you and how much you’ve helped me to get back on my feet and if it wasn’t for you, the love, passion and sex -OMG, the sex – between me and him would have never been able to happen!”

You feel that burn? I know, it hurts. So don’t be a Tigger, because no one likes to get pounced unless they were hoping to get pounced. What? Exactly. And most of all, never underestimate a girls ability to downshift into friend mode while you were sleeping shotgun, because if you do it’s almost guaranteed you’ll wake up flipped over in the ditch of love.