Only that her mother and children were at her apartment. Also when picking her up she asked me to call from the parking lot, ostensibly because if her children knew she was going out they’d want to come - that seemd a bit odd, but I maybe 4- and 7-yr old kids can be difficult that way. Maybe she also didn’t want to deal with introducing me to her mother. I can understand a conservative Southern woman may be wary of her daughter dating a long-haired Asian.
Maybe I should explain that my posts in this thread have been consistently more pessimistic than my true feelings - I hate disappointments, and I tend to try not to get my hopes up too high. (Which has been a bit of a revelation in itself, I didn’t think of myself as a pessimist before these events.) Still, I’m not at all sure where I stand now…
Whe’s a nurse and works in the emergency room. She says she typically works three or four 12-hour shifts per week, typically 7am-7pm but sometimes 11am-11pm, and that weekend shifts pay much better. I admit I was a tiny bit suspicious too, but her stories are consistent.
After three dates, I think it’s very fair that you want to know where you stand. I’d say you’re getting mixed signals. I would sincerely think that a woman with children could find a babysitter for a few hours if she took the date seriously. That’s a worrisome sign to me.
Yeah, I’m not sure what to think about that. She has said that she only trusts her mother to babysit for her children, and I think this dedication to her children is admirable. Also she did arrange her mother to stay until midnight (which is how late we got back from the play, even though we drove straight back.) On the other hand, it wouldn’t have been much more trouble to have the children stay at the mother’s house, which she said they often do.
[Monty Python]
A lot!
[/MP]
I won’t claim to love her but I respect her very much, and feel attracted to her for who she is (rather than how she compares to my ex-GF, which is how I’d looked at most women since my painful breakup many years ago).
I understand you feeling confused, and I think it would be entirely appropriate for you to just go ahead and ask her what she’s thinking/feeling. I can’t imagine letting a third date end in such uncertainty: by that point I definitely want to know where the guy stands, and want him to be clear about where I stand, as well.
Also, like tremorviolet said, try not to be too discouraged until you talk to her: it may just take her longer to warm up. For me, it’s totally a situational response: Bachelor #1 and I were making out like a couple of teenagers mere hours after meeting, while Bachelor #2 and I didn’t kiss until the second date (but then we had sex on our third date, so maybe this is a bad example!).
Of course you have to make up your own mind depending on how much you like her and what the outcome of your conversation is, but my personal thinking is that the distance + her schedule = too hard for such a new relationship. Also, she’s been a mom for 7 years and still doesn’t want anyone but grandma to babysit? Yikes! (Probably not what you want to hear, sorry. :()
First, yay! I know the circumstances aren’t great, but it is great if you’re getting over an old injury.
Since you like it a lot, you owe it to yourself to find out where you stand. I think now’s the time to ask. Tell her you’ve enjoyed your dates and that you think she’s a neat person you’d like to spend more time with, but you’re not certain where she feels things are leading.
If I were the woman, I’d prefer you asked me that question via email or some form of communication where I didn’t feel cornered. That might just be me, though.
You’re definitely getting mixed signals, but they don’t seem to indicate anything concrete. Here are some possibilities:
She thinks you’re good to spend some time with, but doesn’t really like you in “that way.”
She likes you a bit, but isn’t sure, and wants to get to know you better. But she’s not highly motivated to make that happen.
She has some genuine mixed feelings about you, so is sending genuine mixed signals.
She likes you quite a bit, but really finds it hard to work dating into her life.
She likes you quite a bit, but is very shy, and sends negative signals as a defense mechanism.
Now, I wouldn’t directly recommend asking her how she feels at this point. I always hated it when guys did that. I felt soooo put on the spot. And I always felt very uncomfortable voicing my feelings that early, even if I did really like the guy.
But it’s not unreasonable to want to know where you stand before investing more time/money/feelings.
I’d say that you should throw the proverbial ball into her court. A kind of a test of her motivation, since you’ve invested the lion’s share of the effort, here. Why don’t you tell her that you’ve really enjoyed the time you’ve spent together, and that you’d love to see her again, and that you’d like it if she let you know when another convenient time is. In other words–make her ask for the next date, but make it very easy for her to do so. She’ll either propose a time then and there, or get back to you soon with one. If she doesn’t, you can gently ask her one more time, but that’s all. That takes care of your fear of seeming pushy.
As far as your fear of seeming desperate–the fact that you’re willing to drive many hours for a datelet does seem a bit desperate. Or rather, it doesn’t seem desperate that you’ve done it a few times, but it would seem desperate if you continued to do it. It’s one thing to be understanding of her many obligations, and be willing to take the hit when you are just getting to know her. It’s another thing entirely to form a relationship entirely based on her convenience.
So, for your next date, ask that it happen when she can meet you eariler than 8 pm! You may have to wait a few weeks for a good day for her, but if she’s into you, she’ll make it happen eventually. Let her know that you’re more than happy to make the drive, but you’d rather do it less often, and see her for a longer time.
And as far as the only wanting her mom to babysit–maybe it’s because she can’t really afford a babysitter. Babysitters are expensive!
Thanks for all the advice. But now that I’ve had more time to think about it, I’m more convinced that her signals are pretty clear, that she isn’t interested. The third date was sort of set up before the second (opening night of a play which we both wanted to go) so the fact that there was a third date means little. After the third date she e-mailed to thank me, and said “talk to you soon” but that was about it. I replied saying I enjoy her company and hope we can get together again (but not asking for anything specific), but that was 24 hours ago and she hasn’t written back, which is less punctual than she used to be. If she writes back with something not completely dismissive I think I’ll do as Green Bean suggested, but I’m not holding my breath. (Well, I am, but I’m trying not to.)
Oh well, better to have dated and lost than stayed home watching TV…
Even getting past the third date is no indication of success: Bachelor #2 and I have been dating since mid-January, but I haven’t seen him now in two weeks and it turns out that he’s busy next weekend, as well. We had big plans for this weekend, but he wound up with a stomach virus: I completely understand (and feel bad for him that he’s sick), so I’m not upset or anything about this weekend, but it’s last weekend and next weekend – when it seems like he wasn’t interested in even trying to see me – that have me wondering where things may be headed. So he’s going to call me when he’s feeling better, and we’ll talk then. It’s always one date at a time…
Take a little time to gather yourself, but then get back out there! And next time, I hope you find a wonderful woman who lives closer to you.
I’m sorry to hear that. But sometimes people actually do get busy and/or ill…
Easy for you to say in your fancy big city! Apparently the dating pool here is so small that nerve.com personals shows only 2 people within age 23-33 within 50 miles of me who have logged on within a week. (And I think I’ve already sent messages to those two many months ago, with no reply.) eHarmony has come up with exactly two matches in the past 3 months who’s closer than 1.5 hours. And if you know eHarmony, perhaps 1 in 20 matches will actually go all the way to the point where you are communicating directly by e-mail. Perhaps that’s smaller than average because my profile clearly states I’m a liberal and an atheist, but I really don’t think I’d get along with anyone who thinks of these as negative qualities.)
And I’m having real problems with my self image and self esteem, as illustrated by this thread - but how the heck am I supposed to improve it if I keep getting dumped? Stupid catch-22 there. :mad:
OK, I’m done with the rant now. Sorry. It’s strangely appropriate that the play we saw on our last date was the one that contained the line: “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”
This is why I turned to the internet in the first place. I live in a tiny town and I might have been the only internet user in my exchange in 1996. I was lonely!
Hey, I’m no high-maintenance dating prima donna: regarding this weekend’s illness, like I said I completely understood. We had pretty big plans for last night, so of course I was disappointed (as I’m sure he was, too), but mostly I just felt bad for him that he felt so bad. Poor guy.
But the “busy” weekends? Well, last weekend his ex-wife – who he’s still best friends with, and sees every day – asked him to “make some time for her” because she was going out of the country for a week, and he took that to mean that he needed to clear his entire weekend to be at her disposal. Even when he found out that she’d be working most of the weekend, he made no effort to try to see me at all. As for next weekend: I knew that he and his ex were going to a concert on Saturday night, but now he’s going to the same concert with her on both Friday and Saturday nights (she’d planned to go both nights all along, and wound up with extra tickets so she assumed that he’d go both nights, too). Sunday is Easter, which means my only option for seeing him is Saturday afternoon – I’m starting to feel like I have to beg to be “fit in” to his weekend plans. So yes, it bothers me that he would agree to go to the same concert two nights in a row instead of seeing me one of those nights, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that I get to actually go on dates with the guy I’m supposed to be dating. No real worries though: I’ll see if he’s free for dinner one night this week or lunch on Saturday, and take things from there.
Anyway, my point behind this whole story is that you can’t count on the Nth date being the point where things are “easy,” or even where both of you know what’s going on: often, you just have to keep taking things a date at a time. I was trying to encourage you for next time, though apparently it came out a little twisted.
The way you improve it is to keep trying. Things may not work out most of the time, but you’ll never find the ones that do work out if you stop trying. I know it can be hard to do, but try not taking it so personally: how much of the real you could she really have rejected after only 3 dates? She rejected the superficial crap that we all get judged on – that’s the stuff it’s the hardest to get past. And it’s often the stuff we have the least control over: our appearance, where we live, etc. And even if there was some aspect of your personality that she didn’t like, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you – or her. It just means you weren’t a match. Most people aren’t going to “click” with each other … yeah, it’s frustrating and annoying and tiring, but personally I don’t care for the alternative. And I don’t think you do, either, or you wouldn’t be out there looking!
Apparently the dating pool here is so small that 