Do I have a chance here?

[Black]

I'll try to make this one quick and simple.

There's this older girl in social circle, we only hung out in groups (not many times) but the last two times or so we ended up close together flirting/bantering with her touching my shoulder, sometimes trying to get me to feel her arm and basically going on about which kind of girls I like.

In general, she seems very self-conscious about her body and guys liking younger/prettier girls (in her mind).
I quite like her thou, in every way.
She seems to thinks my body is awesome and that I'm not shy and probably have a lot of girls - or that's what I read between the lines.

Last time, us two ended in some kind of dance meet up at a bar - but I didn't like that music, so she kept being picked by these other guys to dance while I sipped my drinks. Then she'd come back excited and we'd discuss both guys and girls, who was sexy/sexual, who wasn't, stories about creepy guys, pick ups, etc. . .
I kept some physical contact by being shoulder to shoulder (skin-to-skin) with her; she'd sometimes pull back but it was 80% welcome and towards the end she was taking more the initiative to touch me back. Nothing much was possible here anyway as we were surrounded by people who knew her.

In the middle, she made me promise to meet up with her for some specific wine before I change towns.
At the very end, she brought it up again and re-framed it as another group meetup. *

We left together, interestingly late, walked very slowly to the taxi stop.
She suddenly began telling me some stuff about her childhood and when I made eye contact her gaze was very strong and different from before.
I think I dropped the ball here because I let the energy dissipate with a couple stupid random questions.
She still touched me again when answering but because my second idiotic question was about the taxi - so she just felt invited to take it. what else?!
* . . .said, well, she hoped to see me again, etc. . .

I caught up with her today sending a few messages back and forth and we did banter but I felt she kind of dissipated some of the sex stuff and that the previous interest wasn't there. I let the conversation die before it dragged on. No mention of us meeting again.

I feel terrible about this one.
I'm not sure what to do.
I don't know if what I perceive as interest from her is just friendliness and me being friendzoned.
Maybe because we share a social circle she thinks some stuff is out of question?

There's just that promise there lingering and either of us is going to have to do something (or nothing) about it.
The clock is ticking. . .

 

[ray_zorse]

Missed escalation window. Nothing can be done. NEXT and move on. You won't make the same mistake twice.
Ray

 

[Black]

Since I have nothing to lose, I followed up today with the meetup plan we talked about, to see if it's yes or no.
Either way I won't see her ever again.

She took ages to reply. Then she agreed.
Then she put out all these ridiculous frames of bringing friends which I demolished, so she agreed to meet one-on-one.

. . .but then finally I couldn't get her to agree to meet at her place (I don't have my own); frame of "I never bring guys over".
I persisted a lot, again, demolishing her arguments which were quite feeble/evasive but no luck.
So the ball is in her court to find a suitable alternative for our little picnic.
She probably won't and, at this point, it'd probably be better that way so I can use the time for something more exciting.

I'm mildly amused as I'm sure she doesn't get a lot of good looking white guys she likes to hang out with come with an offer like this.

Maybe I was friend-zoned from the start and she was going on and on about me and the girls I like, qualifying herself, even though she wasn't attracted at all?
. . .or this is because I missed the escalation window like Ray says above?

. . .but if she doesn't like me anymore, or never did, what kind of value do I provide her that she agrees to meet one-on-one?
It's not like she can slow me down to a boyfriend or a long-term friend, I'm out of here soon.
. . .so in her eyes I'm another woman?

-

Also. . . this frame. Is she afraid I'll try to escalate? So what? It's perfectly possible for me to meet up with her in a private space and have nothing happen.

 

[ray_zorse]

I still think it's missed window, what you describe is basically the classic missed window behaviour, check what I wrote here. NEXT.
Ray

 

[Black]

You didn't step up to the plate, and thus disqualified yourself. So she's upset and disappointed while outwardly maintaining the facade that nothing's changed (because revealing her disappointment would reveal her as a slut who just wants to be fucked, which is actually what all girls are).

This is just gold.
It fits this story with 0% contradicting evidence.

When I blundered at the end and she had no choice but go for the cab, the frame automatically changed and our "one-on-one meeting" became "a party" (suddenly including other people I don't care about). My fault for taking what she had said about meeting again at (logical) face value and ignoring the here-and-now (emotional) flow i.e. I was focused on that we'd meet again during the week and not on her childhood story, and the way she was looking at me and looking for excuses to touch me.
Frankly, when we stopped by the cabs, she wasn't "I have to go, cya" it was an awkward "so. . . what do we do?", when I blundered, the frame changed.

. . .and yesterday yes, it's not like she blew me away: it was "nothing's changed facade" but I could feel a not-so-nice undertone.
We bantered with double meanings about the food (the idiom: "this is not my food" can mean "I don't like this woman").
At some point she said something like "I look at actions not words", fairly out of context of the actual food we had enjoyed.
I thought it meant she was impatient; no, looks like it was the escalation window. . .

Well, at least I don't feel so creepy. The sting of rejection today felt like everything that happened before didn't really happen.
. . .but if it's a missed window then it makes sense.

Nexted she is of course. I have nothing else to say to her anyway. hehe