Well, bit of an update...
I sent a follow up / try again text to the aforementioned woman. I figured if I was getting no results from someone who was previously highly attracted to me, there were basically 3 options:
1. Attraction faded. Not a lot to do without the ability to meet up/rebuild it
2. Attainability was too high. In which case...there really wasn't anything to do either, as if she wasn't wanting to get in touch with me, there was no real way to 'be unavailable'.
3. Attainability was too low. In which case, a warm text that let her know I was genuinely interested in her (which is true) might help the problem.
So, I ramped up attainability.
I got a warm reply but one that ultimately sniffed of low attraction. She basically said that she had really blanked out when she was actually talking to me, but she really was busy this week during the times I said I was open...then asked me what I thought about meeting up next week.
Then she followed up and said she really appreciated my good communication skills. With a smiley face. But the whole situation still doesn't seem right, and here I am two days after sending my reply (stating next week is fine, name a day before Thursday) with nothing back from her. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I actually deleted her number, so I have no way of reawakening that
conversational thread unless she gets back in touch with me. Truly leaving the ball in her court. Removing the option makes it pretty easy to move on.
I had a big moment where I decided, "Fuck it. Everything has been off, and I just don't care anymore. I'm going to keep soldiering on no matter what happens.
However, last night I met a pretty young woman who has helped me to take my mind off things.
FR++: The Feminine Tomboy
I was out at a social dance, attending the obligatory pre dance lesson. They put us through a big rotation. This time, the leads/men were being rotated and the follows/women were stationary. Standard practice. It's a pretty guaranteed way to meet lots of women who are on your wavelength if the place is well-populated. In this case, it was. Of the women with whom there was possibly mutual interest, I counted two. A bit low. Most of them were definitely not what I was looking for and on one occasion it was the other way around. This girl was pretty close to the beginning of the rotation. We leaders were told to rotate, and I immediately went into a closed ballroom stance with her without being given specific instructions by the instructor.
It's a good way to gauge interest -- if she keeps her body close to yours / in stance and seems comfortable and happy before and after the period in which you're specifically supposed to be practicing, it's a pretty good sign that she's going to be more receptive to your advances than otherwise. This girl was very receptive. Lots of smiles. Let me hold her hand in mine even slightly past when I was supposed to rotate on as I made some sort of joke about something I don't remember. I definitely pay a lot more attention to body language / run a more physical game when dancing.
Another girl was pretty receptive, and I think may have gone for it, but I wasn't quite "feeling" her. I probably should have later made a move, but I ended up leaving in something of a hurry for reasons I won't go into here.
So, I took note of this receptive girl and met her again on the dance floor later. We danced...once or twice, I think. It was pretty okay. Not amazing, but definitely not bad. None of that "we don't feel the beat in the same way" awkwardness that comes up a small percentage of the time. Lots of smiles and laughs on her end, even when I was saying things that didn't seem particularly funny to me. Good stuff.
On my hurried way out, she caught my eye and I approached her. I stood besides her, nudged her with my knee, and said,
"Hey...would you care to get a drink some time?" (God, how effective that line has proven in getting numbers. Admittedly with a bit less follow through)
She immediately chirped back a "Sure!" and told me she didn't have her phone on her. I pulled mine up, set up the new contact page, and handed it over to her. She put her name in. I flashed her half a grin, put the phone in my pocket, walked away, waved over my shoulder, and told her I'd text her.
When I got home I sent her a brief text telling her who I was and letting her know it was my number. Some time during the night when I was asleep, she told me it was fun to dance with me that night.
Something that I've been leery about recently is waiting too long before setting up a follow up. I think that a lot of my recent troubles are because I let initial good feelings and solid first impressions fade. As someone who almost universally makes a "good" impression but only rarely makes "absurdly outstanding" impressions, and as a guy who tends to focus on women in the 20-23 age range (easily the flakiest and most in the moment women), doing everything I can to keep them on that positive emotional rollercoaster is a bonus.
So, I tried to set up a date the next morning for brunch. She said she was working, but that we could do lunch...we scheduled lunch, and did that thing.
When she came by, she actually looked quite a bit better than I'd remembered (that's the first time in awhile...) and was sporting some sporty clothing. Apparently she's a swimming instructor in one of her two jobs. She claimed to be very tomboyish growing up, but finding herself increasingly feminine as time went by. I agreed and told her I thought she initially seemed very feminine, but the tomboyish side was showing a bit more now.
In the restaurant, we got along well, but there wasn't a lot of room for physicality at all. She definitely liked talking to me and wanted to continue the date, though. Now...we had a ton of leftover food that was spoil sensitive, so I suggested we head back to my place to drop it off, then go for a walk in the nearby trails (she'd expressed an interest in them earlier).
She was also not particularly talkative about herself. Or a lot of things with direct questions. So attempting to continually turn the conversation to her seemed to kind of deflate her. Instead, I spoke about things and saw what she herself naturally related to, and amped up those aspects of the conversation. I did manage to really pique her interest with some hard hitting questions that everybody at least contemplates sometimes (but rarely gets to share), which did help fell her out quite a bit.
Something about her that really stood out to me was that most women I've met who have a hard time talking about themselves have a hard time doing so because there genuinely isn't a lot there to talk about. This woman definitely had more substance.
She agreed happily, and on we went. My place was close by, so essentially no time had passed. I put the stuff in the fridge, and approached her, putting one hand on her waist, and taking her other hand in mine. I pulled her close, leaned my head down to hers, and she looked down. I tilted her chin up, and she turned away and said, "I usually don't...on the first date."
Now...I wasn't going to take this at face value, but I also felt like the heat for escalation wasn't really there, either. I hadn't built up enough attraction or comfort to spend all of that currency on low odds now, and we did have a promising plan (initiated by me, so I wasn't falling back / deferring to her on a strategic level), so I shrugged it off, told her that was cool, and that we had places to be, anyway. She seemed to appreciate it. (Note: This is so not the '++' in the report title)
So, we left. We went hiking. I won't get into all of the interactions, there, but...I slowly amped up the physicality. She actually seemed kind of eager for it, done right and sensitively. At one point, when she was in my arms, against me, my hard cock grinding into her as the warmth of her body and sight of her face got me going, I told her that I was exerting a lot of self control to not grab her and kiss her, and that I was trying to be a gentleman.
She told me that she appreciated it.
This happened again later, and she told me, "You're doing a really good job at this!" I kind of escalated a bit more with some nose to nose contact, then pulling away and telling her I needed to cool off a bit. I actually think I could have gone for the kiss then and had it.
Finally, a few minutes after that incident, I pulled her close again, and she told me, "I actually don't have a rule for the first date or anything, I just..." and trailed off.
"You just do what you feel like doing, and you weren't feeling it in that moment. I get it." I was moving closer at this point and rubbing the side of my nose against hers'.
She smiled. I kissed her. It was...pretty good. I pulled away, complimented her on soft lips, gave her one more kiss, and resumed the hike.
There was more physicality and amping up along the trail, and when we finally got to the top, we sat and enjoyed the view together and played silly children's games (stuff like thumb wars, rock paper scissors, etc).
On the way back down, it was getting kind of late...I said I was hungry. She agreed. I said I knew what I was having -- we already had those time-sensitive leftovers to take care of, and we might as well get to them. She agreed. We continued to mess around, occasionally stop and feel each other up / kiss, and move on.
When we got home, I busted out the food and we sat hip to hip on my couch and ate for a bit. I then started escalating physically again. We moved around and whatnot a lot. She was definitely not at all resistant to anything I could do to her with clothes on, but any time I tried to take anything off, she stopped me. She told me, at one point, "I'm going to keep my clothes on today." I did continue to fool around with her, with some urgency, for about 30 seconds, then backed off and said, "Okay. Then I need to cool off again and not get myself all worked up." (I have noticed that this gets good results, I have some speculations as to why that I won't go into here)
So, we spoke, we laughed, we fooled around. She revealed I was the first guy she had agreed to go out on a date with in awhile, and that she had taken a lot of time off from dating after her last relationship. I asked her what she thought of me so far, she turned the question around, and I told her that even though I asked first, I'd answer first so that she had time to think about her own answer. She told me I didn't have to, I ploughed right in anyway. I'm a bit limited on time, so I won't go into what I said about her. What she said about me...
Her: "I can tell you're a really deep thinker."
Me: "Yeah? Already?"
Her: "You definitely spend a lot of time in thought about a lot of important stuff."
Me: "What gave it away?"
Her: "Oh, I can tell...There are a lot of sides to you."
Me: "You sound like you like that."
Her: "It's okay, I guess. It's nice when you don't just meet someone and immediately know everything about them. When there's something under the surface."
Me: "I think most people are like that, really...but we never see it. They don't quite keep our interest, and so the possibility of their hidden depths doesn't even occur to us. Then again...If most people are like that, what do you have to lose by overlooking them? There's always some else with hidden depths around the corner."
Her: "I guess so. I hadn't thought of it that way!"
Me: "Well, deep thinker over here..."
We laughed and went onto another conversational topic. Or maybe we got physical again. Or both. I don't recall. I'm beat.
Either way...I sent the girl home pretty happy. She thanked me for having a really fun time with her, and I told her we should do it again sometime. She agreed.
There was also some exchange in there about how I'm barbarian. It reminded me of something a former FWB of mine said as well ("you're basically just a decadent barbarian").
I threw in, "Ah, a deep thinking barbarian...".
Her response: "One of your many sides."
Good times. We'll see how it goes. I'm going the fuck to sleep.
I sent a follow up / try again text to the aforementioned woman. I figured if I was getting no results from someone who was previously highly attracted to me, there were basically 3 options:
1. Attraction faded. Not a lot to do without the ability to meet up/rebuild it
2. Attainability was too high. In which case...there really wasn't anything to do either, as if she wasn't wanting to get in touch with me, there was no real way to 'be unavailable'.
3. Attainability was too low. In which case, a warm text that let her know I was genuinely interested in her (which is true) might help the problem.
So, I ramped up attainability.
I got a warm reply but one that ultimately sniffed of low attraction. She basically said that she had really blanked out when she was actually talking to me, but she really was busy this week during the times I said I was open...then asked me what I thought about meeting up next week.
Then she followed up and said she really appreciated my good communication skills. With a smiley face. But the whole situation still doesn't seem right, and here I am two days after sending my reply (stating next week is fine, name a day before Thursday) with nothing back from her. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I actually deleted her number, so I have no way of reawakening that
conversational thread unless she gets back in touch with me. Truly leaving the ball in her court. Removing the option makes it pretty easy to move on.
I had a big moment where I decided, "Fuck it. Everything has been off, and I just don't care anymore. I'm going to keep soldiering on no matter what happens.
However, last night I met a pretty young woman who has helped me to take my mind off things.
FR++: The Feminine Tomboy
I was out at a social dance, attending the obligatory pre dance lesson. They put us through a big rotation. This time, the leads/men were being rotated and the follows/women were stationary. Standard practice. It's a pretty guaranteed way to meet lots of women who are on your wavelength if the place is well-populated. In this case, it was. Of the women with whom there was possibly mutual interest, I counted two. A bit low. Most of them were definitely not what I was looking for and on one occasion it was the other way around. This girl was pretty close to the beginning of the rotation. We leaders were told to rotate, and I immediately went into a closed ballroom stance with her without being given specific instructions by the instructor.
It's a good way to gauge interest -- if she keeps her body close to yours / in stance and seems comfortable and happy before and after the period in which you're specifically supposed to be practicing, it's a pretty good sign that she's going to be more receptive to your advances than otherwise. This girl was very receptive. Lots of smiles. Let me hold her hand in mine even slightly past when I was supposed to rotate on as I made some sort of joke about something I don't remember. I definitely pay a lot more attention to body language / run a more physical game when dancing.
Another girl was pretty receptive, and I think may have gone for it, but I wasn't quite "feeling" her. I probably should have later made a move, but I ended up leaving in something of a hurry for reasons I won't go into here.
So, I took note of this receptive girl and met her again on the dance floor later. We danced...once or twice, I think. It was pretty okay. Not amazing, but definitely not bad. None of that "we don't feel the beat in the same way" awkwardness that comes up a small percentage of the time. Lots of smiles and laughs on her end, even when I was saying things that didn't seem particularly funny to me. Good stuff.
On my hurried way out, she caught my eye and I approached her. I stood besides her, nudged her with my knee, and said,
"Hey...would you care to get a drink some time?" (God, how effective that line has proven in getting numbers. Admittedly with a bit less follow through)
She immediately chirped back a "Sure!" and told me she didn't have her phone on her. I pulled mine up, set up the new contact page, and handed it over to her. She put her name in. I flashed her half a grin, put the phone in my pocket, walked away, waved over my shoulder, and told her I'd text her.
When I got home I sent her a brief text telling her who I was and letting her know it was my number. Some time during the night when I was asleep, she told me it was fun to dance with me that night.
Something that I've been leery about recently is waiting too long before setting up a follow up. I think that a lot of my recent troubles are because I let initial good feelings and solid first impressions fade. As someone who almost universally makes a "good" impression but only rarely makes "absurdly outstanding" impressions, and as a guy who tends to focus on women in the 20-23 age range (easily the flakiest and most in the moment women), doing everything I can to keep them on that positive emotional rollercoaster is a bonus.
So, I tried to set up a date the next morning for brunch. She said she was working, but that we could do lunch...we scheduled lunch, and did that thing.
When she came by, she actually looked quite a bit better than I'd remembered (that's the first time in awhile...) and was sporting some sporty clothing. Apparently she's a swimming instructor in one of her two jobs. She claimed to be very tomboyish growing up, but finding herself increasingly feminine as time went by. I agreed and told her I thought she initially seemed very feminine, but the tomboyish side was showing a bit more now.
In the restaurant, we got along well, but there wasn't a lot of room for physicality at all. She definitely liked talking to me and wanted to continue the date, though. Now...we had a ton of leftover food that was spoil sensitive, so I suggested we head back to my place to drop it off, then go for a walk in the nearby trails (she'd expressed an interest in them earlier).
She was also not particularly talkative about herself. Or a lot of things with direct questions. So attempting to continually turn the conversation to her seemed to kind of deflate her. Instead, I spoke about things and saw what she herself naturally related to, and amped up those aspects of the conversation. I did manage to really pique her interest with some hard hitting questions that everybody at least contemplates sometimes (but rarely gets to share), which did help fell her out quite a bit.
Something about her that really stood out to me was that most women I've met who have a hard time talking about themselves have a hard time doing so because there genuinely isn't a lot there to talk about. This woman definitely had more substance.
She agreed happily, and on we went. My place was close by, so essentially no time had passed. I put the stuff in the fridge, and approached her, putting one hand on her waist, and taking her other hand in mine. I pulled her close, leaned my head down to hers, and she looked down. I tilted her chin up, and she turned away and said, "I usually don't...on the first date."
Now...I wasn't going to take this at face value, but I also felt like the heat for escalation wasn't really there, either. I hadn't built up enough attraction or comfort to spend all of that currency on low odds now, and we did have a promising plan (initiated by me, so I wasn't falling back / deferring to her on a strategic level), so I shrugged it off, told her that was cool, and that we had places to be, anyway. She seemed to appreciate it. (Note: This is so not the '++' in the report title)
So, we left. We went hiking. I won't get into all of the interactions, there, but...I slowly amped up the physicality. She actually seemed kind of eager for it, done right and sensitively. At one point, when she was in my arms, against me, my hard cock grinding into her as the warmth of her body and sight of her face got me going, I told her that I was exerting a lot of self control to not grab her and kiss her, and that I was trying to be a gentleman.
She told me that she appreciated it.
This happened again later, and she told me, "You're doing a really good job at this!" I kind of escalated a bit more with some nose to nose contact, then pulling away and telling her I needed to cool off a bit. I actually think I could have gone for the kiss then and had it.
Finally, a few minutes after that incident, I pulled her close again, and she told me, "I actually don't have a rule for the first date or anything, I just..." and trailed off.
"You just do what you feel like doing, and you weren't feeling it in that moment. I get it." I was moving closer at this point and rubbing the side of my nose against hers'.
She smiled. I kissed her. It was...pretty good. I pulled away, complimented her on soft lips, gave her one more kiss, and resumed the hike.
There was more physicality and amping up along the trail, and when we finally got to the top, we sat and enjoyed the view together and played silly children's games (stuff like thumb wars, rock paper scissors, etc).
On the way back down, it was getting kind of late...I said I was hungry. She agreed. I said I knew what I was having -- we already had those time-sensitive leftovers to take care of, and we might as well get to them. She agreed. We continued to mess around, occasionally stop and feel each other up / kiss, and move on.
When we got home, I busted out the food and we sat hip to hip on my couch and ate for a bit. I then started escalating physically again. We moved around and whatnot a lot. She was definitely not at all resistant to anything I could do to her with clothes on, but any time I tried to take anything off, she stopped me. She told me, at one point, "I'm going to keep my clothes on today." I did continue to fool around with her, with some urgency, for about 30 seconds, then backed off and said, "Okay. Then I need to cool off again and not get myself all worked up." (I have noticed that this gets good results, I have some speculations as to why that I won't go into here)
So, we spoke, we laughed, we fooled around. She revealed I was the first guy she had agreed to go out on a date with in awhile, and that she had taken a lot of time off from dating after her last relationship. I asked her what she thought of me so far, she turned the question around, and I told her that even though I asked first, I'd answer first so that she had time to think about her own answer. She told me I didn't have to, I ploughed right in anyway. I'm a bit limited on time, so I won't go into what I said about her. What she said about me...
Her: "I can tell you're a really deep thinker."
Me: "Yeah? Already?"
Her: "You definitely spend a lot of time in thought about a lot of important stuff."
Me: "What gave it away?"
Her: "Oh, I can tell...There are a lot of sides to you."
Me: "You sound like you like that."
Her: "It's okay, I guess. It's nice when you don't just meet someone and immediately know everything about them. When there's something under the surface."
Me: "I think most people are like that, really...but we never see it. They don't quite keep our interest, and so the possibility of their hidden depths doesn't even occur to us. Then again...If most people are like that, what do you have to lose by overlooking them? There's always some else with hidden depths around the corner."
Her: "I guess so. I hadn't thought of it that way!"
Me: "Well, deep thinker over here..."
We laughed and went onto another conversational topic. Or maybe we got physical again. Or both. I don't recall. I'm beat.
Either way...I sent the girl home pretty happy. She thanked me for having a really fun time with her, and I told her we should do it again sometime. She agreed.
There was also some exchange in there about how I'm barbarian. It reminded me of something a former FWB of mine said as well ("you're basically just a decadent barbarian").
I threw in, "Ah, a deep thinking barbarian...".
Her response: "One of your many sides."
Good times. We'll see how it goes. I'm going the fuck to sleep.
