staying friends with a female who rejected me, but begged me to stay friends with her twice after leading me on by saying I'm the perfect guy...

,she has always found me attractive, and she wants to find someone as good as me...To top it off, she's started to date other guys after saying she still only has feelings for her ex which was her reason that she didn't want to date or mess around. I'm happy she's healing, but the emotional cost to me has been unbearable for some time now and has lead to unhealthy coping habits. Not to mention I'm now training her at the gym and she constantly keeps in contact online and wants to hang out...but only when it's convenient for her. What would you do in this situation?

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SW-User

She wants to be your friend. No more. Where’s the probelm? She gave you a compliment when she said you were perfect and attractive.

Jester · 31-35, M

@SW-User As much as I appreciate the compliment, it complicates things since I always had a crush on her, but didn't act on it out of respect for her relationship. Three months after her ex-dumped her she asked me out on a date which went extremely well until the romantic gestures started to remind her of her ex (she ended up telling me this later on after we became friends). Not to mention the poor dear ended up asking me, "how long does it take to move on from a long-term relationship because she really wanted to" about an hour into our date. 2/3 into the date (was about 5 hours long) after sharing a lot of laughs and having fun she turned cold and wanted to go home. I called her a couple of days later to apologize if I came on too strong and to tell her I wanted to be there for her (I would never leave anyone to suffer alone because I know how horrible it is) even if it was only as a friend (this still makes me feel terrible to this day, because in hindsight I feel like I deceived her by telling her this). Honestly, I think we both wanted everything to work, but trying to be "just" her friend when she's constantly praising me and I have a crush on her was brutal and eventually lead to me trying to push for more while trying to balance being sensitive to her getting over her ex. We eventually became extremely close and my low self-esteem + other suitors who found her attractive and vice versa started to get the best of me. I wanted her to show me some sort of affection so I knew she was committed to me(I realized this was asking a lot since she was coming out of an on again off again 6-year relationship) to some extent and that I wasn't giving her all of my time in vein (far beyond what I would give to any of my other friends {time, travel, money, food, gym membership, being her personal trainer] even though I love all of them and have been there for them during difficult times) while she was just using me until she healed and could move on.