Meeting people survey: Men and Women

One thing that struck me about your encounter is how “desperation” sort of worked in your favor. That is, you met someone and the time came to say goodbye…you’ll go your way and she’ll go hers. Unless you do something to continue the contact, it fades to black. People usually put things off, chicken out, whatever, and that wasn’t possible in this case.

Rewinding, instead of saying, “Here’s my email address,” could you have said, “Let’s trade email addresses” as Stranger suggested, so that either of you could contact the other? ‘Let’s see…I can give my info and then climb the walls waiting for a call. Or I can roll the dice that she’ll say no, suggest we trade info…’ If she declined to give you some contact info, that’s a pretty good indication that she wasn’t going to contact you, anyway, so what have you lost?

BTW I think it’s hilarious/tragic that women complain that guys say they’ll call and don’t. Well, I’ve waited for calls that never came so I know women drop this ball as well. Huge sampling error, maybe, but a lot of women like the old-fashioned guy-calls-woman approach. Some of the most liberated women I know have a mental block on this.

To me (and I’m a dumb guy, so grain of salt), we live in such an incredible age—what about IM conversations? You could safely get to know each other, in real time, even use voice. You got the spark, so if you can just fan it, you know?

As for her non-response so far: as Tom Petty sang, “The waiting is the hardest part.” Murphy’s Law being what it is, who knows? Maybe she had to rush one of the kids to the ER or is dealing with a broken down car or…or… It’s very important to be patient, not appear desperate or stalkerish. I say give her a little more time. The weekend approaches and that may be when she gets a chance to catch her breath.

Re: googlefu. I think it’s okay to know it, do the research, etc. I don’t think you should mention it to her or use it to contact her until/unless you’re ready to throw a Hail Mary. It could backfire too easily, make her feel creeped out; OTOH if you have no other way of contacting her and decide to give it one last chance, be UBER casual… “Hey, I was in Facebook tonight and…” (followed by plausible way you stumbled across her). E.g. if you happened to have a common cyberfriend, that would be gold. Or, surf the net for golf sites till you find her in one. It can’t appear to her that you were cyberstalking.

@Trouble, @Harriet—I’d be very wary of calling anybody at work. Some people get in trouble ("No personal calls!) for it. And work=food on the table, so some feel pretty threatened by it. I don’t call people (even friends etc.) at work unless they first give me a green light. Sometimes the green light is provisional: “Don’t call before 11:00” etc.

ETA: On second thought, “researching” her on the net is actually a good idea, and I think it’s good for both sexes. Suppose you found out she’s married, for instance.

ready29003, generally you want to get her contact information. That way you have the opportunity to initiate contact with her if you want.

I generally don’t believe in chance or random encounters. Generally it takes some effort on the part of at least one of the parties involved to initiate contact.

I asked a (middle aged) female friend about this, because I have never, ever had a woman call me after giving her a phone number. She claimed that it was just ego-inflating for a woman to see that she could do that, even if she had absolutely no intention of followin up on it. When I compared this to the Vince Vaughn character in Swingers (who gets a woman’s phone number just to prove to his buddies that he can do it then turns around and immediately tears it up while walking away from her) she protested that it was “completely different” and “totally okay” for a woman–even a self-proclaimed “non-games playing post-anger issues feminist”–to do this. Whatever.

Anyway, as the same friend (sagely, in this case) says, “Dating is just a series of mistakes you make over and over again until you get better at it.” So, next time get or exchange contact information. Lesson learned.

Stranger

I feel for you buddy, I started talking to the manager of a local restaurant the other day and I was quite smitten. She must have been very friendly herself because she talked to me for 10 minutes and comped my meal!

That was 2 weeks ago and I’ve been back there twice since and both time been too scaredy-cat to just give her my damned business card and say something casual like “Hey, you’re kinda cool, if you ever want to get a cup of coffee give me a ring.”

What is wrong with me?

Dude, weak. The talking could have been just friendly (although more likely from waitstaff than management), but when she comped your meal you should have asked her out there and then. Go in on a Friday, tell her you and some friends are playing pool (or whatever) at wherever the next night, and see if she wants to come.