How does one behave on a 'second date'?

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kraftiekortie
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28 Mar 2015, 10:15 pm

I sense that she wants to take things slowly.



Outrider
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28 Mar 2015, 10:51 pm

Yeah...agreed...



AngelRho
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29 Mar 2015, 5:07 am

Outrider wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
Cool!

If she strokes your hand or something, I would stroke it back, and perhaps kiss the hand.

Otherwise, when you have the inevitable urges, just think to yourself: "Whoa there, Trigger!"

I think having a substantive discussion about the movie is much more valuable than getting a little "tongue action."


I was actually wondering if I should go a bit further and start touching her more.

I was thinking of maybe holding her hand.

Like I said, you get back, you see her regularly for a month, you give a try THEN. Not NOW.

And there are no accidents. These are the kinds of things when you do it, you do it on purpose.

You're going to reach a point a couple of months from now where it's time to "put up or shut up." In other words, sooner or later you're going to have to make your intentions known. Trying to hold her hand is actually a pretty big first step, and not one that most people will find threatening. There are more invasive ways of making physical contact. If someone says "um, NO…" to hand-holding, it's a lot easier to save face from trying something like that than it is to recover from going for a kiss and getting slapped down (literally or figuratively).



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29 Mar 2015, 6:08 am

Update: *Sigh*, she's one smart cookie, I'll give her that.

How foolish and naive of me.

Of all the people who would be very good at reading between the lines and picking up the behavior of others, an author would probably someone VERY skilled at it.

Well, we went to the movies together.

And, afterwards we went to sit down and hang out at a local restaurant.

While getting our drinks and sitting down, I kept trying to ask her to see me again next Tuesday.

She said she had to tell me something. She said it was the 'awkward part'.

She started to realize my feelings for her the second time I saw her.

At the start of the 'second date', I remember I said to her "When two people go out together on a DATE or a hangout, I think the asker is the one who should do the paying."

I thought little of this when I said it, but she quickly picked up the idea that I might not see our little 'hangout's' as just hangouts but actual dates.

She really did see our 'hangouts' as just that - hangouts.

But she recognized the fact that I considered them and implied them to be dates.

She tells me she mentioned how she was bisexual the second date to try and drive me away. She also knew the fact that I hugged her also indicated my feelings for her.

Anyway, here are some of the details:

You wanna know the exact details? Start to finish?

We had watched the movie and then she needed to find an ATM at the shopping centre.

It was closed so we decided to just go to Mcdonald's.

We were going to go after the movie we just had to find the ATM first.

Once we got to Macca's I bought her a coke and we sat down.

I kept trying to ask her if she would like to go out again sometime, say Tuesday to mcdonald's to have another coffee.
She needed to tie her shoe and kept saying "Okay, sorry but this is the awkward part. Are you ready? This is my warning to you, but, yeah. It's the awkward part" and stuff like that.

She said:
"I'm not really that oblivious (blind), and, I know what you're trying to do. And...honestly...I've just got to say...you're a great guy and all and I've had a lot of fun with you (lists all the things she likes about me and the fun we've had) but...I'm just not interested. You've caught the wrong girl. I want a girlfriend right now. But! Guess what! I can help you get a gf now from now on! Literally you ever need help with talking to girls and stuff come to me (blah blah blah).

So, yeah. Hey. (which is her way of trying to calm things down)."

She literally tried jumping into the next thing to talk about but I wouldn't have any of it.

I mostly kept my sad feelings inside but still made it really g0ddamn clear that yes, I am hurting inside.

We talked about it after for a long while at least 5 minutes we said many different things that I don't want to type in.
But there were some interesting things she said like

"I was in her scope" (at the start of the year out of all the guys in our classes she did notice me and thought I was kind of cute and other things like that. She basically said yes she did notice me and thought I was one of the attractive boys in her class).

She also said there's different 'zones'.

Friendzone being just friends, the 'Potential/possible boyfriend zone' and the 'I barely know you, I've only ever met you like 6 times before zone' and said I AM still in the possible boyfriend zone and still will be there but she just likes girls right now and wants a girlfriend more. Like I said she's bisexual but prefers females right now and isn't looking for a boyfriend.

Apparently I'm "yeah still just in that zone but like, I like girls right now so yeah."

I agreed we will be friends for now but y'know what she said: she agreed in the future if she ever started wanting a boyfriend again then maybe just maybe then yeah i might be a possiblity again.

She basically said "I'm looking for a GIRLFRIEND right now, sorry. But in the future when I want a boyfriend again, you're not an instant no, but a maybe".

I tried to convince her if she ever wanted a boyfriend again to make sure Im at the top of her list, but I couldn't and we both just agreed on a 'maybe, who knows'.

We were walking and talking then to our families where they wanted to meet us and we talked about other people noticing us and thinking we love each other.

And she also she said there were some boys she would be just friends with for a long time but still ended up being their girlfriend and said there is still the possibility/potential that I could be there.

Apparently she was friends with this one boy for 3 years before they become boyfriend and girlfriend and had begun a relationship together.

I.

AM.

STUCK.

What do I do NOW?

You could just say "She only wants to be friends, you need to get over her and stop loving her and only be her friend." but she admitted that I still have a chance, she just prefers women right now...

And she wasn't just being 'polite' either to hurt my feelings less.

She is a very honest girl when it comes to these sort of things and I can just tell she was telling the truth. I asked her several times if she really did mean that, that I am still in the 'possible boyfriend' zone and still might be in the future and that there is still some hope in the 'distant future' that we might end up together if she wants to get a boyfriend again and she said yes and that she really was being 100% true and honest when she said that.

So...WHAT DO I DO?

My ideas:

1. Never talk to her again...But, she really is a good friend and I would like to be friends with her.

2. Get rid of any romantic feelings for her i have and keep things purely platonic?

3. Keep my romantic feelings (but hide them) or just don't get rid of my romantic feelings completely and wait for when my moment to come back in and try and start dating her again in the future?

4. ??? Remain persistant and go above and beyond to win her heart (but it's a bad idea. I should be able to accept she likes girls more right now and is looking for a girlfriend)...

5. Remain friends and see if things can still develop naturally in the future. Who knows. Maybe 6 months from now we could still be friends, start hanging out a little more and naturally progress into a relationship?

6. What YOU suggest?

But what do you suggest I do?

EDIT:

I just wanted to add, that my suspicions were TRUE. I kept asking myself "Does she know my feelings for her or is she at least starting to think about just what my feelings for her are" and she really did.

She really did start to realize my feelings for her the second time I saw her...

What's sad is I wasn't overthinking things...



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29 Mar 2015, 7:28 am

There's one good thing that came out of all this - things went almost EXACTLY as I had planned them too, aside from her telling me she knows how I feel and having to reject me without hurting me.

My plan, from the very start, was:

1. To get to know her a bit better and talk to her more.
2. To ask her out to coffee to get to know her better.
3. Once she said yes, we would have went out to coffee.
4. To agree on a second time to see each other.
5. My plan was to start to show her my feelings without being too direct. I wanted her to start thinking about if I have feelings for her or not. I wanted her to start watching my behavior in the future to figure out if I do have feelings for her or not. I also wanted her to start thinking about my qualities and traits and start to make a judgement on who I am and my character so that she could decide if I was possible boyfriend material. This all happened, and exactly how I thought it would.

The only thing that didn't go according to plan was her admitting that she knows how I feel an rejecting me now instead of later. :oops:

I'm not taking it too badly, though. I'm feeling better now, but still. I still love her... :heart:

And my idea is number 3 tbh.

I won't be able to just stop loving her. It's so strong.

Like I said I might be able to weaken my feelings to 10% at the most but it will never get any lower than that.

And as soon as I get the chance that 10% is going to jump to 10,000% and I will not stop to win her heart.

Or should I just go with number 5? Keep hanging out purely as friend for the next 2-3 months and see if things CAN progress naturally?

AngelRho, where are you to give me an entire novel of advice?

Did you say 2 months is the maximum, or 3?

I have only been speaking to her for about 1 month and 5 days, so I still have around 2 months of time to just keep seeing her a friend and let things progress naturally, if that's possible anymore/at this point?



Jono
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29 Mar 2015, 10:50 am

So, she doesn't want to date you at the moment because she's looking to date other girls. I'm sorry but you can't do anything if the other person isn't interested. The good news is that she still sees you as a potential boyfriend if she becomes interested in dating guys again. However, my suggestion is don't wait for her but at the same time, don't break off the friendship just because she hasn't agreed to be your girlfriend either. For the time being, look for other girls to date and and potentially become your girlfriend. The good thing about remaining friends with this girl even while you're looking for other people as potential girlfriends is that she knows that you trouble with talking to girls and dating and she offered to give you advice on that if you ask her.



DailyPoutine1
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29 Mar 2015, 11:04 am

Outrider wrote:

So...WHAT DO I DO?

My ideas:

1. Never talk to her again...But, she really is a good friend and I would like to be friends with her.

2. Get rid of any romantic feelings for her i have and keep things purely platonic?

3. Keep my romantic feelings (but hide them) or just don't get rid of my romantic feelings completely and wait for when my moment to come back in and try and start dating her again in the future?

4. ??? Remain persistant and go above and beyond to win her heart (but it's a bad idea. I should be able to accept she likes girls more right now and is looking for a girlfriend)...

5. Remain friends and see if things can still develop naturally in the future. Who knows. Maybe 6 months from now we could still be friends, start hanging out a little more and naturally progress into a relationship?

6. What YOU suggest?

But what do you suggest I do?

I'd go with 5 or 2



AngelRho
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29 Mar 2015, 1:29 pm

DailyPoutine1 wrote:
Outrider wrote:

So...WHAT DO I DO?

My ideas:

1. Never talk to her again...But, she really is a good friend and I would like to be friends with her.

2. Get rid of any romantic feelings for her i have and keep things purely platonic?

3. Keep my romantic feelings (but hide them) or just don't get rid of my romantic feelings completely and wait for when my moment to come back in and try and start dating her again in the future?

4. ??? Remain persistant and go above and beyond to win her heart (but it's a bad idea. I should be able to accept she likes girls more right now and is looking for a girlfriend)...

5. Remain friends and see if things can still develop naturally in the future. Who knows. Maybe 6 months from now we could still be friends, start hanging out a little more and naturally progress into a relationship?

6. What YOU suggest?

But what do you suggest I do?

I'd go with 5 or 2

@Outrider: I have very limited time today. Let me just say I'll get back to you in more depth possibly tomorrow. In the meantime, for now I'm going to have to agree with Daily.

See…this exact situation was what I was worried about. Mostly your problem is you can't emotionally handle relationships, so you lose patience and jump the gun. YOU NEED TO STOP. If you actually followed my advice, as in ALL of my advice, you wouldn't have this problem. Take some time off. Give yourself a week or two off from thinking about girls…ANY girls…and start back at square one. You're committing suicide in slow motion, and I dislike having my username attached to this.

Like I said, I'll get back to you in more detail later. I don't think you're all bad. But we need to pick your situation apart, assess what went wrong, and formulate a strategy for moving forward. Most importantly, I warned you about this early on, so you can't say you didn't see it coming. In a nutshell, you can't MAKE someone have feelings for you. All you can do is just enjoy the time you get with someone. This was a situation that was pretty much doomed from the beginning, and you need to reevaluate how you think about dating and relationships. Let me get back to you tomorrow and I'll try to be more helpful, because dwelling on the negatives with you right now won't do you one bit of good.



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29 Mar 2015, 5:13 pm

AngelRho wrote:
DailyPoutine1 wrote:
Outrider wrote:

So...WHAT DO I DO?

My ideas:

1. Never talk to her again...But, she really is a good friend and I would like to be friends with her.

2. Get rid of any romantic feelings for her i have and keep things purely platonic?

3. Keep my romantic feelings (but hide them) or just don't get rid of my romantic feelings completely and wait for when my moment to come back in and try and start dating her again in the future?

4. ??? Remain persistant and go above and beyond to win her heart (but it's a bad idea. I should be able to accept she likes girls more right now and is looking for a girlfriend)...

5. Remain friends and see if things can still develop naturally in the future. Who knows. Maybe 6 months from now we could still be friends, start hanging out a little more and naturally progress into a relationship?

6. What YOU suggest?

But what do you suggest I do?

I'd go with 5 or 2

@Outrider: I have very limited time today. Let me just say I'll get back to you in more depth possibly tomorrow. In the meantime, for now I'm going to have to agree with Daily.

See…this exact situation was what I was worried about. Mostly your problem is you can't emotionally handle relationships, so you lose patience and jump the gun. YOU NEED TO STOP. If you actually followed my advice, as in ALL of my advice, you wouldn't have this problem. Take some time off. Give yourself a week or two off from thinking about girls…ANY girls…and start back at square one. You're committing suicide in slow motion, and I dislike having my username attached to this.

Like I said, I'll get back to you in more detail later. I don't think you're all bad. But we need to pick your situation apart, assess what went wrong, and formulate a strategy for moving forward. Most importantly, I warned you about this early on, so you can't say you didn't see it coming. In a nutshell, you can't MAKE someone have feelings for you. All you can do is just enjoy the time you get with someone. This was a situation that was pretty much doomed from the beginning, and you need to reevaluate how you think about dating and relationships. Let me get back to you tomorrow and I'll try to be more helpful, because dwelling on the negatives with you right now won't do you one bit of good.


At the same time, a lot of what happened wasn't intentional at all.

I did follow your advice - just keep seeing her as two people, two friends hanging out. And I was going to continue doing this.

Yesterday and Tuesday were going to be the last few times I hung out with her before a two week break, and then to pick things back up again.

Well, she's a whole lot more perceptive than that.

It's best this all happened now, instead of later.

She realized my feelings early on and instead of wasting my time by continuing to see each other and allowing things to naturally progress into a relationship, she had to honestly admit she just isn't interested in a relationship with ANY male right now.

It's not even me specifically here she's saying no to. She didn't say "No, I am not interested in YOU", she said "I am interested in women right now, but you're still in that 'possible boyfriend' zone".



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29 Mar 2015, 11:28 pm

Jono wrote:
So, she doesn't want to date you at the moment because she's looking to date other girls. I'm sorry but you can't do anything if the other person isn't interested. The good news is that she still sees you as a potential boyfriend if she becomes interested in dating guys again. However, my suggestion is don't wait for her but at the same time, don't break off the friendship just because she hasn't agreed to be your girlfriend either. For the time being, look for other girls to date and and potentially become your girlfriend. The good thing about remaining friends with this girl even while you're looking for other people as potential girlfriends is that she knows that you trouble with talking to girls and dating and she offered to give you advice on that if you ask her.


I just have no interest in other girls.

This girl is very unique, one of a kind. She has grown up aroundpeople with aspergrs as wel, she is understanding and considerate.

Some girls/wome reject you cruelly and harshly, or LIE to you to not hurt your feelings.

She was brutally honest but considerate.

That's why it hurts so much - she is the 1 in 10,000 out there. Almost no onewould be this considerate in trying to say no.

Other girls? No...I really just cannot do that and the very idea of it makes me sick to the stomach.

You might say my standards are high, but there's a reason forthat

In the past I chased after so many women. All kinds. Yet they all treated me the same way. They were all equally as cruel as the last or overly-polite to the point that they did not want to hurt my feelings instead of being honest wit me.

I know that any other female and I will just encounter the same problems.

Yea, sure, I have a nice girl who can help me talk t girls now and give me advice.

Big f*ckin' whoop.

It's like telling someone "I won't get you a birthday present, but oh, hey, you know what, I'll help you get our OTHER friend a present."

I know she was trying t lighten the rejecton but that doesn't help.

She literally rejected me then immediately tried t say "Oh but hey if you canthave me Ill help ya get someone else!"

I'm not going to lie to myself - it doesn't realy make yyou feel any better when someone says something like this and I still feel fairly miserable. In fact, I honestly felt kind of insulted/angry at HER. I couldn't help it. I'm an aspie ad even I know that's a a55holish thing to say to someone immediately after you reject them.

Like I said, it really is like telling someone "I am not interested in you.BUT HEY! You know what?! I can help YOU get a girlfriend from now on if you ever need help!!"

Why can't it be you? What, you're uninterested in me, but so eager to help me? It pi55ed me off inside.

I do agree with not 'waiting' for her, but also continuing to be her friend.

However, that is how I really feel.

I'll never get over her. I might be able to get rid of MOST of my feelings but there will always be a 10%. And, the second I get the chance to pursue her again, that 10% is going to shoot back up to 100%.

I don't wantto give up NOW. But waiting around will only emotionaly hurt and anger me...



darkphantomx1
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30 Mar 2015, 12:03 am

Outrider wrote:

I just have no interest in other girls. This girl is very unique, one of a kind. She has grown up around people with aspergrs as wel, she is understanding and considerate. Some girls/wome reject you cruelly and harshly, or LIE to you to not hurt your feelings.She was brutally honest but considerate. That's why it hurts so much - she is the 1 in 10,000 out there. Almost no onewould be this considerate in trying to say no. Other girls? No...I really just cannot do that and the very idea of it makes me sick to the stomach.



No just no just no. I'm doing you a favor when i'm telling you, you're wrong. We've all been there. When you feel like you've met the girl of your dreams and you can't imagine yourself with anyone else. It's a giant lie man. This special girl of yours isn't as special as you think. Take off your rose-tinted glasses. You can't spend your entire time obsessing over one girl who you can't have. It will consume you and make you angry. Just move on before you do something you're going to regret. Just ask my 7th-8th grade version of myself of what can go wrong. Plus this girl may not be as beautiful once you get to know her as we tend to show our best side to strangers. For all we know, she could be an evil nazi cyborg from the 26th century sent here to annihilate humanity. Looks can be deceiving my friend. Chances are theres another girl out there who you will fall for and someone who clicks with you personality wise even more.

Okay if you like a girl then don't be afraid to show some interest and try to interact with her because you never know, she could be "the one". I mean if you do nothing at all and look and talk like a statue when your crush is around, that usually doesn't work. Just don't make it your almighty destiny to attract this dream girl of yours and you'd be super depressed if she rejected you because not having her is like a stab to the heart. (I sure hope not literally) You will probably scare her away if you do something like this.










Image

nooooooo you complete meeeeeeeee



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30 Mar 2015, 12:26 am

darkphantomx1 wrote:
Outrider wrote:

I just have no interest in other girls. This girl is very unique, one of a kind. She has grown up around people with aspergrs as wel, she is understanding and considerate. Some girls/wome reject you cruelly and harshly, or LIE to you to not hurt your feelings.She was brutally honest but considerate. That's why it hurts so much - she is the 1 in 10,000 out there. Almost no onewould be this considerate in trying to say no. Other girls? No...I really just cannot do that and the very idea of it makes me sick to the stomach.



No just no just no. I'm doing you a favor when i'm telling you, you're wrong. We've all been there. When you feel like you've met the girl of your dreams and you can't imagine yourself with anyone else. It's a giant lie man. This special girl of yours isn't as special as you think. Take off your rose-tinted glasses. You can't spend your entire time obsessing over one girl who you can't have. It will consume you and make you angry. Just move on before you do something you're going to regret. Just ask my 7th-8th grade version of myself of what can go wrong. Plus this girl may not be as beautiful once you get to know her as we tend to show our best side to strangers. For all we know, she could be an evil nazi cyborg from the 26th century sent here to annihilate humanity. Looks can be deceiving my friend. Chances are theres another girl out there who you will fall for and someone who clicks with you personality wise even more.

Okay if you like a girl then don't be afraid to show some interest and try to interact with her because you never know, she could be "the one". I mean if you do nothing at all and look and talk like a statue when your crush is around, that usually doesn't work. Just don't make it your almighty destiny to attract this dream girl of yours and you'd be super depressed if she rejected you because not having her is like a stab to the heart. (I sure hope not literally) You will probably scare her away if you do something like this.










Image

nooooooo you complete meeeeeeeee


I'm not going THAT far. I'm not going to be pathetically desperate, needy or even creepy. I know how to avoid it, and I can.

And, I've chased after girls for years and years and years to finally for once feel I've found someone right for me.

Maybe it's only because she is the first, and only girl, I have ever been able to go on a few dates with.

But, the fact I've gotten this far with this one girl and never with the other's has to mean something, now doesn't it?

It means I get along with her better than every other single previous girl combined...

No, she's not 'the one'.

She's not a special dream girl that I will one day marry or any of that.

But I can, REALISTICALLY, say she is quite unique individual and I have never met anyone like this.

I can also, REALISTICALLY, say that, although she isn't 'the most amazing girl in the world' and my 'dream girl', I still do appreciate what kind of person she is.

It is not impossible to be attracted to a unique or different person. She is very un-convential, eccentric and non-conformist. She seems like an aspie herself in some ways (she has grown up around an aspie family, has social anxiety and ADD herself).

Why can I not continue? Why does it have to end now if I really feel she is one of the rare few I feel I could make it work with...

Even she agreed to this, that there is some potential there and I have just as much a chance as any other guy to end up dating her.

It's just she likes women right now...



AngelRho
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30 Mar 2015, 6:14 am

Can't sleep…brief thunderstorm woke me up, and 2 hours aren't going to make much difference at this point…

*Deep breath*

OK…

This girl is not for you. PERIOD. You can't handle her. Not even really as a friend.

I really wish you'd just forget about relationships as a whole. There are more important things in your life right now that you should focus on. This is merely a distraction and it's going to do more harm than good.

OK, now for the positive stuff, because I hate dwelling on stuff that just makes me angry. Ready?

You are in the unfortunate position of actually KNOWING where you stand. Focus on the positives: At least now you don't have to waste any time in moving forward. YOU NEED A PLAN, and I'm going to give it to you.

First--stop making decisions based on your emotions. It's ok to have emotions…just don't base your decisions on them.

Second--to formulate a workable plan, you need to get your priorities in order.

Third--to succeed in executing your plan, you need an achievable objective, a realistic measure of what success is, an attainable definition of what success means. We call these "goals." They have to be realistic, reasonable, and attainable. Your goals up to this point have been none of those.

Your main goal is to get into a relationship, I'm assuming one that leads to a long-term relationship and ultimately marriage/family. At your age, I'm going to assume this goal is immediately unattainable, so this is something we keep in view for the far-off, unforeseeable future. Did I give you the name or description of who your wife is going to be? No. My magic 8-ball doesn't give me that kind of information. We don't know who she is. At this point, she could be anybody. So we're not crossing anyone, not even your 1st cousin, off the list (yeah, yeah, I know…disgusting…but the point is to keep an open mind). This is your ultimate destination. It is not where you are right now in life. You have to start by taking the first few steps right in front of you.

What you have to do RIGHT NOW is reevaluate your priorities. What is REALLY important to you? What matters the most? Those values and priorities are going to break down into the baby steps you're going to take to reach your ultimate goal. Your plan is going to be a breakdown of all the halfway place between here and there. Your intermediate goals, just like your ultimate goal, must absolutely be realistic, reasonable, and attainable.

Let's make one of those priorities to never again be alone for a whole weekend. You KNOW you can do this one. Even if you just get to hang out with this one girl, you've already succeeded. You've got ONE girl who will hang out with you, so you're well on your way to achieving the goal of having a date every weekend. You know good and well you don't have a snowball's chance of a romantic relationship with this girl, so let's go with what you DO have: A friend you can hang out with once a week. Yes, ONCE a week…she has officially demoted herself, so let's dial this relationship down (it IS a relationship, btw…just not the one you had in mind). Even better--you have a friend who will encourage you to see other girls and at least pay lip service to hooking you up with someone. If she's willing to do this for you, PLEASE take her up on it.

Take the initiative to start meeting other girls. Remember everything I've said about this.

1. Keep a journal--your eyes only, do NOT share this thing with ANYONE for ANY reason. When you are finished with it many, many moons from now, burn it.
2. Hang out where the girls are. Let them get used to seeing you.
3. Introduce yourself. "Speed-date." Start the clock, keep one eye on it. You have 5 minutes to introduce yourself, get a name, get information. Remember as much as you can, write it in your journal as soon as possible--30 March, 2015. Sally Salisworth. Brunette. Blue-gray eyes. Hangs out at the park every Tuesday. Likes dogs. Repeat this step as often as you possibly and reasonably can.
4. Turn 5 minutes into an hour--You like dogs, huh? Cool. What's your favorite breed? Do you own one? Why do you like THOSE dogs so much? Do you ever take your dog to the ___ park across town? It's a great place for animals. I'd love to meet your dog sometime. What are you doing Saturday afternoon? You may not get a date. Write that down. If you DO get a date, WRITE IT DOWN!! ! And write down things like favorite dog breed, the breed of dog she owns, interesting facts about those particular dogs, etc. Go look up some stuff on Wikipedia, do a little homework. You don't have to care one thing about dogs. You might actually hate dogs. It's HER you're interested in, not dogs. So if you're interested in HER, you need to take a little more interest in dogs and maybe even try to learn to like them. For HER, not for you.
5. Use that first "hangout" non-date date to expand what you know about this girl. Nothing endears you to someone quite like talking with her about things she's passionate about. You wouldn't want to just spend an hour talking about nothing but dogs unless she's really, REALLY passionate about dogs. Some things you don't even have to verbalize. Just pay attention to the kinds of clothes she wears (that gives you information on her fashion sense, favorite colors, and so on). Is she wearing any kind of perfume that you can tell? Remember how that smells, and take a trip to your local department store to the makeup/perfume counter and see if you can identify her perfume or something very close to it. Find out where she works, what she does there, why she chose to work there and not somewhere else. Education/career goals? Obviously you're not going to find out EVERYTHING in an hour. You might not get anything out of her aside from "loves weimaraners, hates labs." And that's ok. But chances are if you keep her talking long enough she'll chase rabbits. Most people do, and that's how you'll really get to know her. And any tidbits you get that distinguish her from any other girl, stuff you notice, like perfume or similar perfume, or her cousin Alice was in a car accident last week…write it down.
6. After you've been hanging out with this girl for some time, some 3 months give or take, try for a more formal "date-date." Pick you up at 5:30, dinner at Mama Lucia's, roller skating to follow, home by 10. Hey, I scored tickets to "Swan Lake on Ice" this weekend. Interested? You take voice lessons? Cool! I'm going to see La Boheme at the performing arts center. I've got an extra ticket if you'd like to come. Afterwards, I know a place that has the best cheesecake on the planet… Basically, you take your little 1-hour hangouts and turn them into 2 hours or more.

[Note: this is where you are with your friend right now. She doesn't want to think of it as a date, but it really IS a date. It's just that the cat's out of the bag and you know it's not going to move forward from here. NOT a reason that you HAVE to stop seeing each other. It just means you can't expect much more beyond this point. You need to be open to seeing other girls.]

OK…time out for a sec… A "date" is not the same thing as a "relationship." A date is just a date. You're "just friends," or "just acquaintances." Whatever…a date means NOTHING. You can call it a hangout, you can call it whatever you want. Most importantly, call it whatever she feels most comfortable calling it. It's all the same freakin' thing. Relationships are what form over a period of time as a result of that time spent with each other. Make getting dates your goal. Forget about relationships. Focus on your successes rather than failures, on what is realistic rather than what is unrealistic. Above all, be honest with yourself when it comes to your relationships with girls.

At this point, you can realistically be familiarizing yourself with as many as 2 girls every week. You're allowed to "date around" because there's no commitment involved. You're just getting to know someone, you're not interested in a relationship. You're just seeing who is out there.

At your age, trying to keep track of that many girls may not be as realistic as it would be for adults. If you aren't very lucky with girls, just shoot for meeting one new person every week. You just take 5 minutes of your time and talk to ONE person you don't know. It's that simple. Follow the steps. Within a year's time, you'll have 50 girls you talk to on a quasi-regular basis. You'll also have info on what they like to talk about, some personal information, etc. Write this in a journal, review before you go out with any of them. If you get in the habit of doing this, you WILL find someone you're compatible with.

"Now, wait a minute, you said the odds are against me." Right. They are. But I strongly suspect that the odds of finding 1 girl out of 100 you could possibly have a relationship with are 100%.

7. Narrow your dating pool. You've been doing this for a year, you're at least on speaking terms with between 50 and 100 women. First, get rid of all the crazies. Second, get rid of anyone who offends you in some way, anyone who incites drama, disses your friends, etc. Third, anyone for whatever reason you're "just not feeling it." This does not mean you should get too picky. Once you weed out all the psychotics and maybe a few others, if you end up with less than half of what you started with, you're going overboard.

8. Assess who is going to actually be relationship material. What you're going to find is out of, say, 50 girls, some of them are going to be psychotic. Some are going to just give "bad vibes." But most of them are "just not that into you." When you ask someone out, even just to hang out, she MIGHT actually say "no." The Rejection Rule of 3 comes into play here--after you've asked everyone else you know out and either got rejected or got a date, you come back to this first person who rejected you. If you're in contact with 50-100 girls, this is going to take a long time. Odds are she won't have the same excuse to reject you. But anything is possible, so you say, "Ok, well…maybe next time," and you hang up the phone. So you go back down the list…you might get a date from someone, you might not, but over time you eventually come back to this girl. If she makes the same lame excuses a third time, she gets crossed off the list. She has your number and your social media info. If she wants to go out, she'll be in touch. But otherwise you forget about her and move on.

What you're going to find is you are consistently going out with the same 3 or 4 girls on a regular basis. You could pretty much pick one of these girls at random and she'd be "the One." THEN you'd want to try for a romantic LTR.

But do you understand what I'm saying here? I'm talking about a process that if you do everything I say exactly the way I say it, it's going to take you AT LEAST a year starting right now. I'm not talking about meeting one girl at a time, playing the what-if game and manipulate her into liking you. That's what you've been trying to do. I'm telling you, if this is how you approach relationships, it WILL happen with the next girl, and the next, and the next, and you'll go through a string of either failed or stillborn relationships and end up jaded or bitter before you finally meet someone who is good for you.

What is going to help you is if you start getting in the HABIT of meeting girls. A habit is something you do out of routine, there's no real thinking involved in it. You meet someone, you find out a little bit about them, you write it down.

As I'm concluding here, let me make one important point about keeping journals: I hear from a lot of women that this is a very creepy practice. So let me clarify that your journal is a way to stay organized, NOT a scorecard. You need to keep this thing private so you don't send the wrong message. But before anyone attacks me for being a creep here, yes, I do the same thing. When I teach piano lessons, I keep names/phone numbers/email/etc. on all my students. I write down important details about each meeting, and that helps me prepare for the next. This is a tool to help me track progress and stay mentally in touch with people I have relationships with, working or otherwise. If I care about someone, I don't want to forget details that are important to her. Politicians are naturally very, VERY good at this (remembering details). So if this is a good tool to help people remember important details in day-to-day business activities, if it's good enough for professionals, then it's good for making personal acquaintances as well.



Outrider
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30 Mar 2015, 7:18 am

AngelRho wrote:
Can't sleep…brief thunderstorm woke me up, and 2 hours aren't going to make much difference at this point…

*Deep breath*

OK…

This girl is not for you. PERIOD. You can't handle her. Not even really as a friend.

I really wish you'd just forget about relationships as a whole. There are more important things in your life right now that you should focus on. This is merely a distraction and it's going to do more harm than good.

OK, now for the positive stuff, because I hate dwelling on stuff that just makes me angry. Ready?

You are in the unfortunate position of actually KNOWING where you stand. Focus on the positives: At least now you don't have to waste any time in moving forward. YOU NEED A PLAN, and I'm going to give it to you.

First--stop making decisions based on your emotions. It's ok to have emotions…just don't base your decisions on them.

Second--to formulate a workable plan, you need to get your priorities in order.

Third--to succeed in executing your plan, you need an achievable objective, a realistic measure of what success is, an attainable definition of what success means. We call these "goals." They have to be realistic, reasonable, and attainable. Your goals up to this point have been none of those.

Your main goal is to get into a relationship, I'm assuming one that leads to a long-term relationship and ultimately marriage/family. At your age, I'm going to assume this goal is immediately unattainable, so this is something we keep in view for the far-off, unforeseeable future. Did I give you the name or description of who your wife is going to be? No. My magic 8-ball doesn't give me that kind of information. We don't know who she is. At this point, she could be anybody. So we're not crossing anyone, not even your 1st cousin, off the list (yeah, yeah, I know…disgusting…but the point is to keep an open mind). This is your ultimate destination. It is not where you are right now in life. You have to start by taking the first few steps right in front of you.

What you have to do RIGHT NOW is reevaluate your priorities. What is REALLY important to you? What matters the most? Those values and priorities are going to break down into the baby steps you're going to take to reach your ultimate goal. Your plan is going to be a breakdown of all the halfway place between here and there. Your intermediate goals, just like your ultimate goal, must absolutely be realistic, reasonable, and attainable.

Let's make one of those priorities to never again be alone for a whole weekend. You KNOW you can do this one. Even if you just get to hang out with this one girl, you've already succeeded. You've got ONE girl who will hang out with you, so you're well on your way to achieving the goal of having a date every weekend. You know good and well you don't have a snowball's chance of a romantic relationship with this girl, so let's go with what you DO have: A friend you can hang out with once a week. Yes, ONCE a week…she has officially demoted herself, so let's dial this relationship down (it IS a relationship, btw…just not the one you had in mind). Even better--you have a friend who will encourage you to see other girls and at least pay lip service to hooking you up with someone. If she's willing to do this for you, PLEASE take her up on it.

Take the initiative to start meeting other girls. Remember everything I've said about this.

1. Keep a journal--your eyes only, do NOT share this thing with ANYONE for ANY reason. When you are finished with it many, many moons from now, burn it.
2. Hang out where the girls are. Let them get used to seeing you.
3. Introduce yourself. "Speed-date." Start the clock, keep one eye on it. You have 5 minutes to introduce yourself, get a name, get information. Remember as much as you can, write it in your journal as soon as possible--30 March, 2015. Sally Salisworth. Brunette. Blue-gray eyes. Hangs out at the park every Tuesday. Likes dogs. Repeat this step as often as you possibly and reasonably can.
4. Turn 5 minutes into an hour--You like dogs, huh? Cool. What's your favorite breed? Do you own one? Why do you like THOSE dogs so much? Do you ever take your dog to the ___ park across town? It's a great place for animals. I'd love to meet your dog sometime. What are you doing Saturday afternoon? You may not get a date. Write that down. If you DO get a date, WRITE IT DOWN!! ! And write down things like favorite dog breed, the breed of dog she owns, interesting facts about those particular dogs, etc. Go look up some stuff on Wikipedia, do a little homework. You don't have to care one thing about dogs. You might actually hate dogs. It's HER you're interested in, not dogs. So if you're interested in HER, you need to take a little more interest in dogs and maybe even try to learn to like them. For HER, not for you.
5. Use that first "hangout" non-date date to expand what you know about this girl. Nothing endears you to someone quite like talking with her about things she's passionate about. You wouldn't want to just spend an hour talking about nothing but dogs unless she's really, REALLY passionate about dogs. Some things you don't even have to verbalize. Just pay attention to the kinds of clothes she wears (that gives you information on her fashion sense, favorite colors, and so on). Is she wearing any kind of perfume that you can tell? Remember how that smells, and take a trip to your local department store to the makeup/perfume counter and see if you can identify her perfume or something very close to it. Find out where she works, what she does there, why she chose to work there and not somewhere else. Education/career goals? Obviously you're not going to find out EVERYTHING in an hour. You might not get anything out of her aside from "loves weimaraners, hates labs." And that's ok. But chances are if you keep her talking long enough she'll chase rabbits. Most people do, and that's how you'll really get to know her. And any tidbits you get that distinguish her from any other girl, stuff you notice, like perfume or similar perfume, or her cousin Alice was in a car accident last week…write it down.
6. After you've been hanging out with this girl for some time, some 3 months give or take, try for a more formal "date-date." Pick you up at 5:30, dinner at Mama Lucia's, roller skating to follow, home by 10. Hey, I scored tickets to "Swan Lake on Ice" this weekend. Interested? You take voice lessons? Cool! I'm going to see La Boheme at the performing arts center. I've got an extra ticket if you'd like to come. Afterwards, I know a place that has the best cheesecake on the planet… Basically, you take your little 1-hour hangouts and turn them into 2 hours or more.

[Note: this is where you are with your friend right now. She doesn't want to think of it as a date, but it really IS a date. It's just that the cat's out of the bag and you know it's not going to move forward from here. NOT a reason that you HAVE to stop seeing each other. It just means you can't expect much more beyond this point. You need to be open to seeing other girls.]

OK…time out for a sec… A "date" is not the same thing as a "relationship." A date is just a date. You're "just friends," or "just acquaintances." Whatever…a date means NOTHING. You can call it a hangout, you can call it whatever you want. Most importantly, call it whatever she feels most comfortable calling it. It's all the same freakin' thing. Relationships are what form over a period of time as a result of that time spent with each other. Make getting dates your goal. Forget about relationships. Focus on your successes rather than failures, on what is realistic rather than what is unrealistic. Above all, be honest with yourself when it comes to your relationships with girls.

At this point, you can realistically be familiarizing yourself with as many as 2 girls every week. You're allowed to "date around" because there's no commitment involved. You're just getting to know someone, you're not interested in a relationship. You're just seeing who is out there.

At your age, trying to keep track of that many girls may not be as realistic as it would be for adults. If you aren't very lucky with girls, just shoot for meeting one new person every week. You just take 5 minutes of your time and talk to ONE person you don't know. It's that simple. Follow the steps. Within a year's time, you'll have 50 girls you talk to on a quasi-regular basis. You'll also have info on what they like to talk about, some personal information, etc. Write this in a journal, review before you go out with any of them. If you get in the habit of doing this, you WILL find someone you're compatible with.

"Now, wait a minute, you said the odds are against me." Right. They are. But I strongly suspect that the odds of finding 1 girl out of 100 you could possibly have a relationship with are 100%.

7. Narrow your dating pool. You've been doing this for a year, you're at least on speaking terms with between 50 and 100 women. First, get rid of all the crazies. Second, get rid of anyone who offends you in some way, anyone who incites drama, disses your friends, etc. Third, anyone for whatever reason you're "just not feeling it." This does not mean you should get too picky. Once you weed out all the psychotics and maybe a few others, if you end up with less than half of what you started with, you're going overboard.

8. Assess who is going to actually be relationship material. What you're going to find is out of, say, 50 girls, some of them are going to be psychotic. Some are going to just give "bad vibes." But most of them are "just not that into you." When you ask someone out, even just to hang out, she MIGHT actually say "no." The Rejection Rule of 3 comes into play here--after you've asked everyone else you know out and either got rejected or got a date, you come back to this first person who rejected you. If you're in contact with 50-100 girls, this is going to take a long time. Odds are she won't have the same excuse to reject you. But anything is possible, so you say, "Ok, well…maybe next time," and you hang up the phone. So you go back down the list…you might get a date from someone, you might not, but over time you eventually come back to this girl. If she makes the same lame excuses a third time, she gets crossed off the list. She has your number and your social media info. If she wants to go out, she'll be in touch. But otherwise you forget about her and move on.

What you're going to find is you are consistently going out with the same 3 or 4 girls on a regular basis. You could pretty much pick one of these girls at random and she'd be "the One." THEN you'd want to try for a romantic LTR.

But do you understand what I'm saying here? I'm talking about a process that if you do everything I say exactly the way I say it, it's going to take you AT LEAST a year starting right now. I'm not talking about meeting one girl at a time, playing the what-if game and manipulate her into liking you. That's what you've been trying to do. I'm telling you, if this is how you approach relationships, it WILL happen with the next girl, and the next, and the next, and you'll go through a string of either failed or stillborn relationships and end up jaded or bitter before you finally meet someone who is good for you.

What is going to help you is if you start getting in the HABIT of meeting girls. A habit is something you do out of routine, there's no real thinking involved in it. You meet someone, you find out a little bit about them, you write it down.

As I'm concluding here, let me make one important point about keeping journals: I hear from a lot of women that this is a very creepy practice. So let me clarify that your journal is a way to stay organized, NOT a scorecard. You need to keep this thing private so you don't send the wrong message. But before anyone attacks me for being a creep here, yes, I do the same thing. When I teach piano lessons, I keep names/phone numbers/email/etc. on all my students. I write down important details about each meeting, and that helps me prepare for the next. This is a tool to help me track progress and stay mentally in touch with people I have relationships with, working or otherwise. If I care about someone, I don't want to forget details that are important to her. Politicians are naturally very, VERY good at this (remembering details). So if this is a good tool to help people remember important details in day-to-day business activities, if it's good enough for professionals, then it's good for making personal acquaintances as well.


I have actually been thinking about your idea, and I've seen it on a few other forums.

But, is it possible to meet halfway?

Perhaps only be friends with this girl, but wait for the moment until I can pursue a relationship with her.

But until that time comes, I'll only be her friend and use your idea to logically meet different girls every week.

Also, when it comes to your idea, how would one choose which women to pursue? All acquiantances?

Or are all women you are attracted to physically on some level the first to go on the list?

Or completely random?



kraftiekortie
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30 Mar 2015, 7:54 am

As I think of it:

she sounds like a cool girl--but she wants a GIRLFRIEND now.

If she decides to go "straight," then she might "try" you.

Not really a bunch of great ingredients for a good relationship, in my opinion.

I've been involved in situations like this--where people "switch" on a whim. Whether consciously or unconsciously, she has the "upper hand" in this situation. You could be deeply in love--then, one day--she might start liking this girl. You are dead meat in this instance!

I would stay being a friend to her. But I would be wary of acquiring really deep feelings for one who might "lose the attraction" for you all of a sudden.



AngelRho
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30 Mar 2015, 10:21 am

Outrider wrote:
I have actually been thinking about your idea, and I've seen it on a few other forums.

But, is it possible to meet halfway?

NO.



Ok, MAYBE it's POSSIBLE. But I don't to tell you something is possible and you get your hopes up. You need to take some time and be honest with yourself. Where exactly do you stand? Find where that is and start from there. I don't know you that well or your situation beyond what you're telling me. But as I see it, you have generally poor standing. I want to see you step it up and move past where you are and actually see some more, better, positive results. What you're trying to do isn't going to help you get any kind of growth, and you need something positive. Having a REALISTIC outlook on dating and relationships is a good first step in getting there.

Outrider wrote:
Perhaps only be friends with this girl, but wait for the moment until I can pursue a relationship with her.

It's not happening. Let it go. You're not going to "wait" for anything. If you can handle being friends, which I doubt at this point, then be friends. But you need to DROP these expectations. She said "no." Start with "no" and move forward. By "waiting" you're not moving at all.

Outrider wrote:
But until that time comes, I'll only be her friend and use your idea to logically meet different girls every week.

THAT'S the attitude. Keep it casual.

Outrider wrote:
Also, when it comes to your idea, how would one choose which women to pursue? All acquaintances?

ALL acquaintances. All of them. You're not in a position to limit yourself.

BTW…let's make sure we understand each other when we're talking about pursuing moos… You're pursuing girls for the sake of getting to know them. You're putting yourself out there for THEM to choose YOU. You're not really pursuing girls. You're pursuing the OPPORTUNITY to get to know girls better.

Like I said, you're going to get to know some women who are psychotic. Give everyone a chance. Dig below the surface. Find out what makes everyone tick. You may end up having coffee with "crazy b!+cH" and decide you really, REALLY do not need to see her again. That's OK. You're allowed to reject people.

Outrider wrote:
Or are all women you are attracted to physically on some level the first to go on the list?

*sigh*

Look past physical attractiveness. You're not looking for your soulmate. You're just looking for experience to get to know someone past a purely superficial level.

I'll be the first to tell you there are physical traits that are deal breakers in the long term. It's because I've come to associate women who have a certain look or certain physical features with a certain type of behavior. I don't avoid talking to them. I just wouldn't want to get in a committed relationship with any of them. This is one of those things women will flame me about, but I don't care. I had one very, VERY severely bad relationship that went on too long. I got beyond burned. Like, worse than burned. Slow, agonizing, painful torture. After that, I began to notice that pretty much any woman who looked like her behaved remarkably similarly. It's not that they are bad people. It's not that you shouldn't get to know everyone you can. It's just that once you gain enough experience with a wide variety of folks, you'll learn to take a few shortcuts, keeping company with certain women and avoiding others altogether.



Outrider wrote:
Or completely random?

As a personal preference, YES. It's what I would do.

Think like picking lottery tickets. First of all, nobody wins the lottery. You have a much better chance of getting in a relationship than winning the lottery. You can pick the same number over and over again if you want to. If you go purely random, which isn't easy, you've got just as good odds, maybe even improved odds, of picking the right number. Choosing women to ask out on a date is much better that way, in my opinion, because you evenly distribute the odds of meeting someone you're going to be most compatible with.

Actually MEETING girls isn't random, though, aside from the fact you don't know who will be where or when. Just pay attention and see who you bump into the most. Then get names/contact info/etc. And because you know you'll see her again eventually, you can get the "first 5." Once you start building your list of contacts, THEN you can start going at random, rather than merely one at a time.

Heh…just go to random.org, type out your list, and just run them in that sequence. When you get to the end of the list, randomize it again and start from the top. Remember, right at first you won't even HAVE a list. After about two weeks, you could potentially have 4 people on that list. That will gradually increase. If you play it right, within a month's time, you shouldn't be spending any more weekends alone. And by "play it right," I mean displaying interest in girls by getting them talking and suggesting ways you can get together to continue the conversation.