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- Dec 22, 2024
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Cheers everyone,
I've just gotten out of my 2nd date with a girl. I think this was the most promising, interesting date I had on the past year, my post-divorce year. She was 32 years old. I am 38. It was somehow weird too, for many reasons.
I first approached her in July. I posted about it on my journal, but I will copy the paragraph here.
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Third approach. I passed by a bar, and recognized a girl I knew from dance classes. She is quite cute, and quite my type. 8/10. We got along quite well. I drooled over her at the time, but I had a girlfriend and she had a boyfriend. She was with two friends: a guy and a gal. I managed to feel that the guy was not her boyfriend, but just a friend. I could open her easily. Her friends noticed, I was friendly to them, and they received me well, smiling back. Her girl friend apologized for not buying me a beer, in a good way, as if inviting me to join the group. I was touchy, and tried to be emotional, kind. Didn't try to be flirty, but to be affectionate, like a close friend. Still tried to make some eye contact. She seemed open, but a little bit confused. She fumbled on some of her answers. Overall it was nice. Then I asked for her number again, and then proposed some coffee. Should have inverted the order. Let's see what happens.
-----
Same night, two hours after meeting her:
Me: Hi Dance Girl, nice to cross paths with you again.
Her: Hi D'Artagnan! Yes, it was indeed funny ^^
I proceed to do some banter with her over the next few days. I felt like our encounter was quick so it would be a good idea before inviting her. After some banter, I try a soft close, but she says she's busy and will be leaving soon for vacations.
From my point of view: we knew each other in the past, we had a good vibe, I was attracted to her, and she seemed free this time around. I assume attraction, and think to myself "there is no reason why this girl is not interested in me, there must be something going on". Then I remember that, during our encounter, she mentioned she had finished with her ex that I knew from the dance classes, and I told her that I knew it, because my ex talked to her ex. At that moment, Dance Girl gave me a strange, surprised look. So, my conclusion now is that she isn't receptive because she thinks that I was somehow close to her ex. Thus, I proceed to write a medium-sized message to her explaining that I hadn't talk to him personally, it was my ex who told me, and I was only involved from far on this story. Bang, it worked, and two weeks later she answered me excusing herself for not answering before, confirming my intuition, seeming more receptive, and explaining she was on vacations in Spain.
After getting back from vacations, I resumed texting with her, and I managed to follow the steps of banter, soft close, hard close.
Last Thursday, two days ago, we go on our first date. A happy hour at a bar near our home. We live really close together. We both order some non-alcoholic drinks which I end up paying. She had came directly from her job, dressed neutrally. Vibe is ok, we banter a bit, ask each other a few questions. Then she asks me about my divorce. Since she knew my ex, I told her the story in some detail. We also discuss about her ex. He started harassing her after they ended up. That's why she was mad at him.
During this bar discussion, I managed to:
* Be playful
* Tease her a little bit
* Make her laugh at many points, more or less strong
* Do the "show me your hands" gambit. She is a physical therapist. I was looking for "caluses" because of her using her hands at work.
* Get to know her a little bit
* Reveal information about myself gradually, and it partially works. At many points she got back to certains things I said to ask for more details. Still, I don't think I generated real intrigue.
* Do some screening, for the first time, by asking her questions about her motivations, how she sees herself on the near future (this question surprised her), and some other. I felt she qualified to me, and not only on these questions, but on her own too, about other topics.
* Reward her with words, trying to qualify her whenever she told me something interesting. I could not do more kino apart from the hands gambit, though.
* Speak to her using interesting words, sometimes talking a bit poetically when connecting to her vacations or stories. This made her eyes spark at different occasions. However these were not really "cold reads" or "deep dives".
I didn't manage to:
* Be dominant
* Tease her hard
* Generate real intrigue
* Escalate touch, since we were sitting in front of each other on the table. I have a really hard time trying any kino on this setup.
* Cold read
* Also, I think I revealed too much information about my divorce and I think I passed the message that I'm "slowly rebuilding life" instead of "getting women left and right now that I'm free".
* Also, and I keep doing this thing which I'm sure it's wrong, but I can't avoid doing: at many occasions, I try to tease her and inject sexuality in the discussion, but I only end up making jokes which partially suggest she is "sexually strong/experienced/high value". Examples: I joke with her about "So are you still into guys from this nationality?", or "Oh these guys were just trying to impress you by saying that". Am I right in thinking that I should absolutely avoid this kind of humor?
And here are things that I really tried, but could not do properly:
* I really thought that I was managing to deep dive her, or at least start to. We talked about so many topics, and interesting topics in my opinion: vacations, past relationships of her and mine, her career story, hobbies, a bit about her family and her young years, about me living abroad my home country, about her travels. However, we will see further in the report that this was a complete failure.
* Disqualify myself. I tried to convey to her that I was "living in the moment", "being free" after my divorce. She tested me a little bit on it, asking if I had other relationships. I gave her a quick answer saying yes, but no more than that.
Then I decide to bounce with her. I ask her if she's hungry, thinking about inviting her to a good pizza restaurant just nearby. She answers she isn't hungry and that she will be heading home soon. I wait a few minutes, then propose to have a walk. She readily agrees. Note that I didn't suggest the pizza place, just asked if she was hungry.
During the walk, many interesting things happen. Firstly, I am in panic mode since she had refused the "hungry pull". In my head, I'm thinking of ways of persisting, how to escalate, etc. At the same time, although she refused the pull, she was ok for walking, and even suggested herself to take a longer path so that we could enjoy a little bit more of the walk. While we are walking, she laughs at some jokes, qualifies to me after I tease her on her zodiac sign, asks me questions, at some point tries to make me laugh. We talk about a few other topics: zodiac signs, emotions, spirituality. We get closer to her home, but I haven't found any way of escalating, any kino or kiss at this point would seem really forced. I should have persisted though, but I didn't. I was disappointed because of the lack of escalation. I try to seed a follow-up "climbing date" since I climb and she does it sometimes too, but it doesn't land. We say goodbye in an ackward manner and I continue my way.
When I arrive home, I'm floored and I think I had completely wasted it. Then I start thinking about all the somehow positive points that I described above, and tell myself that there's still a chance she will be up for a second date.
Two days later, today, Saturday, I send the "Good morning" ping to her, with a sun and a coffee mug, in Spanish to try to reconnect us with our common recent Spanish experience. It works! She answers back replacing the mug by a teapot
Then I try a soft close proposing a cafe later today. She's in! I will get my second date.
Honestly, at this point I tell myself I have it, and I pat myself on the back. How could it be otherwise? We both knew each other from the past, we are not strangers, we danced together in dance classes. We remet again recently. We are both single. We had some positive moments on our first date, even though it was not perfect: she laughed, she qualified, I rewarded her, we connected a bit. She agrees on a second encounter. I tell myself "this is going to work!". And I am really relatively confident.
She ran late, so we switched up the date to another happy-hour bar date. However, this time I'm planning to persist way more, and I can use the "pizza pull" directly to my home, or hers, since we are nearby and I didn't use it directly last time. I arrive, we greet, she's dressed better than last time. Sunglasses, black shirt, long skirt, sandals. I retell myself "it's on, it will work!". We go get some drinks, she offers to pay for the drinks but her card doesn't work. We go take our seats. She picks up a chair, and I pick a chair next to her, instead of in front, which leaves her confused and she asks me about it. This is the second time this happens to me and I don't really know to justify it. I just tell her "face to face is a bit too formal sometimes", but she doesn't seem convinced. Then I restart the discussion, and things seem to be going well until I start to ask for some compliance. I ask her to show me a bit more of pictures about her vacations. I do this only to escalate kino. While she is showing the pictures, I ask her to get closer. She refuses saying "she's fine". Then we get into a bit more details about her family, about music. I manage to touch her lightly at many points: her elbow, her knee. Somehow briefly, though. At some point, she changes her position revealing a bit more of her leg to me. But I didn't saw I link to our discussion, it was not a high point, there was no sexual tension, etc. So I don't escalate immediately.
Sometime later, the death bell rings: she tells me she "still sees me as when we were in the dance class, when we were both with our exs". She tells me this after a pause in the discussion, as if thinking aloud to me. Then I panic on the inside and try to escalate verbally. I start asking her questions trying to get her talking about how she sees me, how I see her, about our energy.
Me: Do you think we share things in common? Do you think I've started to get to know you?
She, after a faint laugh: "I don't really think so. I mean, we have just started seeing each other. It takes time to get to know someone."
RIP Dance Girl...
After this, I panicked and tried to do the pizza pull, which somehow she seemed to give some thought to, then tried to persist, but to no avail. I proposed to leave and head back home. During this last walk, the situation heated up, since I persisted one last time proposing just "to show her my building" which was one minute walk from us. She got a bit annoyed and said she isn't ready for this, that she wants to take time to get to know a person, that she isn't into that headspace at the moment, and so on. I tried to disqualify myself and introduce a "spontaneous/follow your intuition/go with the moment" vibe, but she got even angrier and rebuffed even more annoyed at it. I kind of gave a "last chance to her" then:
Me: I honestly think that if we part ways now, we are not going to see each other ever again.
She: Why not? Aren't you ok if we continue to see each other as friends for now and get to know each other better?
Me: I don't think it will work. I don't think we should wait a month doing dates instead of pushing for it now. I told you I am very interested in getting to know you, but I think that there's no reason for postponing it.
And so on, for a few minutes...
Then we said goodbye in a kind of sad tone, very dry.
When I arrive home, she texts me: "I just want to let you know that I feel very annoyed by the fact that you kept on insisting even though I was giving you signs that I didn't see it that way". I then answer her proposing a call to solve this conflict. She accepts. I call her. I explain a lot of things to her. I tell her how I appreciate her, how I respect her, how I found her very interesting, and that I didn't want to disrespect her, but that at the same time I don't think I trespassed any line, I was attentive to her signals, I didn't force anything, and anyway, I still didn't want to continue seeing each other as friends. In fact, the discussion got deeped than that, she kept asking some questions, and at the end I told her how much I was really interested in her, which I truly was, and how she hurted me by seeing we were only friends, and so on. She aknowledged that too. In the end, she understood me. I managed to calm her down. She said she accepted my excuses. Our last phrases:
She: Do you have anything else to say?
Me: No, I will leave the last words with you.
She, laughs a little bit: Alright. Then, take care!
Me: Take care, all the best!
She: All the best, bye!
Me: Bye.
This was the closest I got to a lay, I think. Two dates. A girl that I already knew. She was my type. I felt confident. Managed to get several positive points in. But also apparently several points out...
My instinct on this last her "calling me out" was that I went to direct on the end, probably raised my voice tone, and escalated exactly when she gave me signals that we were just friends. Yes, that's true, I guess. But I was not going home without knowing that I gave everything.
The funny thing is, somehow there is something weird in my guts, in my instincts, saying that even in this last call, if I was really good at the game, I could have reverted it. Somehow by taking the rejection on me, something like "You know, that's it, we're done. Only friends and I'm not interested in it. Why are you still talking to me on the phone? Somehow inverting the frame...
It's bitter, but I'm not floored. I think this was the most "structured" interaction I handled in this past year, where I consciously used many tactics, approximately in the right order, to move things forward. There was some progress.
Would love to hear any feedbacks!
I've just gotten out of my 2nd date with a girl. I think this was the most promising, interesting date I had on the past year, my post-divorce year. She was 32 years old. I am 38. It was somehow weird too, for many reasons.
I first approached her in July. I posted about it on my journal, but I will copy the paragraph here.
-----
Third approach. I passed by a bar, and recognized a girl I knew from dance classes. She is quite cute, and quite my type. 8/10. We got along quite well. I drooled over her at the time, but I had a girlfriend and she had a boyfriend. She was with two friends: a guy and a gal. I managed to feel that the guy was not her boyfriend, but just a friend. I could open her easily. Her friends noticed, I was friendly to them, and they received me well, smiling back. Her girl friend apologized for not buying me a beer, in a good way, as if inviting me to join the group. I was touchy, and tried to be emotional, kind. Didn't try to be flirty, but to be affectionate, like a close friend. Still tried to make some eye contact. She seemed open, but a little bit confused. She fumbled on some of her answers. Overall it was nice. Then I asked for her number again, and then proposed some coffee. Should have inverted the order. Let's see what happens.
-----
Same night, two hours after meeting her:
Me: Hi Dance Girl, nice to cross paths with you again.
Her: Hi D'Artagnan! Yes, it was indeed funny ^^
I proceed to do some banter with her over the next few days. I felt like our encounter was quick so it would be a good idea before inviting her. After some banter, I try a soft close, but she says she's busy and will be leaving soon for vacations.
From my point of view: we knew each other in the past, we had a good vibe, I was attracted to her, and she seemed free this time around. I assume attraction, and think to myself "there is no reason why this girl is not interested in me, there must be something going on". Then I remember that, during our encounter, she mentioned she had finished with her ex that I knew from the dance classes, and I told her that I knew it, because my ex talked to her ex. At that moment, Dance Girl gave me a strange, surprised look. So, my conclusion now is that she isn't receptive because she thinks that I was somehow close to her ex. Thus, I proceed to write a medium-sized message to her explaining that I hadn't talk to him personally, it was my ex who told me, and I was only involved from far on this story. Bang, it worked, and two weeks later she answered me excusing herself for not answering before, confirming my intuition, seeming more receptive, and explaining she was on vacations in Spain.
After getting back from vacations, I resumed texting with her, and I managed to follow the steps of banter, soft close, hard close.
Last Thursday, two days ago, we go on our first date. A happy hour at a bar near our home. We live really close together. We both order some non-alcoholic drinks which I end up paying. She had came directly from her job, dressed neutrally. Vibe is ok, we banter a bit, ask each other a few questions. Then she asks me about my divorce. Since she knew my ex, I told her the story in some detail. We also discuss about her ex. He started harassing her after they ended up. That's why she was mad at him.
During this bar discussion, I managed to:
* Be playful
* Tease her a little bit
* Make her laugh at many points, more or less strong
* Do the "show me your hands" gambit. She is a physical therapist. I was looking for "caluses" because of her using her hands at work.
* Get to know her a little bit
* Reveal information about myself gradually, and it partially works. At many points she got back to certains things I said to ask for more details. Still, I don't think I generated real intrigue.
* Do some screening, for the first time, by asking her questions about her motivations, how she sees herself on the near future (this question surprised her), and some other. I felt she qualified to me, and not only on these questions, but on her own too, about other topics.
* Reward her with words, trying to qualify her whenever she told me something interesting. I could not do more kino apart from the hands gambit, though.
* Speak to her using interesting words, sometimes talking a bit poetically when connecting to her vacations or stories. This made her eyes spark at different occasions. However these were not really "cold reads" or "deep dives".
I didn't manage to:
* Be dominant
* Tease her hard
* Generate real intrigue
* Escalate touch, since we were sitting in front of each other on the table. I have a really hard time trying any kino on this setup.
* Cold read
* Also, I think I revealed too much information about my divorce and I think I passed the message that I'm "slowly rebuilding life" instead of "getting women left and right now that I'm free".
* Also, and I keep doing this thing which I'm sure it's wrong, but I can't avoid doing: at many occasions, I try to tease her and inject sexuality in the discussion, but I only end up making jokes which partially suggest she is "sexually strong/experienced/high value". Examples: I joke with her about "So are you still into guys from this nationality?", or "Oh these guys were just trying to impress you by saying that". Am I right in thinking that I should absolutely avoid this kind of humor?
And here are things that I really tried, but could not do properly:
* I really thought that I was managing to deep dive her, or at least start to. We talked about so many topics, and interesting topics in my opinion: vacations, past relationships of her and mine, her career story, hobbies, a bit about her family and her young years, about me living abroad my home country, about her travels. However, we will see further in the report that this was a complete failure.
* Disqualify myself. I tried to convey to her that I was "living in the moment", "being free" after my divorce. She tested me a little bit on it, asking if I had other relationships. I gave her a quick answer saying yes, but no more than that.
Then I decide to bounce with her. I ask her if she's hungry, thinking about inviting her to a good pizza restaurant just nearby. She answers she isn't hungry and that she will be heading home soon. I wait a few minutes, then propose to have a walk. She readily agrees. Note that I didn't suggest the pizza place, just asked if she was hungry.
During the walk, many interesting things happen. Firstly, I am in panic mode since she had refused the "hungry pull". In my head, I'm thinking of ways of persisting, how to escalate, etc. At the same time, although she refused the pull, she was ok for walking, and even suggested herself to take a longer path so that we could enjoy a little bit more of the walk. While we are walking, she laughs at some jokes, qualifies to me after I tease her on her zodiac sign, asks me questions, at some point tries to make me laugh. We talk about a few other topics: zodiac signs, emotions, spirituality. We get closer to her home, but I haven't found any way of escalating, any kino or kiss at this point would seem really forced. I should have persisted though, but I didn't. I was disappointed because of the lack of escalation. I try to seed a follow-up "climbing date" since I climb and she does it sometimes too, but it doesn't land. We say goodbye in an ackward manner and I continue my way.
When I arrive home, I'm floored and I think I had completely wasted it. Then I start thinking about all the somehow positive points that I described above, and tell myself that there's still a chance she will be up for a second date.
Two days later, today, Saturday, I send the "Good morning" ping to her, with a sun and a coffee mug, in Spanish to try to reconnect us with our common recent Spanish experience. It works! She answers back replacing the mug by a teapot
Then I try a soft close proposing a cafe later today. She's in! I will get my second date.Honestly, at this point I tell myself I have it, and I pat myself on the back. How could it be otherwise? We both knew each other from the past, we are not strangers, we danced together in dance classes. We remet again recently. We are both single. We had some positive moments on our first date, even though it was not perfect: she laughed, she qualified, I rewarded her, we connected a bit. She agrees on a second encounter. I tell myself "this is going to work!". And I am really relatively confident.
She ran late, so we switched up the date to another happy-hour bar date. However, this time I'm planning to persist way more, and I can use the "pizza pull" directly to my home, or hers, since we are nearby and I didn't use it directly last time. I arrive, we greet, she's dressed better than last time. Sunglasses, black shirt, long skirt, sandals. I retell myself "it's on, it will work!". We go get some drinks, she offers to pay for the drinks but her card doesn't work. We go take our seats. She picks up a chair, and I pick a chair next to her, instead of in front, which leaves her confused and she asks me about it. This is the second time this happens to me and I don't really know to justify it. I just tell her "face to face is a bit too formal sometimes", but she doesn't seem convinced. Then I restart the discussion, and things seem to be going well until I start to ask for some compliance. I ask her to show me a bit more of pictures about her vacations. I do this only to escalate kino. While she is showing the pictures, I ask her to get closer. She refuses saying "she's fine". Then we get into a bit more details about her family, about music. I manage to touch her lightly at many points: her elbow, her knee. Somehow briefly, though. At some point, she changes her position revealing a bit more of her leg to me. But I didn't saw I link to our discussion, it was not a high point, there was no sexual tension, etc. So I don't escalate immediately.
Sometime later, the death bell rings: she tells me she "still sees me as when we were in the dance class, when we were both with our exs". She tells me this after a pause in the discussion, as if thinking aloud to me. Then I panic on the inside and try to escalate verbally. I start asking her questions trying to get her talking about how she sees me, how I see her, about our energy.
Me: Do you think we share things in common? Do you think I've started to get to know you?
She, after a faint laugh: "I don't really think so. I mean, we have just started seeing each other. It takes time to get to know someone."
RIP Dance Girl...
After this, I panicked and tried to do the pizza pull, which somehow she seemed to give some thought to, then tried to persist, but to no avail. I proposed to leave and head back home. During this last walk, the situation heated up, since I persisted one last time proposing just "to show her my building" which was one minute walk from us. She got a bit annoyed and said she isn't ready for this, that she wants to take time to get to know a person, that she isn't into that headspace at the moment, and so on. I tried to disqualify myself and introduce a "spontaneous/follow your intuition/go with the moment" vibe, but she got even angrier and rebuffed even more annoyed at it. I kind of gave a "last chance to her" then:
Me: I honestly think that if we part ways now, we are not going to see each other ever again.
She: Why not? Aren't you ok if we continue to see each other as friends for now and get to know each other better?
Me: I don't think it will work. I don't think we should wait a month doing dates instead of pushing for it now. I told you I am very interested in getting to know you, but I think that there's no reason for postponing it.
And so on, for a few minutes...
Then we said goodbye in a kind of sad tone, very dry.
When I arrive home, she texts me: "I just want to let you know that I feel very annoyed by the fact that you kept on insisting even though I was giving you signs that I didn't see it that way". I then answer her proposing a call to solve this conflict. She accepts. I call her. I explain a lot of things to her. I tell her how I appreciate her, how I respect her, how I found her very interesting, and that I didn't want to disrespect her, but that at the same time I don't think I trespassed any line, I was attentive to her signals, I didn't force anything, and anyway, I still didn't want to continue seeing each other as friends. In fact, the discussion got deeped than that, she kept asking some questions, and at the end I told her how much I was really interested in her, which I truly was, and how she hurted me by seeing we were only friends, and so on. She aknowledged that too. In the end, she understood me. I managed to calm her down. She said she accepted my excuses. Our last phrases:
She: Do you have anything else to say?
Me: No, I will leave the last words with you.
She, laughs a little bit: Alright. Then, take care!
Me: Take care, all the best!
She: All the best, bye!
Me: Bye.
This was the closest I got to a lay, I think. Two dates. A girl that I already knew. She was my type. I felt confident. Managed to get several positive points in. But also apparently several points out...
My instinct on this last her "calling me out" was that I went to direct on the end, probably raised my voice tone, and escalated exactly when she gave me signals that we were just friends. Yes, that's true, I guess. But I was not going home without knowing that I gave everything.
The funny thing is, somehow there is something weird in my guts, in my instincts, saying that even in this last call, if I was really good at the game, I could have reverted it. Somehow by taking the rejection on me, something like "You know, that's it, we're done. Only friends and I'm not interested in it. Why are you still talking to me on the phone? Somehow inverting the frame...
It's bitter, but I'm not floored. I think this was the most "structured" interaction I handled in this past year, where I consciously used many tactics, approximately in the right order, to move things forward. There was some progress.
Would love to hear any feedbacks!
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