Submitted by Julie, Age 29, Boston, MA

I met Richard in college. We hit it off right away and were good friends from the start, but never more (one of us always seemed to be in a relationship, and frankly, dating him never really crossed my mind). In fact, as he was a pretty shy guy, I occasionally set up dates for him with other girls!

After we graduated, we both moved to New York, where we ended up seeing each other nearly every weekend. One Friday night, I was out with him and a bunch of his friends, and we ended up back at his apartment. We often stayed at each other’s places – we were friends, after all, it was “no big deal,” as I often told my skeptical girlfriends – and, as usual, I ended up crashing on his futon around 2am. Sometime around 3 or 4, I decided, screw being friends, I really liked him, and more importantly, I wanted to get laid. So I crawled into his bed, told him I was “cold” and got under the covers. (Most of us girls have used this line at some point – guys, if a girl gets in your bed and tells you she’s cold, chances are she wants to hook up. If she was actually cold, she would just ask if you could lend her a blanket.)

I don’t remember his exact response, though it had something to do with me being pretty and him being glad I was there. I should point out here that I am a pretty big moron when it comes to guys – I never read the signals right – so, seeing as we were “just friends,” I decided he couldn’t possibly mean anything by it. Despite his shyness, if he was really interested, I thought, he would actually make a move.

Needless to say, he didn’t, and we spent the next 5 hours lying next to each other, wide awake and not touching. We’re still friends, but I’ve never had the opportunity to throw myself at him again, and considering how miserably I failed the first time, I probably never will.