After getting her number, call only to make a date – do not attempt to chat with her yet. Before the first date is over, ask to see her again but do not expect to actually make plans. If she tells you to call her the next day, wait two days before calling her to make plans for a second date – again, do not attempt to chat; call only to make plans. The second date should be her choice, but preferably something that doesn’t allow the two of you much time alone together. Wait until after at least two dates before letting her know you’re interested in her. Then, if you seem too interested, she won’t be interested in you, or if you don’t seem interested enough, she’ll be insulted. Also be polite, but remember that if you are too polite or not polite enough she will not want to continue dating her. If you are able to keep up the exact level of apparent interest and civility that she is looking for for at least two or three weeks, you’re probably ‘dating’, but unless absolutely necessary don’t ask.
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WHAT!?!?!?
I suppose that under the right circumstances, with practice and training, I might be able to do something like this. I tend definitely to fall into the ‘overdoing it’ camp, though. I’m not sure I know how to ask someone for a phone number without letting her know I’m interested in her. It would be hard for me to have someone I was interested in getting to know on the line and not talk to them. It’s hard for me to believe that a relationship would work where after half a dozen dates when I thought (or verified) that I was dating someone exclusively, I suddenly began to show them my actual level of interest in and attraction to them which I had been falsely representing for the first several weeks; am I supposed to keep pretending I’m not as interested as I am, and if so, for how long? How is this healthy?
I AM a smothering person. Am I missing something here? Am I supposed to be someone other than myself indefinitely, or is there some magical point where I’m allowed to start behaving the way I naturally do?
I am handicapped though, by my life’s circumstances. I don’t typically leave the property in Pine (except to get the mail) five times in two or three weeks. I don’t have a real income source to ‘pay for everything’ on dates. I don’t have ready transportation to even meet for dates.
…Erg…
The whole thing must be an improbable dream I have, with no connection to the reality I’m living. Some of it could have been possible in the years in between, when I was living in the middle of an urban center, earning money… but even then I didn’t really have much in the way of transportation. I think … probably if it had occurred to me how important a connection people seem to make between one’s vehicular availability and whether or not they will even consider someone romanticly … if I had known how the cost of a car and gas and maintenance and insurance and all that goes with that related to my ability to begin and maintain relationships … I might have wanted a car at 16 like everyone else. Something about it … didn’t make sense to me … mostly still doesn’t … that people tend to decide not to bother getting to know people who use means of transportation alternate to personally owned motor vehicles.
(Or people who are interested in them, for that matter…)
Are these the ‘valuable skills’ I never picked up? Dishonesty and misrepresentation and guessing games? Should I just go get that book on ‘the rules‘ and memorize it, even though it goes against what my heart and mind tell me is right? Why can’t I tell someone I’m interested in that I’m interested in them? Why can’t I open up to someone about who I am and where I’ve been and how I feel and what I want without violating some imagined boundary? Without upsetting or offending or scaring off somebody? Not because something I am or somewhere I’ve been or something I’ve felt was scary, offending, or upsetting, but the fact that I was honest and open about it was.
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I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. Maybe that’s why I never ‘let myself’ experience the ‘dating scene’ for very long … it seems like the ‘scene’ isn’t about healthy human interaction but manipulation, dishonesty, and games-playing. I just want intimacy, companionship, and happiness in an open, honest environment. I’m not desperate, I’m just interested. Actually, just having looked up desperate at dictionary.com, I am ‘extremely intense’, definition number seven. I don’t know. I’m getting sleepy. My head aches. I don’t want to face a world where I have to play mind games to reach companionship.
Why doesn’t the rest of the world believe in honesty?