Hey everyone, looking for some outside perspective on this situation.
I (23M) had been talking to this girl (20F) for a couple of weeks. We were texting every day, multiple times a day, and the energy was great – fun, flirty, and consistent from both sides. She was engaged, asked questions, joked around, even made comments that suggested she could see us becoming something more.
Then she asks where we are going on our first date as we had it planned for a while as she was at home as it was university reading week for her but we planned for this Saturday coming up, I told her and then after that set of messages she comes back telling me she's "not ready to continue going on dates" and "didn't want to lead me on" and that there's no hard feelings.
I replied respectfully and told her I appreciated her reaching out instead of ghosting and that if things ever changed I’d be open to reconnecting.
We still followed each other on Instagram for a bit afterwards but now we both don't follow eachother anymore.
I’m not crushed, but it did leave me confused because everything felt mutual up until that last message. My read is that she liked the connection but got overwhelmed once things started to feel real, maybe a case of timing or emotional readiness rather than lack of attraction.
I’ve thought about possibly reaching out in a couple of months with something really light, just to test the waters, but I don’t want it to seem needy or like I can’t move on.
So I’d love some outside opinions:
Does this sound like genuine “not ready” energy or just a soft let-down?
Would a casual check-in down the line hurt anything?
I'm still quite inexperienced with dating, so it did hurt quite a bit when she sent that message but I am feeling over it now but want to hear what other people think, thank you for reading 🙂