Yikes... she wants to be an 'intimate' friend...?

Argh! more continuing in the saga of a strange relationship.
Brief history: meet amazing woman, date for 3 months, everything is great. We have great talks about future possibilities, etc. Then she needs space to think. I kind of choke up at that and she backs away.

Here we are 8 months later... we've talked a little bit, saw each other a few times - short visits type of things. I routinely invited her to spend more time w/ me to do friend things other than short visits, etc., She never did. Anyway.. we finally got together for some time recently. We talked and really enjoyed each others company.

However.. she isn't interested in a relationship right now she says.. but she would like to have an 'intimate', monogamous friendship with me. At the same time she's dropped little bits into conversations about 'future possibilities' we once talked about.

Should I just enjoy this friendship? Wait things out? Date others while this goes on? Any advice?? I'm confused!

If I were you, I would not pursue a "friends with benefits" kind of thing. 9 out of 10 times, it doesn't work out and people get angry and jealous. What's worse? You lose a good friend and possibly girlfriend in the process.

The problem is that you're in a bad situation because you really like her. If you're going to have a successful "intimate friendship," you need to have absolutely no romantic interest in the person. It should be purely sexual. Once you start playing with romantic feelings and such, things get messy.

I think that if you remain platonic friends and wait for the possibility of a REAL relationship, you'll win in the end. You won't lose someone you care about and you have the potential for starting a great relationship if she changes her mind.

On a personal note: my good friend liked me for 2 years before I actually decided to take it a step further with him. We ended up dating for 5 years. It was a great relationship... unfortunately, our paths could never join once we graduated college and a moved 1500 miles away.