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

Ehhh… I wouldn’t go there personally, but wait for everyone else. It seems kind of sudden, especially since she doesn’t really know you. For me at least “random message” would be okay “unexpected Valentine on facebook” would strike me as “umm… this is kinda creepy.” Even though it’s non-romantic the connotation of a Valentine suggests you should at least be on speaking terms.

This was my initially feeling as well, but I just thought I’d put it out there in case I was being too cautious. And I’m afraid the thread might have gotten so long that people have stopped checking it. :slight_smile:

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

Why not ask her to help you learn German? I realize this isn’t the best solution, but it could be done over facebook or similar, and could lead to you being able to set up coffee or something to practice speaking. This is the best i can come up with from what you’ve said about not having lunch, classes or extracurricular activities with her.

I think asking someone to help you learn a foreign language (unless you’re paying them) requires at least minimal prior contact without it being quite strange, so I don’t think this would be a good idea. The only problem of not having any activities together is that there’s not a time where we’d naturally be in the same room together and have a pre-made chance to talk, not that it would impossible to see her at all if we did know each other.

Valete,
Vox Imperatoris

I agree that the unexpected valentine is too risky. You can’t always convey the “just being friendly” vibe on the net, for one thing. She hasn’t replied to your messages, for another. Even if she had, playing the valentine angle would still be too much too soon IMO.

In order to avoid appearing to be too needy/anxious/stalkerish, one guideline that I’ve used is “one-for-one.” If you email her and she waits a day to reply, then wait about a day to reply to her. Whether it’s time, money, or anything else you don’t want to be the one who’s always “carrying” the relationship. Ultimately it will come back to haunt you.

A thread about “Life Lessons You’ve Learned While Dating” also has some food for thought.

SHAKES posted in that thread: The one who cares less about the relationship holds all the power.

My take on that: for many people, if it’s “free,” then it must be “worthless.” E.g. if you won a million dollars, you might piss your way through it pretty quickly; not so if you worked hard and earned a million dollars. You need to resist the impulse to do way more than your share. If she doesn’t feel that she put in some work to get you, doing more and more for her will make her appreciate you less and less in the long term.

Wait till next week.

You have already tried to get in touch with her through Facebook and she ignored you. I’m sorry to say this but it is becoming clear that she has no interest in you. If you do anything else through Facebook you will come off as creepy.

The bad thing about trying to flirt through Facebook is you are never 100% certain that she actually got the message you sent to her. With that in mind, the next time you see her you should try to make eye contact (but don’t stare) and give her a nice smile. If she returns it, go talk to her in person. If she looks away - well - at least you know for certain not to waste any more time trying to get her to notice you.

In any case - do not try to communicate with her through Facebook again until you talk to her in person.

I’m doing better (sorry Vox), I didn’t get her first name yet, but we worked together in class today and had a pretty good time. I’m not the person she usually works with and I don’t sit right next to her (her usual friends do) which means she deliberately came to me specifically so I know she at feel favorably towards me. I think I’ll do the asking on Tuesday, but I’m going to try and get some info (like name) Monday.

English of I good is.

she at least feels favorably (damn database errors preventing my edit!).

Totally.
I always think Facebook, et al. are bad ways to start communicating with someone you are interested in. You never know if they are not interested or simply missed the message or if they misunderstood your intentions as simple playful flirting. “Hey how are you” messages are the most typical messages sent, she probably has dozens of similar messages like that.

If you still want to keep on trucking then do the obvious thing and talk to her in person.

Well lads it’s been a week, how have things gone?

“And if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass a-hoppin’!” Nathan Arizona.

Uh, bump.

It kinda looks like this thread is approaching life support status, but I had a novel idea that I don’t think anyone has mentioned. It might not be the most responsible, but I personally guarantee success with this method, and I was probably in about the same awkward stage as you are now in high school.

I was an early birthday for my grade (early sept) so I was driving before most of the people in my class were. We had an open campus for lunch and I wasn’t ever one to assume that all of the learning I was supposed to be doing there was taught in the classes and books. Once I started driving I used take my friends and we would go out to lunch at some nearby restaurant. One day a couple of girls asked us if we would care to take them with us to lunch, since they couldn’t drive yet. Bingo- It was as simple as a lightbulb going off over my head. I just started asking girls if they would like a ride off campus for lunch. It was easy- everyone wanted to go off campus for lunch, it was short and sweet- enough time to talk a little but not a full on ‘date’, it typically didn’t cost me anything and even if I took out a girl or two I had no interest in, it made me seem a little more approachable to other women and so on. Word of mouth and all.

“But wait!” you say “we don’t have the same lunch period”. Here’s where the irresponsibility comes in. After about a month of taking out girls on my lunch, I thought I had franchise potential and started branching into the other two lunch periods, sometimes taking two or three lunches a day. You can’t get away with it every day, but a resourceful ditcher can slide out once or twice a week without too much trouble. Even if you only pull it once, fake a Dr’s appt, take her to lunch, see where it goes from there.

After my sophomore year, this didn’t have quite the pull, since pretty much everyone could drive, but you can always try it out on the younger girls.

More general advice would be to keep your eyes open while you try to separate one girl from the herd. I can’t count of the number of times I’ve been chasing a reluctant “7” and actually come out with an eager “9” who noticed my advances and was wishing that they were directed towards her. Women tend to be fiercely competitive with attracting men, and the mere act of flirting or initial dating sets off a frenzy like a blood bank bus crashing into the piranha tank at SeaWorld.

I think the driving rules may have gotten a lot stricter since we were young, about teenagers driving with other teenagers.

Not really, well as far as legality goes, it’s campus security that’s tighter. Good luck getting off campus, especially if you’re not 18 (and even then, your parents need to sign a waiver before they allow you to sign yourself out). And then that applies for EVERYONE leaving, if you take 3 girls to lunch, they all better be 18, have the waiver signed, and be able to make up a legitimate sounding excuse for an off-campus pass from the office otherwise you ain’t getting out of the parking lot, let alone going somewhere for lunch.

Or state laws on driving. Michigan has really gotten strict on teen drivers in the past 13 years or so. Here’s the graduated license program Michigan has. You need to get your permit (Level 1 license) and drive with a parent/guardian for 50 documented hours before you can get your Level 2 license (where the youngest you can be is 16). At that time, you still cannot drive without someone 21 years old or older with you in the car at all times (minus driving to and from work).

Even if campus rules were relaxed, you still couldn’t just drive a gaggle of fellow high schoolers around until you turn 17.

I thought that was the way it always was, it’s more of a “learners permit” issue though, isn’t it? I thought that part always applied, I guess I’m just colored by being in high school looks at watch a year ago and thinking that part was implied. Unless I’m misinterpreting what you mean it simply sounds like routine “you need x hours at y age to get a general lisence” thing.

No, the key I’m talking about is that even after you get your license after the permit, you cannot have just fellow teenagers in the car right away. You have to have an over-21 adult in your car with you.

Hmm, on review, I totally forgot I posted about my issue/person/problem/thing, I’ll give a quick update.

I’m not sure I’m going to ask her out, I walked into class on one day (I never got to be with her at length on any Tuesday, she had less time than I thought she said) to her saying something like “he likes me” in a somewhat excited tone. Granted this could be about any damn thing in the world (especially since her conversation quickly drifted onto her brother and carrying around cookies for him, so maybe the conversation was there all along), but I’m thinking it’s a somewhat informed decision to just write this one off unless I drop the fairly transparent “I’m sure you and your boyfriend…” line.

It’s almost creepy how similar we are though, and this isn’t an anima projection here, I mean to the point where if someone didn’t know both our personalities at least somewhat independently they’d think one of us was copying the other. We have the strangest off the wall conversations of the type I haven’t had in years, my favorite type, the kind that leaves everyone who doesn’t think on the same frequency my brain does going :confused:. (Think 1 part old Skald the Rhymer evil overlord stuff, 1 part fantasy books, 2 parts ADD hyperactive OCD chipmunk). I did give her a nice random present (well, half gave, we had a quarter of a conversation that were basically ways of saying “can I have that” “sure you can” without actually getting to the point, then two of the other 3 quarters were an over-excited rant about how awesome the gift was by her), a pencil with tons of features, and by features I mean it opens, clicks closed, has a retractable eraser and is overall awesome. It’s the only type of pencil either of us use now because we’re both so amused by it.

I did find out her name today (well, officially, she said it in a conversation once and I logged it in memory, but it was so offhand she probably forgot she said it and told me of her own volition). Long story how THAT conversation came to pass though.

Either way I have a really awesome friend I can connect with finally.

Until 17 though, right? That’s just a delay of one year, junior instead of sophomore year, so it’s not really THAT much tighter, at least that’s how I read the “class 2” thing, but I believe you, you live there, not me.

I’m not sure if this in inappropriate or not; but I’m bumping this thread, I just remembered about it when searching my past posts, and i would like to know how the guys got on.

If you’d like to know this too - bump! That way the guys may see it and drop in :slight_smile:

Write her an anonymous haiku in German.