How can I approach this girl in a way that's not creepy?

Never happened. :stuck_out_tongue:

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

I totally would have gone for this in high school.

Errr, that was me. (And it still is beautiful, although a little blustery today).

You confused me with Vox!?

I’m twice his age, don’t need to worry about dating etiquette, my name is clearly a Greek one and not a Latin epithet, and I don’t sign off every post in a mildly annoying manner - so there!

Yassas,
Petrobey

PS And Vox facebook or IRL talk to her, but do something - life’s too short, to coin a phrase.

PPS I really don’t understand Facebook. Why would you have a friend who you’ve never talked to?

Having been in Facebook for a couple months…I still don’t get it. I’m constantly getting people sending me flair, telling me I’m the nicest person on Facebook, sending me covered dishes (like a virtual potluck), and so on. What I notice though is that if you go to accept them, you often have to send same to 10 or 15 other people, which nullifies the “You’re special!” message it purports to convey. I.e. “You’re the nicest person” is really “You’re (one of the 15) nicest people!”

Then I see them IRL and they don’t really make me feel all that special. It’s like when I started with the internet, getting an e-mail that said how great and unique I am—but there are 57,000 names in the address line.

Maybe OP is a virtuoso of Facebook. Maybe teens are spiders sensing the slightest tension on their web that is Facebook and have ways of divining all this. But it seems like sending a boy to do a man’s job.

What if she declines the request to be friends? Is that “Ewww I know him and no thanks” or “Gee, I don’t recognize this person…I’ll just decline it.”? Would he charge forward with plan B?

I agree with what you’re saying, but what I find weird here is that he already is friends with her on Facebook:

Ah, my bad. Well, they can probably see the profile, and it’s “Oh look, we go to the same school!”

Vox, think about this for a minute. No matter what you do, what could possibly go wrong? You are already not going out with her and with nothing in common. How can it get worse than that?

Walk up to her one day you have the afternoon completely free (make it happen, if you must) and ask her “Hey, would you like to have a coffee/ice cream/rock?”. If she says no, then that’s that.

I went through all my senior year in High School dreaming of this cute girl that I never spoke to. Once I started dating more seriously in Uni, I looked back at those days and could only wonder why I was so silly about the whole thing. (And then after some years, I saw her looking like an ugly cheap harlot and was glad I didn’t talk to her, hah).

You cannot do worse than you are now. Do something.

well yeah, kind of. I’ll explain it further if you want, but there are lots of newfangled social subtleties facilitated by facebook.

Just be careful with the handwriting. If she thinks you wrote “Ich liebe dick,” things could get awkward.

You are invited!
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10803201#post10803201

Make sure you tell her about the shrine you made to her that is hidden in the closet. If you become friends and she finds it later it may be awkward.

All of this “Valete” shit and you don’t even think to see what the Doctor Amoris has to say? Amateur!

Read. Profit from it.

Ok ok…let’s just end all of this by a simple phrase…

I am an idiot

Well, I’ll still try to send messages over Facebook, but this weekend might not be good for any kind of activity because I’ll be sedated on Friday to have an extra tooth surgically removed. It depends how I feel on Saturday; hopefully it won’t be too bad.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

You have 33 teeth?

Well, there is a pickup line. “Hey babe, wanna see my 33rd tooth?”

Yeah, apparently it’s not all that uncommon. It wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t going to push my other teeth around and make them crooked (it has not yet actually come in, that being the thing I’m trying to avoid).

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

You’ve only been making excuses all this time. You’re going to end up regretting not asking her out, either when someone else does or she leaves for points unknown.

To be fair, it might be asking a bit too much to ask out a girl you barely know for a Valentines Day date. Just sayin’. Maybe a mid-week next week?

I thought of that; I don’t know what I’ll do.

And I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to send her a message, but for the life of me, I can not think of anything to say beyond the initial “Hey, how are you?” Obviously, asking her to do anything straight after that would be unacceptable, but what else can I say? And jumping to questions like, “What kind of sports do you play? What kind of music do you listen to? What do you like to do on the weekends?” sounds like an interrogation.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris