Hello gents (and ladies?),

(tl;dr follows)

I find myself in a peculiar situation regarding a girl that I set my sights on and your advice would be much appreciated.

But first, a disclaimer…

This is my first post on this account, but I am not new to this forum. I used to have an account around 2008-2009, but I can’t remember its details or it was deleted due to inactivity. So, I am not a newbie.
Secondly, the girl I’ve set my sights on is a “one-it is” case from my old AFC days. She just happened to enter my life again by coincidence and I recently started to see her as a potential LTR. I need advice on how to go about it and I will provide all the necessary details to help you help me.

Alright, now that I got the disclaimers out of the way, time to provide you with the…

Background:

1. OK, what follows is a teenage AFC love story, but please bear with me. This girl (let’s call her X) and I were classmates back in highschool, when we were 16. I was new to the school, didn’t know anyone, I was a total and complete AFC, mama’s boy, who was afraid of opening up to anyone (even parents, let alone girls). At the same time, I was clearly the smartest and funniest boy in my class. For whatever reason, she fell in love with me madly, but I couldn’t reciprocate, even though I wanted to, due to my above mentioned shyness. That drove her crazy and even more in love with me, she started pinching me, groping and generally flirting me very aggressively. I still couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than being playful. She finally reached her breaking point towards the end of the school year and “ texted me” (the old fashioned way, i.e wrote on a piece of paper and handed it to me during class) that she wanted to have a relationship with me. I wrote back that “ I will think about it…” or something to that effect. Obviously nothing happened, not even a kiss. Now…no matter how pathetic or laughable I look in the above story, it’s just background information for you to understand the history of my current predicament.

2. Three year passed and for some reason I started to want her really badly, even though we had almost no contact at all (we went to different schools). She became an obsession in my head. Anyway, it became unbearable and I finally found her working as a bartender in a café-bar. I went there with my cousin one day (5 years after our highschool “thing”), hoping she was still into me. She was now a very beautiful woman and started flirting with me again aggressively (hair touching, soft talking, pressing her body against mine, took my cell phone and wrote her number without me asking). When I left that first encounter, my cousin agreed that she was into me and that the IOIs were clear. But then I did some things that killed any attraction she might have felt. I failed to escalate and continued to rely on her to move things forward. I put my cousin to text her about going out (!) and eventually sent him to ask her out (…I know)! That would make any woman lose any attraction instantly, so I don’t blame her. She justified her rejection by telling my envoy that “she was just friendly with old classmates and that I misunderstood her”. Yeah, right. Total bullshit, but I don’t blame her in the slightest.

3. If you managed to read and not laugh, congratulations. What followed from there are a few more years of general AFCness and trying to move one. She was still my "special one” years after the above story, until I discovered the PUA community around 2008, at which point her memory receded more and more in recent years, as a result of my vastly improved sex life.

My current predicament:
11 years later (we are both 31 now)…
Last year I decided to migrate from my home country (Portugal) to study and work in the UK (Southampton). I am here for about a year now and all is well. Last month, I received a phone call from an aunt of mine, sending me greetings on behalf of X. She met her quite by chance, while shopping in my home town, started chatting and found out that she was related to me. She told my aunt to send her my regards and that I was a very nice guy (is that a compliment? lol). Anyway, I sent her a friend request on facebook, which she accepted immediately and we exchanged a few messages, which I will try to translate for you. We arranged to meet in person, when I return to Portugal (in 4 months from now…).

And here is where I need your advice. How to handle these 4 months of distant communication, without blowing it. When/if we meet, I will know what to do, but I have little clue on how to handle 4 months in facebook.

Here are the messages we exchanged so far in facebook.
First contact: Notice that my first comment about his uncle is totally sarcastic, but since she failed to pick that up, it would not be cool to point that out to her!
I didn’t tell her that I am also a student. I chose to reveal that info later, in order to see if she comments on it. So, I announced on my facebook wall that “ exams are over…I say”, with a glaring spelling error, hoping to make her correct me, (since she is a teacher of literature). She did: She then sent me the following private message: That went well I think.
10 days later, I initiate contact again, commenting on a picture she posted on her wall, that transmitted the following pearl of wisdom: “Kindness is so rare today, that many people mistake it for flirting”. Now, maybe she intended it for me, maybe not. Anyway, I sent her the following private message: The above exchange took place a week ago. Since then I refrained from contacting her, save the rare “like” in one of her many posts.

She is very active online, posting (spamming…) quotes and photos about relationships, looooove, “wise” phrases and other girly stuff. I don’t know if I must take them seriously and try to “decode” them, since some of them could be applied to our specific situation or they could be completely irrelevant. Interpreting each item she posts is not healthy or productive, as it all depends on my mood anyway and they could mean nothing at all or intended for some other facebook friend of hers. I think it’s best not to interpret them as specifically applied to me, but use them to learn stuff about her values, character, how she might have changed these 11 years. Things I can use when I finally meet her in person.

One other thing, she has no photos and neither do I, so I don’t know what she looks like now and she doesn't know that I've been vastly improved looks wise. I also don’t know if she has a boyfriend. I suspect she might have, but it’s not serious. I know she is definitely not married. There is a dude in her contact list, whom she shares about 30 facebook pages with, mainly arty stuff. He could be just a gay friend, but he also could be a boyfriend. I don’t care, I am moving forward regardless.

So here is how I intend to handle it from now on.
I will keep contact with her at a bear minimum, maybe send her a message if a suitable opportunity arises, maybe the occasional “like”. But no more than that. I will try to escalate in the last two weeks before I return to Portugal, to prepare the ground for our meeting. When I meet, I know how to approach her. Basically, our history together permits me to be totally open about “us”. I will talk about the past and how it relates to the present in an open, honest, direct, manly way. No games, we‘re 31. If she plays games, she will lose.

So, if you managed to read it, thank you. Any advice, criticism, comment on the matter will be greatly appreciated. As I said, she is my target for the next 4 months. If we end up together…great! If not, I will start chasing other women to finally put her behind.

Thanks for reading!
Sir Ian

No replies? Perhaps my post was too long, so here is a summary:

Former, long time oneitis from highschool entered my life 11 years later, quite by chance. We exchanged a few facebook messages and arranged to meet in person 4 months from now, when I return to Portugal (currently living in the UK).
My problem is that I am not exactly sure how to handle these 4 months of facebook interaction and I need advice on that. I have a better idea of how to handle the actual meeting, but advice is welcome on that matter too. I also provided translations of our messages for you to comment.

Cheers!

Hey Ian,

It looks like you're going fine. Just talk to her on fb however often you feel like doing so. It doesn't really matter, as long as a meeting is arranged. You're over thinking. We all do it from time to time haha.

Best of luck.

_________________
Because why tip-toe safely through life, just to arrive safely at death.

Hey Intelligence, thanks for the advice! I probably am overthinking, it's just that I don't want to mess this up (end up in friendzone before meeting her), if I can.