Dating/avoiding stalking question from clueless me

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve deliberately kept the genders/sexes ambiguous here.

This morning, while approaching my bus stop on my way to work, I noticed someone I’ll call L, who was wearing a shirt with the name of a local non-profit that I recognized. We got to talking, and in the space of a few minutes I noticed that we had certain fundamental values/interests/experiences in common, we had a noticeable rapport, and I learned that L has a very interesting job at a school a few blocks from where I live. L was headed home after a sleepover of some sort.

Unfortunately, I should have asked sooner exactly which bus L was going to take (several different lines pass that stop), because then I would have exchanged contact information quickly! I saw my bus coming, asked if L was waiting for the same one, and upon getting an answer in the negative, I asked if perhaps they had a business card. L did not, and at that moment the bus’s door was opening, and I had to board.

Do I have any options here, besides hoping to run into L again? Based on what I already know, and the resulting look at the school’s website, I can send L an email right now. I can’t think of much else other than one of those ridiculous “missed connections” ads, and perhaps one more vague, cockamamie scheme involving my still-gestating-band offering to someday somehow contribute to what L does with the students… OK, with a little more poking around online it seems we know a few of the same people, but the only way I know that is by poking around online.

The problem is, I don’t know if it’s gauche (or much worse) to pursue any of these options. As I mentioned in the thread I started about my fruitless career hunt, I really don’t play well with others. It’s not due to shyness, but instead I just don’t see human interaction in the “normal” way. It’s caused me a lot of problems and a lot of pain, when the last thing I want to do is bother someone, much less frighten them.

What can I do? It’s not like I have a bunch of potential dates to pick from (it baffles me that that’s expected and normal), and even if I did, people are unique, and not disposable.

2

If L is female, it will probably be creepy and stalkerish for her to find out that you went looking for her. It doesn’t give women a warm fuzzy feeling to know that guys they met at a bus stop know where they live. And if you had that much of a connection - she would have missed her bus.

3

I agree with that, it’s tough though since on the one hand she told him where she worked and with a first name and a place of business it’s not like it takes a whole lot to find someone. I was once accused of being ‘creepy’ for looking up new applicants on facebook and our public access court records at work. I remember saying “It’s not like I’m spending hours or making phone calls trying to find this information, I literally just typed his/her name into facebook, it’s the same way you would find a new friend that you met”*

If you want to be slightly less creepy about it, you said that you have some mutual friends. You could make sure you have a recognizable profile picture of yourself and comment on status updates from those friends, if she’s reasonably active, she might say “hey, it’s that guy from the bus stop”. Then instead of you 'finding her at her work" she can ‘find you on facebook though a mutual friend’. Just make sure all your privacy settings get changed from “friends only” to “friends of friends” and that you’re accepting messages from everyone and checking your “other” inbox from time to time.
*part of my job is to see if there’s any reason we shouldn’t hire a new applicant so when someone new applies one of the things I do is take a look at their facebook page. People…when you apply for a new job either lock down your FB page or get rid of the pictures/updates that a new employer might not want to see.

4

I don’t use Facebook. I think that there might be a way for me to deftly get a mutual acquaintance to put us in contact, but this will be complicated. It shouldn’t be this difficult.

5

Maybe you’ll run into this person at that bus stop again. Or the mutual acquaintance thing might work. The real risk, in my opinion, is building something up in your mind only to be disappointed.

6

This ↑↑↑

7

Yeah, when I was younger, and before the internet, a number of guys felt a connection strong enough to track me down.

  1. It was always creepy.

  2. I was engaged. Engaged hadn’t come up in our brief conversation, and I wasn’t one of those girls to assume a guy was talking to me out of romantic interest - so I wouldn’t blurt out “I’m engaged” unless it was important to the conversation.

8

You need to get past this attitude. If you start complaining that finding romance shouldn’t be this difficult, you are going to sound either whiny or entitled, and neither of those is attractive. Nowhere is it written that you are guaranteed a ‘meet cute’, an ‘instant connection’, or any other type of interaction with any other human being. On the flip side, nowhere is it written that this was your only chance and if you don’t make it work, you will die alone.

You had a pleasant and agreeable conversation with another person. You were interested. It didn’t work out.

Let it go.

9

First listen to the Hollies’ song Bus Stop a couple of times.

Then send an email. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

10

I think this is being a bit harsh. We can all, single or not, agree that it shouldn’t be this difficult to get a date/meet someone/show interest/all of the above. But to immediately pick out that phrase and then extrapolate it to “if you live by this you’ll die alone”, seems a bit unfair.

Let’s wait until we hear further from this, or other threads started about a missed connection/love life from the OP before we look into a phrase

I think this post says a lot, especially number 2. People don’t really voluneer their martial status to someone they met at the bus stop, and if they do they’re not really worth dating anyway probably. So to try and contact the person without doing some behind-the-scenes sluthing (through the friends or facebook) to see if maybe there is someone, you might just be perpetuating a “ugh every guy that talks to me only wants me!” kind of stereotype.

11

This.

I don’t know why you think you are entitled to ask a person out after only a single conversation. Geez, get to know anyone, ever? Why don’t you start looking for this person of interest at the bus stop where you met her (I think you are guy)? Have another conversation, see how that goes down. Maybe after a few conversations, she will ask you out. Or she will make you sick* and once someone makes you sick, you can’t go back and get un-sick.

Instead of trying to accelerate from stranger on the street to dating after just one few-minute conversation, try taking the time to get to know this person. Then there won’t be a bunch of what ifs because you’ll know each other.

  • Southern colloqualism that means “not attracted to anymore.”
12

Whatever you do, don’t let this be the basis for pursuing a person. If you don’t have a bunch of potential dates to choose from, then find a way to meet more people, or do online dating, or something else. Don’t chase this person down because you feel like you don’t have many other chances, because that’s the way to build something up more than it is, and that’s the way turn out to be disappointed or to seem creepy to other people.

I’m a woman, and I wouldn’t feel creeped out if a guy emailed me if I knew that he was able to find my email address just by googling my name and my company’s name, and I had told him both of those when we were talking. I would be creeped out if I knew that the email address was buried 20 pages in on the company’s website, or it would take a whole lot of internet stalking to find it.

I would say only send the email if you can play it cool. If you can send a casual email saying something about I enjoyed talking to you, I looked up your name and employer and found your email really easily, was wondering if you’d like to get coffee, and give her your phone number. And then don’t do anything at all if she doesn’t respond. Don’t follow it up with any more emails if she doesn’t respond to the first one. And if she doesn’t respond and you see her again on the bus, be cool, and don’t say anything about the email or try to pressure her in any way, just politely chat if she looks like she wants to chat. If you don’t think you could play it cool, then don’t send an email.

13

A bit on the harsh side, but I’d say more or less this. You asked for her business card, and if she were interested, she would have offered her number or email or something. Though, in the future, I’d suggest asking for her number rather than her card, or maybe offering your own contact information (number, email, whatever).

Now sure, some people have it easier than others getting dates or whatever, but even though I don’t have the easiest time with this sort of thing in person either, I think the idea of having a nice conversation with a woman and seeing anything less than a date as a failure just makes the pressure worse. If anything, it feels kind of awkward when I am having a good conversation with a woman and a friend or acquaintance with me tries to either pressure me into asking her our or just straight up inserts that into the conversation themselves.

For me, I found just having a conversation with no particular goal is nice, and I’ll have conversations with women whether I’m attracted to them or not. Personally, I wouldn’t look her up and send her an email, I do think it would come off as creepy, especially since it didn’t seem like she was particularly interested. Having been on the other side of that, as I’m fairly easy to find, I’d find it pretty creepy too. Maybe you’ll run into her again, you can pick up the conversation and maybe you’ll get clearer signals either way, or maybe you can just enjoy the conversation, or maybe you won’t see her and you shouldn’t hold your breath. Either way, good conversations are fun by their own, they’re good for getting to know people of either gender for various reasons, casual, business, friends, or romance, and if you are looking for romance, it’ll help you with that too.

14

As someone (female) who is pretty clueless about any kind of romantic interactions (my spouse, who’s about as clueless as I am, pretty much had to just come out and tell me he liked me that way even though we’d been hanging out as best friends for several months before), I would say that there’s always the possibility she’s clueless too, or socially awkward, or it just didn’t register on her that you might be interested at that point, which might be why she didn’t give you more info.

I would say that if you have mutual friends, talk to one of them (the one you think might know her best or the one you know best). Ask them a few questions: is she seeing anyone? Is she engaged/married? Do you think she might mind if you contacted her? Tell them you don’t want to creep her out if she likely wouldn’t be interested, but you’d like to contact her if possible.

Let it go from there. Don’t build her up. If she’s available and the mutual acquaintance doesn’t think she’d be creeped out, send her an email. If not, don’t and move on. I think one contact isn’t creepy in this case, but more than one would be if she doesn’t respond to the first one.

Oh, one more thing: If you do contact her, be confident and casual. (Something like, “I enjoyed chatting with you at the bus stop. Would you be interested in having coffee some time and chatting more?” or something along those lines). Whatever you do, don’t come off as needy.

15

I sympathize with your social awkwardness, if that’s what it is. I share it in spades.

I have to wonder why you didn’t just miss your bus, and continue to talk to L. That would have sent a pretty strong signal that you were interested, but still left L all the options for not being interested.

I’m wondering also why the gender ambiguity in your OP. If there is any question about whether L is attracted to your gender, that adds enormously to the complication of contacting L out of the blue by email or whatever.

I think if I were really interested in someone I had just met once like this, I would persuade our mutual acquaintance to host a little gathering to which we were both invited, and hope for the best. Anything more forward than that could easily feel creepy to L.

Good luck, I don’t think you need to give up or let it go completely, but tread with care.

16

Entitled?!!That sounds very strange. :dubious:
I have asked women out at a first meeting (after some conversation that seemed to indicate mutual interest) Some said yes, some said no, and that was that.

17

Email her and ask her to get together for coffee or something simple. She may say yes or she may say no. One thing for sure is that if you don’t ask, you will most likely not see her again. If she says no, then you are no worse off than you are now. Take a chance.

Pretty lame ass recommendations upthread on entitlement and fate. Ignore these people. You’re not emailing her to ask her to marry you or even start a relationship based upon a conversation. You’re asking her to meet up and further the conversation that you started. Not a big deal. If she’s already in a relationship, no biggee. Asking someone out is not an assault or even stalking someone. If she says no, then you let it go.