me putting a GPS in yoru car is not stalking. Thats love baby.
Go for it boss. Always happy to chat.
See this is a problem, because - and i’m being totally honest here - in my limited personal experience (for, like you, i’m merely knee height to a grasshopper - i turn 24 in a couple of months) this approach nearly always leaves you as friends. Even if you feel like you want to take it further then chances are she may not.
Now granted that ain’t always true. My longest relationship (Which finished just after New Years) was with a girl who i had previously been friends with for several years but that for me has been the exception rather than the rule.
Every other situation where i have been friends with a girl first has only ended with me wishing desperately that it could be more than that but it never coming to pass.
I’ve just kinda found that its easier to downgrade a potential relationship to friendship than it is to upgrade a friendship to a relationship - but then this may not be true for everyone.
And don’t ever think of it as dating “virtual strangers” because you aren’t. You are going out with people who have already made an impression on you in some way and who hopefully you have made an impression on too. That means that you already know them a little and already have something in common - even if its just the desire to get to know each other better.
I didn’t have a serious boyfriend until I was 23. I didn’t have sex until I was 23. Most of my ‘dates’ were out with friends and flirting with someone special.
Don’t worry about it. Have fun, if someone likes you, you’ll be approached, most likely. Women aren’t delicate little flowers and it’s no longer considered brazen to ask a guy out.
Chill.
(hi Chill!, welcome to the boards)
I don’t know how qualified I am to contribute, since I’m 38, married (to Dangerosa) and started dating when I was about 17… but.
To echo **garius ** to some degree, the key ingredient is realizing that simply having a girlfriend is not the point. The point is making a connection with another human being, and it’s easiest to do that when you’re not worried about how you look or what she (or he) might think of your clothes or your voice or your breath from that pizza… and so on.
I’ve found that the times I am most attractive to women are when I am already dating (or married:)). When I was single, I would tense up and try to find a date, rather than simply enjoying the company of someone.
So my advice, which will of course be impossible to follow, for it goes against all human nature, is this: stop worrying about it. Stop trying. For when you stop trying to get a girlfriend, and simply make friends with a girl, something will happen.
And, in response to **garius ** on friendship and dating… **Dangerosa ** and I first met at my high school prom, and were friends for years before we started dating. My relationship with her is the best I have ever had, because it started from a foundation of knowing one another. So it is quite possible to go from friendship to love, and it’s very, very good.
AHEM!
Best wishes in your quests, everyone: I’m off to develop a national identity insecurity now. 
By Parental Advisory:* " I was an 1hr and a half away from this place and go there once every 2 years, so going back wasn’t really an option. "*
Herein lies a large part of your problem. My friend, a mere hour and a half one way is nothing if there is an attractive woman who has shown some interest in you waiting at the end of the trip.
I once hitch-hiked 500 miles after work on Friday to take a girl I met at the beach to a dance in her hometown on Saturday night. After her 1 O’clock curfew, I changed clothes and thumbed rides 500 miles back to my home.
If you want to have girlfriends, you must be willing to put some effort into it! Why not take a one hour and thirty minute drive? It doesn’t sound like you have a whole lot else to do, and besides if you do things like that you’ll have all these crazy-ass stories to tell. And just maybe, by accident, you’ll acquire a girlfriend along the way. 
I second Brainiac4 . It strikes me that what’s missing from the OP is the spark that makes relationships great and fun. You can’t force that. When you meet someone that you have chemistry with, you’ll know and the dating will just flow.
As for my dating bio: I’m 28 and I’m what you’d call a serial monogamist. I’ve had 3 long term relationships and I’ve gone as long as 5 years between them. Basically, I hate dating. It’s much more fulfilling to me to wait for someone special than be irritated by someone acceptable now. Granted, this is not the most highly valued way for a “good Southern girl” to date. But it works for me! 
This is because it is a well documented fact that Scottish women are by far the wittiest, most intelligent and definitely the most beautiful women on the planet. They are, therefore, well out of my league.
Hence the undateability.
Hey! Is that garius a smooth talkin’ dude or what???
Yes, indeed! Quick thinking and smooth. Parhaps he’s a politician in the real world.
Now if I were a younger Celyn…
Gotcha beat by a year.
Okay, I’ll throw in my two cents.
I’m 26, gonna be 27 in August and I’ve had … 3(?) girlfriends. None more than a month or two and I lost my virginity when I was 25. Right now I’m as single as one can be and I can easily see where you guys are coming from.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is … hey, PA, you and I should hit the bars together. I don’t drink, but I can easily chat up women when it’s for someone else. When it’s for me, I’m a complete idiot, but when it’s for you, no problem!
This could be a problem. But, if I may quote:
Guess what? That’d be the beginnings of a social network.
I think you’re ahead of the game. You conducted a socially acceptable exploration, opened a door, and she recognized where you were heading (hence the “I have a boyfriend” email). If you respond to that by reassuring her (subtly, please) that you’re still interested in becoming friends, once you’ve gotten to know each other better, she’s likely to start thinking of single friends of hers with whom you might get along. I’d suggest that you start off by inviting her and her boyfriend out for some sort of social occasion.
{Don’t ask me what occasion, though, I’m married with children and therefore have no social life.}
I’m 26 going on 27, and I’ve never been in a relationship (unless you count that one time of 1 month of sex and not much else :)).
I have however, come rather close to being in one thrice… each of which began with friendship. Progress in the first two cases was halted due to extentuating circumstances (first time I was leaving the country to go abroad, and second time was leaving abroad to come back to country).
The third one is still a possibility, and I think about it often because this girl is as close to soul-mate as I’ve ever gotten. But while she does want to take it further than best friend, I just don’t feel the spark
I’m still waiting…
Her condition? God, you make it sound like she’s pregnant, or leprous, or in an iron lung or something. ::pauses briefly to consider mental picture of pregnant leper in iron lung seeking romance, and to wonder why that SNL song “Wookin’ Po Nub” seems to be playing in the background:: Granted, the pool of eligible men who would be comfortable enough with Eve’s life history to get into a ltr is small enough (and she’s negative enough about her age and looks, for some unfathomable reason) that she’s decided to quit actively looking, but being a transsexual doesn’t preclude having a long-term relationship. Fortunately, she seems to be happy, or at least reasonably content, not dating.
As for yourself, if the only reason you’re looking for a girlfriend is because you think other people will look down on you for not having one, you might as well just hang it up right now. For one thing, that sort of attitude is going to make it a lot harder for you to get a girlfriend, because no woman likes to feel like you’re with her out of desperation or social pressure. Be with a woman because you wnat to be with her, not because you want to be with somebody. Even if you do find a woman willing to go for that, it’s not fair to either of you and neither of you will be happy, so save everybody some time and energy and don’t bother.
You seem to have rather a negative attitude about the whole dating thing, and I have a hard time deciding if that’s because you honestly don’t see it as a big deal, or if you’re scared. Overall, I lean more toward scared. I’ve been in the “no big deal” camp before, and my take on it wasn’t “dating sucks, so let’s get it over with already”, but “eh, if it happens it happens, what’s on tv?” There was no bemoaning the statistics of the thing, or grumping that since I wasn’t skinny, blond, giggly, and promiscuous the men weren’t going to come to me. (I also have to really wonder about your opinion of women; it doesn’t sound very healthy for you or attractive to the ladies, frankly.) The dating issue wasn’t even on a back burner–it wasn’t on the stove at all.
It’s normal to be scared about dating. After all, it means making yourself vulnerable, putting your heart at risk. Vulnerability can be scary as hell, especially at first. Becoming emotionally dependent on someone can be flat-out terrifying, especially for an independent personality. But you can’t win big without taking the risk of losing big. No guts, no glory, and all that.
Oh, and for the record, being friends doesn’t preclude dating later. Dr.J and I were friends, and the woman who introduced us is currently engaged to a guy who used to be one of her buddies from work. Actually, there’s lots of us Dopers who are married/engaged/involved with people who used to be just friends.
Since the general consensus seems to be going the other way, i’ll bow to wiser minds than me here on the whole “friends first” thing. Maybe its something thats more specific to my experiences than universal, or possibly an age thing.
Starts humming “Mrs Robinson” and packing his bags for Scotland
I’ve been where you are right now, Wesley, before I had my first girlfriend. If you ever fall in love, its like being addicted to something. Imagine a herion addict who could do herion with no consequences? That’s what its like at times. If you think of it on a chemical level, it is quite similar. Being in love is a chemical process in the brain which makes you feel good, and when you take it away it makes you sad and depressed. I suppose you can choose not to take the drug and never having had it, you’ll never need it, but the problem is that 99 percent of the world is doing it, so the peer pressure is pretty intense!
I don’t know if you have ever had sex before, but this is a little different. Its not so bad in America because sex imagery is a little more tame, but in Europe its everywhere and anytime you think of sex you invaribly think of the last time you did it and how nice it would be to do it again soon. It is no longer some abstract idea.
I understand the idea about not wanting to be with someone you don’t know, and it would be better to fall in love with someone before dating them. But you have to realize that it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes someone else will like you before you like them. But having someone like you is a pretty flattering thing.
I used to be very unhappy with my love life when I was back in America and since I have come to Europe I was very happy about it. I used to think that it was because of the differences in culture, etc, but I am not so sure now. Although my University back home wasn’t the right place for me, I could have done much more to have fun there. There are plenty of people there and I am sure that there were some that I could have liked. But I am not sure if your problem is similar.
You just have to look at it this way… You only have as much fun as you want to. You can make the best a bad situation. If the situation were better you could probably have an even better time, but I find that people tend to accustomize themselves pretty easily to reality.
The lack of a social network is a serious problem, and the fact that you have never had a girlfriend doesn’t seem to help either. Although I think it is possible to change your social status and your social environment, it is much easier to do that if you relocate. I have relocated many, many times in my life and thrown myself into completely new social situations many times over. I suppose that I have learned something new each time. To make new friends in such a situation isn’t easy. I recently did this here in Germany. I had to move to a new town and I didn’t have any friends and I learned to cope with that. It was a little depressing because I knew nobody. Then one day there was a party going on in my kitchen (in the dorms here there are kitchens) and I introduced myself to everyone. After a while I hung out and I got a few people’s numbers. Now at this point, nobody really knew me well, nor did they really care to know me. I am a nice guy, I have a nice personality, but I don’t have something that makes people specificaly need my company. So I kept asking around about what was going on, and eventually I made some good friends.
Maybe you could do something like this? Join some groups with things that interest you. What about College (Republicans or Democrats) or maybe something else? The fact that you have never led an active social life, is also probably part of it considering how you probably don’t know what you are missing.
I also think you should get into the friendship thing with this girl. This sounds like the beginning of a social network. Just be persistent and invite yourself to her social functions and hang out with her friends. If you like them, keep doing it, and maybe you’ll just like it!
However, you have to realize that you have something to offer. Men are much luckier than girls in the fact that our attractiveness is based much more on things that we can change. I have talked with many girls about what they find attractive in men and they can’t give specific details and many things are just about how they make them feel. They say that they like men with a good sense of humor, but really girls just want guys who make them feel good. At the early stage you can’t make them feel good by a lot of other ways. That’s all you gotta do and you’ll be doing much better. You seem to have a dark sense of humor, and if you find a girl that appreciates that, you’ll be in love in no time. The important thing is just to have a good time together and everything will build from that. Don’t talk about negative stuff too much. Certainly don’t be desperate. You have to find out what is attractive about you and you have to realize what type of girls it works on. Its a very powerful thing when someone digs you just for being yourself.
I am not so sure you should wait for these things to happen naturally. Sometimes when you are stuck in a rut it is hard to get out. I get that you aren’t depressed about this, you just don’t understand why its worth all this trouble. I think one of the problems is that after you pass your horny teenage years if you haven’t had a girlfriend by then you are able to be a little more content because of a relatively lower sex drive. Of course this will just get lower as you get older only reinforcing the situation. If I were you I wouldn’t look at it as the search for a girlfriend, but rather just trying to develop more socially. Make it a point to go out and find friends and female aquaintances. Maybe you’ll make a few friends, maybe you’ll get a girlfriend, or maybe you’ll just get sex! 
But make sure that you don’t go out on “dates” dates are the worst. Just arrange fun situations where it would be cool to have some company and just hang out with new chicks. It is indeed hard to have a date with someone you hardly know. That very rarely involves into something. I find its much easier to meet people at some kind of gathering. You’ll meet people and be yourself, there will be some people that you may like that don’t like you, and vice versa.
Approching girls cold doesn’t always work so well unless you have something that interests them right away. But there is always the fear that you could be really weird. If you meet through friends this is reduced drastically. Of course meeting people from your class works too.
Okay I’ll stop now. I hope I have provided helpful advice.
Well, I’m 37 and have yet to manage so much as a kiss, so you’ve a fair way to go yet.
WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING-WARNING
Some Chicks Are Maneaters!
Find a nice girl at Church or the LibraryI was 28 before I first had a girlfriend. And it sure as hell wasn’t for lack of wanting one. It was mainly because I had no friggin’ clue as to how to get one. Something that seemed to come naturally and happen automatically to everybody else in the universe never happened to me, and I didn’t know how to make it happen. There was no Complete—and I mean Complete—Idiot’s Guide to Getting A Girlfriend. And the longer I went without one, the more I felt that it never would happen to me or that anyone ever could want me.
And all this time I was pretty damn miserable. Between the loneliness, the sexual frustration, the wanting to matter to someone, the wanting someone to do things with and for, the hunger for touch/human contact, the longing for romance, the feeling of undesirability and unlovability, the hoping to someday have a wife and kids and a happy home but despairing that I was so far behind that the chance of that ever happening was about equal to the chance of me being crowned King of France, and did I mention the sexual frustration? I believed I would be so happy, and my life would be so much better, if I only had a girlfriend.
And then, when I was 28, I did have a girlfriend, and I was right: I was so happy, and my life was so much better, and did fix a heck of a lot of what was wrong in my world. That relationship lasted about 5 years, and it had its ups and downs, but the ups were wonderful, and I learned a lot, including that I would much much rather be in a good relationship than to be alone, and that I would much rather be alone than be in a bad relationship. I’ve learned a bit about the kind of women who would & would not be right for me. I learned that I do definitely want to be married and have a family of my own someday before it’s too late. And I’ve developed some confidence and learned maybe a little about how to “chase girls” so that now I’m only an Idiot and not a Complete Idiot.
Unfortunately, since that relationship ended a couple of years ago, I haven’t had another on anywhere near the same level—nobody I could really call a girlfriend. I’ve had a few opportunities but didn’t follow up on them because I knew they weren’t right for me. I still don’t really know how to go about finding someone, and my hopes of doing so any time in the near future fluctuate from high to low, but never as low as they were in the bad old days. I may eventually have to relocate, or I may just have to be patient, or I may have to try some new things.