In other words you in this scenario confirmed for her that you weren't really listening, and stared at her awkwardly for 10 solid seconds during a vulnerable moment before disregarding it. She effectively gave you something to work with and you went "Well, moving on now" before talking about what you wanted to talk about.
It does seem pretty bad, doesn't it? But she said it's fine. I feel like it could've gone either way? If I had pressed on after she said it's fine, she could've also gotten annoyed? Don't know. It usually takes me a while to process things.
To be perfectly fair, I'm worried about the wysiati principle. Have you ever heard of Daniel Kahneman's research? Apparently the way our brains work is like a tree-hash table. If you stimulate the negative parts of the brain, everything seems gloomy. If you stimulate the positive parts of the brain, everything seems happy. So I figured she'd just become more depressed by talking about it. But now I'm not so sure. I mainly don't want to talk about my problems because I'm afraid it will make the people around me depressed.
If it fails though it fails, there are literally billions of other people for you to try to make it work with who otherwise have more complimentary traits, better synergy. It's not like you are entitled to her bonding or otherwise trusting you, it's more like reaching out and seeing if anyone bites.
Yeah, but it's also a bit discouraging to see this happen over and over again. It's like playing a movie on loop and there's nothing you can do.
In your shoes I'd probably wait a bit and then apologize for the awkward response, noting how you were caught off guard by it and didn't know what to say to her to relate towards any time she may have had to do something similar when talking to someone else. It offers the room for her to elaborate on anything she may have become more comfortable talking about since thinking over it more and offers the beginning of a timetable for trust to form over a period of time.
That's what I was thinking about, but I felt like it'd make things even more awkward. I felt like talking about something else would lighten the mood.
You seem impatient over the idea of forming a connection. Unless you look for quick company that can legit take months or years, but once earned would likely take just as long to lose it (unless paranoia).
Does it? I think it's quite easy to destroy connections. One slip-up and it's gone.
A 3 probably, you still were there for her physically and if she were more self-absorbed might have kept talking instead of responding awkwardly towards your behavior. If she were the sort of person to prefer distractions this might have ended up the right route to go, but in her case it sounds otherwise, like she wants an intuiter.
I'd give it a 1 if you were outright yelling at her for sharing her story, or stormed off or something.
Thanks for the brownie points.
I'd start with other topics and see if it goes there naturally.
Alright, I'll give it a try. Usually these things go to shit when I don't give a fuck, and they especially go to shit when I do give a fuck.