Are men so clueless as to believe that every woman who talks to them for a short while is both available and interested? 
Many are, yes. Countless rejections will do that to you.
Fuck it. Pursue her. Life is short. Have fun.
As others have said leave it alone. My work draws me into a lot of social situations with single women, and some I’m sure are testing the flirting waters. I’m married, so it’s no go with me. But without knowing people, there’s no way of knowing if she’s just striking up a friendly conversation or wants you to sweep her (and her kid) off her feet.
Nobody’s mentioned the fact that she has an S.O., and if they’re having problems and he’s the unstable type, you might find yourself much deeper in this than you’d like. IME, when I’ve had those encounters with flirty-type women - who are also objectively attractive - their boyfriends/husbands know it, and they often don’t take it well. It wouldn’t be good for you, or her, or him, if that e-mail somehow ended up in his hands.
…which you decided not to send, thank God! Good for you.
Pretty much, yes. Of course, given that most women assume that the extremely subtle, mixed, and often wildly inconsistent signals of attraction they give off will somehow be correctly interpreted by men, what, really, do you expect? Conversely, a man will make a simple and meaningless offhand comment that a woman will take back to her girlfriends as fodder for an hours long deconstruction.
As for the o.p., I quote from David Mamet, “Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt.” Find another venue and another girl.
Stranger
I don’t know that I’d go that far. However,
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Married women are much much easier to talk to, because you take the guessing game out of the conversation. I can just assume she’s not interested and be myself. (If only I could learn to speak so freely to single women, damn it.)
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If Reply wants her all for himself, he’s going to have to repeat to himself: they’re having trouble staying monogamous. That’s whatcha call a Big Red Flag.
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If Reply is anything like me, women simply do not come up to talk to me out of the blue. Ever. Anywhere. For any reason.* What am I supposed to think?
*And if women are flirting with me, they’re too damned subtle about it. We’ve had this conversation before, too. When a woman says “Hi! I haven’t seen you in a while!” it’s supposed to mean either “I remember you vaguely” or “I’m secretly interested in you” but I never know which.
I don’t see why no correspondence is being pushed in this situation. We’re getting his side of the story and how he’s feeling. We have NO idea what she’s thinking. For all we know, she thinks she’s made a new friend and nothing more. She’s given him her e-mail. If he drops off the face of the earth with no word, she might end up sending HIM an e-mail.
I’m all for saying don’t go to the coffee shop again, but cutting off correspondence cold turkey is, in my opinion, a bad idea. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of sudden ending of communication and it’s not a good feeling when somebody just stops talking to you and you don’t know why.
just write her an email that says just a little more that “hi” and see what happens
Hmmm? She talked to him for quite a while about every issue under the sun, including sexuality. You’re right that not every encounter is like this, but in this case I could see him thinking it’s more than a chat about the weather.
Why can’t it mean “I haven’t seen you in a while”?
I too am baffled by the general assumption that when a conversation occurs between two strangers it means that one of them wants to have sex with the other. Are committed people never allowed to meet or chat with new people without being accused of cheating or being teases? Is it impossible for a conversation to have no mysterious sexual agenda? It drives me batshit insane when I tell my SO that “I was talking with so-and-so today…” and if so-and-so is male (whether a co-worker, friend or stranger) he always asks if the guy was hitting on me and/or if I want to have sex with him. It’s become a joke now (Me: “I was talking with so-and-so today…” SO: “Go to him.”), but is so ridiculous to be accused of cheating/flirting - or to be the unwitting recipient of flirting - in every single fucking conversation with the opposite gender. That attitude is really insulting and disrespectful to all involved, and I see it so much on this board I just have to wonder if men here are happy presenting themselves as sex-mad and paranoid to boot.
[ /rant]
Anyway, I still can’t get over the Bizarro-world of the OP where people go to coffee houses to take naps and change their contacts. It sounds more like a dorm. I guess that’s where Arcata and NYC differ.
I agree in general but:
Not the conversation I usually have with someone I’m just chatting with.
It can and it often does! That’s the problem.
There was a recent thread on the board bewailing one poster’s clueless teenage son: didn’t he know that girl was flirting with him? Will he ever get it?
What did the girl say? She said, “Aren’t you in one of my classes?” or something similarly innocuous.
And all the guys in the thread went, “Huh? How the hell are we supposed to know that was flirting?”
Guys wouldn’t be over-analyzing every word or second-guessing every sentence if women weren’t so darn mysterious. 
She says: Aren’t you in one of my classes?
She means: I want to fuck you, and I’m trying to engage you in conversation to show my interest.
He says: I want to fuck you.
He means: I want to fuck you, and I may have had too much to drink. 
The OP has revealed in another thread that he was diagnosed with BPD, so I imagine that plays a huge part in his perception of this woman’s intentions.
I think that no good can come from future involvement with this woman, fwiw.
“No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe” but I’ve noticed the phenomenon. Maybe I came to my way of thinking on this subject because of my average looks. If a woman chooses to converse with me, I certainly don’t equate that with flirtation. it’s much more likely she’s bored or needs to ask me a question.
Cold turkey, IMO, refers to relationships/situations that are more than 4 days old.
And talk explicitly about sex while hauling their children around.
I think I’ve really aged out of the coffee-house demographic.
Meh. I was too embarrassed to revisit this thread until now.
In hindsight (yes, just a day or two later), I can’t believe how pathetic this has been… maybe if I was drunk that’d be excusable, but I wasn’t. I was just… dumb… for writing (and thinking) all that.
At least I’m glad the embarrassment was just on the SDMB (where I’ve embarrassed myself enough, lord knows) and not IRL. Lacking friends and mentors in real life, I guess this is where I go to grow up – and it happens, if only a little every time.
Anyway, I have nothing more to say about this topic. Yes, I’m a loser. Case closed.
Pssst…real life isn’t so black and white. You’re not either a genius or an idiot, Mr. Popularity or a loser. It’s OK to be swept up in emotion, as long as you think your actions through (which you have, with the help of some folks here) and that, as you said, is how you/we grow and learn.
I don’t get it. How was she leading you on? She explicitly told you she was in a non-monogamous relationship with her fiance. It seemed clear to me that she was sizing you up as a potential secondary partner. If you’re not content with being a secondary (or perhaps more likely, given what she told you, an escape from actually dealing with her relationship problems), that’s perfectly cool, and reasonable, and admirable, and good on you for looking out for yourself and avoiding the drama, but I don’t think she was being misleading in any way. She was totally upfront about her deal.
Also, huge pet peeve of mine, but take a good hard look at yourself, and if you really mean “I can’t handle non-monogamous relationships,” do not tell her you’re doing this to save her existing relationship. You don’t get to make decisions about her relationship for her, that’s her and her fiance’s purview. Make decisions for yourself, and own them.
Not at all–you learned something and know that you can talk things out and maybe have a different perspective next time. Or not–as mentioned, following your emotions can be an adventure.
You’re the winner here, Reply. Please don’t let yourself think otherwise.