Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : I'm not sure how to start these things, so I'll start from the beginning. Certain details, including names, have been modified or omitted for the sake of anonymity. I've also omitted my personal thoughts at the time, choosing to summarize them at the end. The post is rather long, so please bear with me.

I (19M) had been doing this foreign studies program in a certain European country since September of last year. The class consisted of what would be considered "international students" in that country, with at least 90% of the class population originating from China. Due to having lived in that country for eight years of my childhood and one of my parents being Chinese, I was fluent in mandarin. Most of the people doing this program are either taking it as a prerequisite for graduate studies in this country or for occupational purposes. As I was sitting in one of the first lectures of the semester, I noticed a rather attractive Chinese girl (19F) attending the lecture.

I had the opportunity to introduce myself to her the other day when one of my Chinese friends asked me to get him a drink from a vending machine. When I found my friend attending a language class, I noticed the girl that same class. Due to my cultural background, my competence in the language they were learning exceeded the class material. However, I attended the class anyways as a pretext to meet this girl. As we were introducing ourselves, I didn't hesitate to mention my Chinese background. She came up to me after the class and remarked on it. She was impressed by my mandarin fluency, and so we exchanged social media information.

After having multiple conversations with her, I came up with the courage to ask her out on a date. I invited her to come with me to a local park, where there would be a local music concert. We spent the whole day walking in the park, talking about our lives, and learning about each other. We had dinner together, but we split the bill. We were so engrossed in our conversation, that we actually forgot about the music concert and ended up arriving late. It didn't quite matter, since we had a good time anyways. After the concert, I walked her to the bus stop. As we waited for the bus, I pondered whether the night had gone well and whether this girl had same feelings for me as I for her. On one hand, we hadn't had much romantic interaction such as kissing or making out, and she did insist on paying for her own meal. On the other hand, she was willing to spend an enormous amount of time with me, consistently laughed at my jokes, and we did have some sort of physical contact (such as hand-holding, dancing, and hugging). Before the bus arrived, I made a joke that caused her to laugh so hard that she pulled a facial muscle, and ended the night on a good note.

The problems began when I tried to ask her out on a second date. She always seemed to be busy whenever I asked; either she had already made plans, or she didn't sleep well the night before and needed a nap. It was harder to approach her, since I didn't know her friends, but I didn't let that stop me. I decided to get to know her friends, and soon they knew me well enough to include me in their conversations. The girl, however, would still act somewhat distant. At the same time, we would talk quite often on social media, so I wasn't quite sure what was going on. At one point I decided to talk to her in private. I asked her what I had done wrong for her to ignore me. To my surprise, she insisted that she hadn't been deliberately ignoring me, and that I had done nothing wrong. I then asked if she had time to hang out, but she made the excuse that she had slept very late last night and needed to take a nap.

The problems only continued to get worse. She would always insist she was too busy to hang out, yet would also tell me about what she had been doing with friends over the weekend. I decided to consult friends, both hers and mine. My pursuit of her was no secret, for I had been quite open and honest about my feelings since the beginning. When I asked her friends for their opinion on the situation, they told me that the girl was rather shy and really had been busy lately. They also insisted that she genuinely enjoyed spending time with me. My friends, on the other hand, told me that I should give up on her for my own sake. They told me that in Chinese people were extremely indirect when it came to dating culture, unlike me, and that I would be disappointed if I wanted the truth. My friends forced me to consider the possibility that she had no feelings for me, and whether friendship was an option. I decided I'd consider it.

Eventually, I decided to confront her (again) some time in November. I told her that I liked her. No response. That I think she made it pretty clear that she didn't like me back. No response. That she had been ignoring me lately. It was then that she opened her mouth to insist that, once again, she had not been ignoring me lately. She said that she had been busy with studying for the exams we would have to take in order to finish the program, but she genuinely enjoyed spending time with me. She told me that she had never been in a relationship before. I told her that was fine, and that we could just be friends. She promised me that she would definitely be free in February. I then made a point of not bothering her to ask her out. We would continue having conversations, and she told me at one point about how she threw up after drinking 23 shots after going out to eat with friends. While she was supposedly studying for exams.

Eventually we took the exams, and left the country for winter break. When we got back, we were approaching the end of January. As I was talking to her, I asked if she was done with exams. She said yes. I asked if she had free time. She said yes. I asked if she was still down to hang out. It was then that she came up with her worst and last excuse. "It gets cold during winter. My room is really messy, and I feel too lazy to go out."

Let me explain to you what had been going on the whole time in my head. From the very beginning, I was quite clear about my feelings. I introduced myself to this girl because I was interested, asked her out because I liked her, and believed her because I had feelings for her. I had been conflicting internally over these feelings for a long time. Part of me thought that I should take a hint that she wasn't interested, that she didn't owe me her time, and that we would be happier if I gave up on her. The other part of me insisted that if i gave up so easily and didn't trust her, it would trivialize my feelings for her. There were periods of time where I tried to give up, but that would just make me depressed and plunge me into a perpetual state of despair. I liked the me that was in love with her. That me was brighter, happier, and more optimistic. However, I wasn't delusional. I had seriously considered the possibility of just being friends with her. I know many guys complain about the friend-zone^TM , but I thought that if I liked her enough to date her, then I definitely liked her enough to be friends. I felt mature enough to handle a friendship without letting my feelings get in the way. I recognized that her indirectness would make it too frustrating to date her, but we could definitely still be friends.

However, I feel like there is something seriously wrong with the way she had been treating me. I'd understand if she didn't have feelings for me and outright rejected me. I'd understand if she came up with a valid excuse for why she couldn't date me specifically, such as my ethnicity, even if it was completely made-up. However, for her to give me excuses such as "I'm busy with exams", "I promise to hang out in February", or "I'm very lazy during winter" is straight up humiliating. Forget being a couple, even friends wouldn't tell blatantly obvious excuses. For her to tell me these low-effort excuses and then disprove them herself by telling me about hanging out with her friends, it felt like a slap in the face. She doesn't owe me her affection, nor does she owe me her time. But if you tell someone you enjoy spending time with them, that you want to be friends, it's expected that you treat them like a friend, or at least a fellow human being. I've always been direct and completely honest with her, so I do feel like I deserve at least to be treated with the bare minimum of respect. I at least deserve the truth. Friends don't lie to each other, nor do they make each other wait three months for a promise that they'll break later on. I should've made this clear to her long ago about how I felt, but I was too caught up in my happiness at just being around her that I held it in. But after hearing the words "I'm too lazy", I just couldn't.

So I kind of went off on her. I asked her if she really thought I would believe her excuse this time. I asked her if she knew how I felt. I asked her if she wanted to be friends, then why did she treat me this way. I asked her if she thought I deserved an explanation or not. I told her everything that I had been holding in. We didn't get to finish the conversation because we had to go to class, but she promised to call me that night. I told her if she blew me off this time like she did before, I would never forgive her.

She did end up calling me that night. I asked her for an explanation. She told me that she had never been interested in the beginning, and that she didn't know how to tell me. She confessed she lied to me about the deliberate ignoring and the excuses. I asked her if she had considered how I would react to the excuses she gave, she confessed she hadn't and wasn't sure what to do. Then she started breaking down and crying. She told me she didn't know her actions would make me feel this way, and that she hadn't mean