I asked Stacy out on Tuesday, and on Thursday I wrote her an e-mail saying it might be fun to dress up. I want to talk more about that e-mail but because I'm sure most of you aren't interested in it right now, I'll skip it and just talk about last night. The purpose of the e-mail was to give her a further hint that I was wanting the tone of last night to be a date, and not just friends getting together for a bite.
We made plans to go out for dinner at 7:30 and then go salsa dancing after that. I wore a sweater with a collared shirt underneath and a new pair of slacks I picked up earlier in the day, and she wore a dress and looked very very nice. In all I was very happy to get to spend my night taking a pretty girl out to dinner and a dance. That sort of treat doesn't come my way often.
At the restaurant we ordered two different sushi dishes that were actually a combination of different types of fish. The idea was that way we could eat off each other's plates and try a whole lot of different types. This sushi was much like the other sushi I've had, terrible. But she liked it and we both had fun playing with the green stuff that is like horseradish on crack. I had a huge laugh at one point. At the time when I had just taken a big bite of sushi she decided to try the green stuff and got a pretty good sized hunk of it on her chopstick and put the whole thing in whole mouth. I wanted to stop her but all I could do was sort of make muffled noises. She just blinked and said it was a bit strong. But then it hit her and the tears started to come and then the visceral physical revulsions came. Hilarious.
After dinner we made our way to the bar. During the drive to the bar she told me that there is a chance she is going to be here for the summer doing research. That got me really excited, because that would give us the whole summer to build a relationship rather than having to deal with long distance hassles.
At the bar we found out that the dancing wasn't going to start until 11:30. That was a major blow because we were both very tired and she had mentioned she had wanted to get home around midnight. That was only going to be a half an hour of dancing, and that was something I was really looking forward to. But it couldn't be helped, and it gave us about another 2 hours to sit and chat.
Now one of my goals last night was to let it be vocally known what my intentions were. I wanted to be clear with her that I was thinking of this as a date and not just two friends hanging about for a bit. But I was struggling with a way to approach the subject. I was worried that she might get scared off if I told her I was interested in her and then even the possibility of a friendship would be gone. All throughout the night I was trying to drop subtle things to gauge her interest. For example, we briefly spoke about movies on the way to the restaurant and I told her I found out earlier in the day that the new 'Alice in Wonderland' movie is going to be in 3D. The whole point of that was to see if she was going to get excited about seeing the movie, in 2D or 3D it didn't matter. But as typical with her, she showed no enthusiasm on the subject of us seeing it and instead asked questions about the movie itself. Then at the bar I thought of an opening. It went like this. "Stacy, are you the type of person who likes to address the pink or white elephant in the room, whatever color it's called nowadays? Some people like to talk about the obvious thing and others do not. What type are you?" "I think I'm the type who does like to talk about it, but give me an example." "Okay here's an example. What would you call tonight?" And she looked at me with this 'isn't it obvious' expression and said it's a date. That was a big relief.
So proceeding from there we spent the rest of the night, probably 2 or 3 hours, talking about us. From that point on I thought the night took a positive turn. This subject was on the front of my mind, was causing me great anxiety about how to bring it up and what the consequences of doing so would be, and I was having a difficult time thinking about other things to talk about. But now that it was finally in the open I was able to relax and just see where it went. Essentially I got to be more my typical self. Right away she let me know that she is not interested in dating me. That wasn't good enough for me though so I asked her why. She couldn't articulate any reasons. My sister said it's because she isn't attracted to me, and that's probably true. While she couldn't vocalize any negatives, I'm supposing she just doesn't feel any spark between us. This news was saddening, but it was also not unexpected because as I've mentioned throughout these posts she has never shown much enthusiasm about hanging out with me so it wasn't like I was getting any false impressions.
I tried to fight for her a little bit though. Basically I tried to explain to her that I feel that it would take more than one date to get to know someone well enough to determine an interest level. And I told her my story about how I've seen this first hand. It didn't work. She just isn't interested. So then, dropping the subject of trying to change her mind, I told her to let me tell my story about how this all came about. And I told her everything. From the first time we met, to how our mutual friend tried to hook us up, to the dance she wouldn't go to me with, to the valentine I made, to all my worries on Tuesday night about whether or not I should ask her at all, to finally going on this date. And I told her about this blog too, and all the posts I've made about her. She may actually read this one. I sent her an e-mail earlier today with all the ones I could find where I mentioned her. The reason I told her all this was because I liked how she was handling our conversation about our relationship at that point and I felt it would be fun to tell her the whole story. And fortunately she did seem to enjoy it all. And she became very open about her own feelings, where in the past she was a little more closed off.
I found out I've actually got a few fans in her family. Her Mom and sister both are rooting for me. That made me laugh, and I told Stacy that I had hoped something like that would happen when I had met them in the past. Her Mom thinks I drive a cool car, and her sister just likes me. Apparently I could even date her, but Stacy said we would not get along at all. She also said she was glad that I didn't think she was giving me mixed signals because a lot of guys do tend to get the wrong impression about her. I told her that I wanted to spy on her when she got her V-Day card, and she said then I might have gotten a very bad signal, because she loved it.
After talking about our girl and guy situations for awhile, the conversation turned to how to proceed in the future. I said that while I would like to keep hanging out, just as friends, that I would probably not call as much for two reasons. First, it's very hard for me to call her in the first place and I'm not about to keep having a miniature heart attack if I don't think anythings going to come from it. But more importantly because I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable because of the fact that I do have an interest in her. I also said she should feel free to call me but to qualify the call right away, saying something like "Hi, just as friends do you want to ... " That way I couldn't possibly get any wrong ideas, and be like "Oh yay, Stacy called, she must totally dig me now."
At one point she asked if I'd like to go get yogurt, her treat. There's a place on campus that is like an ice-cream joint but it serves yogurt instead. I was a bit put down by this because I knew it would mean there'd be no dancing, but I also like the yogurt place so she didn't need to twist my arm about it. We talked more about our situation and how to go forward, and around 11:30 I took her home.
In all we had a 4 hour date, and even though the news was very saddening it wasn't unexpected and I still had a blast. She said she did feel bad. She had recognized my hints long ago and knew that I wanted tonight to be a date and therefore felt bad that I would be paying for a nice dinner and that she didn't have much interest. I told her that I haven't managed to get a girl to go on a 'date' with me in about 6 or 7 years, and being able to take a very pretty girl out to a nice restaurant for me was fantastic despite the news.
So there you have it. Back to square one. In terms of Stacy and us I've been in this boat before. I imagine last night went well enough, with little pain and awkwardness, that things will probably change very little betweeen us. I told she always has a standing invitation for more dancing. Hmm. I haven't put much thought into the next dance though which occurs in May and whether or not to ask her. But that's a long way off, a lot can change, and if she is reading this, I'm not about to go give any hints now. For now however, I think I'll go check my plentyoffish account.
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