iyuil

First post, long time lurker. Relationship related and long-winded, so disinterested parties need not read further. Too much stuff in my mind, but I'll try and be concise.

Been talking to a girl online for more than a year, she is less thana year younger than me, lives in China, and was introduced to me by her older cousin who is a very good buddy of mine. As is the case of modern chinese culture, cousins are very close due to the fact that they're the closest thing we have to proper siblings (due to the one child policy). That being the case, I was initially quite cautious in my interactions with her.

It wasn't long before she would always be talking to me on MSN, it was like she had endless stuff to say and I generally always reply to people unless I'm too busy or I really don't like them. I remained very careful and was somewhat cold and indifferent in my attitude towards her since I was sensing that things weren't exactly normal. Fast forward a few months and she would be constantly trying to find ways to log onto MSN (which is not the standard instant messaging program over there). She would be signing on from school, risking heavy penalties since their teaching environment is quite a lot more strict. There was even once, right after a huge blizzard, she walked 2 hours to an Internet cafe because "only they had MSN installed". So I tell her to not do anything like that just to talk to me, and she immediately realises her error and claims that she just wanted to watch some TV shows (forgetting that she could do just that at any other internet cafe).

That was also around the time she tells me she had a romantic interest in someone. She was very cryptic about it, saying stuff like "but I know it's impossible", "I really can't tell you who it is," and "It's probably better to maintain current status [with him]." Mind you, the only other guy that we both know is her cousin...

During that time her mood seemed rather down, so I decided that was enough and I couldn't let this drag on any further. I tell her she cannot like me, that whatever she's feeling is just a temporary thing and will pass soon enough and she'll feel really stupid about it later on. I did not foresee that she would go completely nuts at me, telling me how disappointed she was in me, and that she had never like me in the first place. I wasn't convinced and somewhere along in the heated discussion I suggested we cut off contact. So she backs off and claims she just recently started seeing someone, hence I have nothing to worry about. At that point there was little chance of me buying it, and besides, I tell her that since she has a bf she shouldn't be talking to me so much (with all the time she spent on me, I wondered if the hypothetical bf was getting anything from her at all). So in the end I cut off communications anyway.

And I immediately felt like utter crap. It felt like I just lost something important. I had to stick to my word though. But it was a lot more difficult than I imagined, and I had to admit to myself that I missed her. Therefore, I was downright relieved when we started talking again recently (after about a month). Things went back to normal pretty much instantly, and nothing was ever mentioned of the previous incident, as if it never happened. I find this troubling, but at the same time have no idea what to do about it. I was too damned glad to be hearing her voice again, but there's also an immense feeling of guilt.

I keep struggling to refuse to like her, it just does not feel like the proper thing to do given my friendship with her cousin. There's also the councious part of my brain that keeps telling me I know better, and I probably should. This is a girl whom I've never met in real life, and if I were to look at someone else in the same situation, I would definitely call them downright 'stupid'. I can definitely understand if all of you feel that way about me. Yet every time I speak to her, I know she's something special, she's in fact the type of girl I want (took me a while to admit that too).

But here's the thing, we talk something like 4 hours on weekend nights. I simply cannot allow this to continue without clarifying things, yet I am stuck with my moral dilema, while also questioning my own sanity at the same time. If you actually read all this, I commend you for you patience and thank you in advance for anything, advise or otherwise, you have to say. I'm a very confused man, and that is not a very common state for me to be in.