I’d better start this the way all good relationship advice threads start (even though, as such, there’s no relationship yet - that’s kind of the point)…
There’s this guy…
I’m not very good at this - I’ve only ever had one relationship with a guy before, and that started when I was 15 and took a shove from a mutual friend to get going…
This guy works at the same company as me, although in a different division and (recently) at a different site. On one of my previous projects we had worked together some, but now, I don’t have anything to do with him. He’s really, really shy - when a new guy on his team started, this guy didn’t talk to him for a couple of months, so much so that he was worried that he would be thought of as racist (the new guy was asian), when really he just didn’t know how to start a converstation…
So spin forward to the Christmas party this year - I bump into this guy again, and we get to talking - and pretty soon, the night has flown, it’s 3 hours later,and the party is over - we weren’t talking all deep and meaningful things - just catching up - a little bit of work stuff, a little bit of family, a little bit of christmas plans etc. Some personal stuff too - he talks about his family and I talk about mine. At the end of the night, I gave him a lift to the train station. I kind of get to thinking (hoping) that maybe he likes me too.
On the following Monday morning (the party had been a Friday), I send him a short email that says “I really enjoyed catching up with you Friday, hope you have a happy christmas”. Well, now it’s Wednesady and there’s been no reply.
So there’s the story.
Now to my question - does he like me or was he just talking to someone he knew and not wanting to go off and find someone else at the party to talk to. (Remember he’s very introverted)
What do I do now?
Feel free to ask questions if you need more information…
Ask him on a date. If it goes well, kiss him at the end of it.
If this guy is as introverted as he sounds, you’re going to have to take all of the initiative, at least initially, if you want anything to happen. He may say no, but that’s how romance goes. It’ll be a lot better if you take the initiative than sitting back on pins and needles waiting for him to do it. Because even if he really really likes you, there’s a good chance he won’t, and that would be sad.
Email sucks anyway. I say, walk up to him, tell him you really enjoyed his conversation and company, and suggest you get together again. And then work out a date for the next available time you both have. Go see a movie if you feel like you’ll be pressed for conversation. Then you’ll have something to talk about. Alcohol is good for lubricating the conversational part of the brain, among others…you know the rest. Have fun.
He might, like me, suck at responding to emails. Sometimes I see an email, think “I should respond to that…I’ll do that once I…” and then of course I forget for like a week and by then the person who emailed me initially either hates me or thinks I hate them.
Can you think of an excuse that isn’t really obvious to call him? Something work related that you could use to segue into asking him for a date? That’s the only thing I can think of, because it doesn’t sound like you’ll be able to contrive a way to see him in person. Or you could send him an Xmas card and mention that you’ll call him after the holidays to see how his Xmas went. How does that sound?
Find an event, be it a movie or an opening or something low pressure, that will occur the week of January 2nd (which removes any holiday scheduling difficulties).
Invite him to it, casually. Email is fine, just make sure the email contains a specific question, not just a “hiya” but a “hiya, this needs a response you goof!”
“Hey, I really enjoyed talking with you the other night and I remembered today that I have tickets for X. Can I talk you into going with me?”
I often forget to answer chatty emails. I don’t forget to answer emails that ask me a specific question.
And I’ve found that asking about a specific date is easier and less stressful for both parties than simply a “want to get together sometime and do something?” So I’d really suggest asking him about something very specific, to avoid the awkwardness of neither of you knowing what sort of something the other might have in mind!
Pick up the phone and call him.
Start with some idle chit chat, and ask him to dinner so you can catch up some more. Follow Giraffe after that.
Report back
On the plus side, if you ask him out and he says no, you won’t have to feel awkward seeing him around the office every day.
Call him! This could lead to a wonderful romance – it’s worth risking a few minutes of embarrassment in the very worst case. The fact that he spent so much time talking to you when he’s introverted shows that he’s obviously interested in you on some level.
See, I’m worried that spending so much time talking to me was because he was either a) too awkward to extricate himself from the conversation or b) was relieved to be talking to someone he knew and didn’t want to have to go through finding someone else to talk to, not that it had anything to do with my scintillating conversation…
That he hasn’t replied to my email also worries me - he’s usually pretty good at replying (at least for work stuff)
To this I say: nonsense. If you let yourself look for every possible reason why someone doesn’t like you, you’ll never date anyone.
Dating is inherently risky. If you ask people out you aren’t sure will say yes, there’s a risk they’ll say no. If you only ask people out who you are certain will say yes, there’s a much bigger risk that you’ll miss out on many good romantic opportunities.
Better to live a life where you take risks than one where nothing happens. And him saying no is really not that bad a thing to have happen, especially when measured against the possibility of you guys having a great time together.
As a bloke, I can assure you that we are usually hopeless at picking up signals from women.
Your polite e-mail could have been read simply as a thank-you note.
Also, he probably doesn’t dare hope that someone like you could be interested in him.
Be direct. Make it clear in a pleasant way that you would like to go out with him.
If you need an example of us shy chaps in action:
As a teenager i was giving a chess display for charity. Very boring (unless you played chess).
A sweet girl I had just met asked if she could come and watch.
She didn’t play, so I told her it would not be interesting. :smack:
She said she would come anyway. I thought nothing of it. :smack: :smack: She brought a book and stayed there for 4 hours! :smack: :smack: :smack:
I didn’t ask her out or anything. (There aren’t enough smilies in the World…)
You emailed him, he didn’t reply. He’s at work this week so you know he’s read it.
He’s not interested. Interested men answer emails and call the woman they’re interested in. No, he’s not “just shy.” He’s just not that interested. Actions speak louder than words. There’s no words because he’s not talking. His actions thus far have been not replying to your email and not calling you: ignoring you, basically. “Just busy” is a copout, we make time for what’s important to us.
When a man sees a woman he really likes, he will call, I don’t care how “shy” he is. Men who claim shyness as an excuse for not pursuing a woman are either lazy or not as interested in her as they claim to be. Sure, you can ask him out, and he might even say yes and hell, for all we know you may end up married. Do you want a milquetoast man, though? Do you really want a relationship in which you had to send HIM flowers? You deserve better, hon.
The initial email might have seemed almost like a Christmas card. I don’t reply to every Christmas card I get. If he’s the extremely self-conscious type, he might be thinking that he’d like to reply but is afraid that she’s not expecting a reply and suddenly replying seems like a really big deal.
robin, what’s nice about your situation is that if he isn’t interested, you aren’t sharing a cubicle with him or anything! But I wouldn’t take the lack of reply to your email as a sign of anything. Yes, if you knew that he was aggressive and extroverted, his failure to reply might mean something. But you know that he’s not, so it’s not necessarily so.
Oh, and I’ve sent emails that never arrived, too.
I’m shy. Let me tell you, there’s nothing forcing me to talk to anyone for hours, even if they are the only people I know. I don’t talk to anyone for hours unless I want to.
You know, if I had a dollar for every time I missed picking up on a girl’s signals, maybe I could finally pay that cute redheaded girl at the office to stop hanging around my cubicle when I’m trying to work. :smack: