TLDR – do women almost always cut you out of their life if it doesn’t work romantically? Even if it ended well and you would still be friends?
M(36) – was getting to know a woman (32) for about 5.5 months.
She was originally living in Florida but planning to move to VA in June, which she did.
I do tax work and she reached out to me feb 1. I told her I work crazy hours with tax season so I wouldn’t have a ton of time to commit up front. She understood and we started off slow. After a week of texting we did a phone call and then a couple FaceTime calls sprinkled in there.
We agreed to meet April 5 but her dad had a medical emergency the week prior so that was cancelled. Which honestly worked better for me because of the tax deadline.
Post tax season I had procedure at the end of April and was recovering a few weeks. Around May 20th I flew down to Florida to see her for a day and half. This was our first time meeting in person. It went okay but wasn’t the best connection I’ve ever felt. She seemed shy. We went to dinner and then the beach before going back to her place to mostly just hang out and get to know each other. We didn’t do anything other than hold hands. She asked me to stay In a hotel (a solid week before I flew down) which I was fine with. I wanted her to be comfortable.
The next day she picked me up, we got brunch, checked out her community pool, went on a walk, grabbed coffee and shopped and then a late lunch. After that we just hung out again before I had to fly home.
We continued to talk and keep in touch regularly. She moved up the first week in June. Where she moved is about 2.5 hours from me. So it’s not right down the road. We had plans to meet in late June with her brother and SIL but I was feeling a little self conscious from the procedure because my head was shaved and my hair was really thin in some spots. Almost looking bald to a degree and I normally don’t look that way. I was feeling super self-conscious and asked if we could do another time.
She seemed okay with it but later tried to convince me to still come and just wear a hat. I should have gone but I didn’t. She ended up making this a bigger deal later.
Then we agreed to meet June 22nd. The day before we were to meet I was at a friends wedding and she texted me around 8:30 that night to say she couldn’t meet in Reston where we planned (mid point almost) because things were tight financially and she had some work assignments that were thrown on her last minute. She said she could meet but I would have to drive to Stafford to meet instead (another 45 mins driving each way) and to me it seemed sort of like an ultimatum, which I wasn’t a fan of. Also the comment about nothing affording gas money when she gets coffee just about every day and other unnecessary things.
I said let’s meet another time since I was planning to head down at 1 pm. I would have gotten there at 4 and we would have had limited time since I have a 3 hour drive home.
Also, I had been rear ended driving to the wedding and though I was fine, I partially used that as an excuse. My truck did need $5k in work done but overall it was drivable. I just didn’t like that she wanted me to drop everything and drive 3 hours each way to see her for maybe 3 hours and drive back. Instead of her making the effort to drive 45 mins to see me.
I’m very much a person that likes reciprocity, or at least some level of effort being exerted. Prior to this, I had mentioned twice that it seemed like she wasn’t putting in much effort. In early May we talked about it and the weekend of the ultimatum we talked about it again. Both times she said she would put in more effort, which she did for a brief time before it dropped off some.
Anyway, we finally met again on July 19th for dinner with her brother and SIL about half way. I greeted her with a hug and then we walked to dinner. Dinner went fairly well and the conversation was solid overall. Her brother was sort of shy but her SIL was really outgoing and it went ok. Afterward the brother and SIL headed out so her I walked a bit then sat and talked. When we get back to parking garage it was a semi weird exchange at the end. She sort of seemed like she didn’t want to hug me. We did though.
She got in her car and I got in my truck and I waited for her to back out. She started the car and then just sat there for 5 minutes. Then she turned the car off. After another minute I finally just backed out and left when I normally like to see them pull out for the whole safety aspect.
A couple things I didn’t do on the date
- Walking to the restaurant she was closer to traffic. It was sort of raining and I was more worried about trying to keep her dry with the umbrella. On the walk back I made sure to get closer to the road.
- I didn’t pull her chair out (I never do this, but maybe I should?)
- I didn’t have flowers (she later mentioned this)
- I didn’t ask if she wanted more water from the pitcher on the table (her brother did this and later on I did to sort of try and assimilate with their manners). But I didn’t the first time. I just filled my own glass. I don’t think this is a big thing but ladies let me know
- when her brother and SIL left I didn’t talk about what I thought of them (she mentioned this) lol. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but yeah.
Some observations from me and some she mentioned.
The next morning I woke up to a text at 7 said that it seemed like things were a little off. I said I agree (though really it was just the end for me). We agreed to a call that night.
In the call she said she felt like I wasn’t present, I didn’t buy her flowers or do anything romantic and then she made a comment like I let her down in front of her brother and SIL. Said something like “i don’t introduce many guys to them.”
She is an old fashioned type and she feels loved most from physical touch and words of affirmation.
I said I didn’t have anything on my mind and felt like I was present and that to me it wasn’t that bad of a date.
As far as the people meeting her brother comment, I wasn’t sure if she was implying that I should have paid for all of dinner (me and her brother split it and both paid $125) or not, but again, she made it seem like I dropped the ball and actually said the date didn’t meet her expectations. They (the three of them) picked the restaurant since I’m not from the area. I was dressed decently well but did wear jeans. She said I looked fine when I asked if that bothered her.
One thing I also said and shouldn’t have was that I felt like the date was almost more of friends just hanging out in a sense. That was the vibe I got from it.
I probably should have gotten her flowers and a bouquet for her SIL, or made it a bigger deal but the effort on her part was lacking some, so I wasn’t about to bend over backwards without seeing a higher level of effort from her.
Maybe it’s just me but if I’m not feeling effort I short of shut down as a guy.
During the call I asked if she was done and wanted to move on or what her thoughts were. She said no I’m not saying that I would like to meet again at least one more time. Then we said we would meet on 8/2 or 8/9.
The first couple days after the texts were pretty normal. On Monday i said maybe it would be good idea for us to think and talk about each of our expectations on what we want our lives to look like so we could see if this was something worth pursuing. I thought this would be good since she specifically said the date didn’t meet her expectations.
Also my family was headed to our cabin the last week of July and I invited her if she wanted to go (originally I invited her a few week prior but invited her again since she said she was probably going to her brothers and never did answer that from the first time). It wasn’t that I was at a level for her to meet most of my family, but I did feel like it would be a way for her to see me more in my element since the first date was in Florida and the second was an hour and a half away from my house. She said she’d think about it and then declined Thursday afternoon saying she didn’t feel like she was ready for that yet.
Wed and thur she was busy and said about talking Friday. We started off the call pretty normal catching up and then she said she had thought about what I said about expectations and that she didn’t want to meet again. It went well. There was no animosity or anything. We talked for a bit about it and I said I understood (I was there mentally from the lack of effort and her financial tendencies) and that I wished her the best. It seemed to end okay and I took it like a pretty amicable ending. She even said take a bunch of photos at the cabin for me and I asked her to tell me how her work certification she was taking that week went when it was done.
The next day I did send a message to say hey if there’s a chance you’d meet again I’d drive the whole way some Saturday so we could spend the whole day together. Just figured a Hail Mary wouldn’t hurt since 4 days prior we were talking about meeting again. Thought it may have been a test just to see if I would try at all. I know women that have done this as a test lol
She said thanks for reaching out and then said “I’ve been down here for 5 weeks. You had plenty of time to do that already.” This was the first sort of snippy thing she had ever said.
I said okay, I enjoyed getting to know you and wished her the best.
Since her last message was a little snarky I probably shouldn’t have asked, but last Sunday I texted her to see how the certification at work went since she was worried about it and spent the two weeks leading up to it studying. No response.
My initial feeling was it ended fine all in all. We tried and it just didn’t work out, no big deal. But after not responding maybe it didn’t end as well as I thought.
Does it always have to just stop at that point or are there times women will still be okay communicating as friends? I have no angles. But we did get to know each other for half a year, so I felt like maybe we could just be friends.
Maybe she thinks I was using that as an opener to get another chance but i truly am okay and am fine moving on. For reference I went out on a date with another girl the day before our Friday call where she said she didn’t want to do a 3rd date because I still wasn’t feeling like the effort was there from her.
Her dad has surgery in another two weeks and her birthday is coming up. Would it be a bad idea to wish her happy birthday and just say I hope her dad’s surgery went okay (in one text). Or should I not send anything? Guessing i shouldn’t.
In the past few years I’ve gotten to know some great women on a deeper level and 1.5 of the 9 have been cool about keeping in touch. I’m dead to 5 and some others just seem neutral. I’m not sure with this one but with the last text exchange I can take a guess on where she’ll fall.
Is there anything I could send her to see about keeping in touch as friends, or just move along?
Do women basically write you off if it doesn’t go anywhere romantically if that was the original pursuit?