TLDR: 4'ish dates, no sex but constant physical escalation, but off-date communication is declining. I'm reading this as mixed signals. Help.
I [34M] met this girl [28F] through a dating app 3 weeks ago. She's very nerdy and feels a bit unusual than other women I've dated in the past. Let me describe the dates first:
First date lasted 4 hours, we had coffee followed by lunch. No kissing or any significant touching (I don't like doing that on the first date), we just chatted, it was a good time.
Second date: I invited her to a concert of a music genre she wasn't familiar with. She agreed to come. We sat on the ground and I noticed she was inching closer to me. I put my hand to her waist, she reciprocated. She also let me hold her hand. I felt her face pretty close to me while we were chatting. After the concert we kept holding hands looking for taxi. We parted ways with a hug.
Third date: Was a quick lunchtime since we were working close by. We chatted, but I intentionally did not initiate anything, don't really want to bring my personal life into the workplace.
Fourth date: Big one. Going to split to multiple paragraphs.
I picked her up from her place. Intentionally did not start anything in the car to see if she'd intiate anything. She did not. After I parked the car I asked for her hand, we held hands going to the restaurant.
While we were sitting, she asked for my hand. Was a bit surprised (I've been the one to initiate everything to this point). I obliged. She told me I'm very handsome and have a beautiful smile. I went complete idiot here, wasn't expecting something like this lol. Rest of the dinner was just chatting.
We had a show to see after dinner but there were some time to kill. We walked around, and got into a bar. Had a few drinks. We were talking about partying wild, she told me she never did that except one time this year, and hesitantly told me she got blackout drunk for the first time due to a breakup she had this year. Yeah.
We went to the theatre to see the show. For 3 hours we held both hands, our legs touched. She was caressing my forearm, and towards the end of the show she put her hand to my inner thigh, close to my knee. While we were walking to the car, she was squeezing my arm and caressing my back from time to time.
We got to the car and had a brief kissing session. After that "lets see where this goes, one of my dogs can bark when they see you FYI", which I understood as an invitation to her place. I held my hand on her thigh the whole way.
When we arrived, she started saying goodbye. I said I could come up if she wants but no pressure, to which she said this was enough for the night. Didn't push, left it at that. We kissed briefly again (kinda uncomfortable when I have to move to the passenger seat from drivers) and she left.
All this sounds pretty good overall right? While this is happening, I feel like texting time is also degrading simultaneously. When we first matched she was pretty texty over the phone, but for the past few days, even before leading to the 4th date, she's been very slow to respond. I'm not sure if she's busy or not because there has been many times she responded virtually immediately.
Last thing that happened today that's rubbing me the wrong way: I texted her to see if she'd be available for a quick lunchtime this week (she mentioned she could do that during the 4th date). She said weekdays are going to be pretty busy for her but she'll have time for the weekend. I asked her what time would be good for the weekend and she hasn't responded since this afternoon but I'm pretty sure she saw that message at least 5 times.
Its not an isolated incident. I arranged all 4 of the dates to this point and I feel like she took quite a lot of time to say yes to all of them. While there is something going on, I fear she might not be into this with enthusiasm and kind of just going along with it.
I really like this girl. Am I right to be worried?