The High Status Male

Mike,

Here is the situation.  My social skills blow.  I am 25.   I have kept to myself for a long time and I am trying to change.  I read your book, but thought I would ease into dating by trying to meet someone online.   I was using a website for this and I IM’ed a girl, 21, that had just signed up.   After I IM’ed her, I noticed she selected “friend and e-mail/chat” only.   So I asked what the deal was.   She told me she was looking for friends, but if anything more than that developed it would be fine.

She is very busy with projects and our work schedules conflicted a little, so I asked her if we could get together and set up a meeting before the semester ends, which we did.  Here’s my concern… how do I go about trying to show interest in a relationship without scaring her away?   Remember, she wasn’t looking for a relationship according to her profile, but she did say if anything developed that would be okay.

There was a section of her profile that asked “what is your ideal first date”.  I copied and pasted her response here:

“I’m a completely hopeless romantic.  So pretty much,
if you do anything sweet and romantic, I’ll be happy.”

She makes it sound easy, but I just don’t know.   At first I asked her to meet in a building on campus.  The building with the bookstore, cafeteria, lounge area, etc.  I thought that would be a good neutral place to meet a stranger off of the internet, but now we are meeting after the semester is over, and I’m not sure what to do.   Where should I take her and what should I do?

Paul

Hi Paul,

A few things here… I’m not a real big fan of this online setup stuff — it’s okay, but the visual look of a woman is a big deal for most men and is in fact a deal-breaker usually.  You’ve got to see what you’ve got on the line.   The first order of business therefore is to arrange to meet her in person ASAP before you go off the deep end and start worrying about this and that.  I can see it in the question you ask: “how can I show interest in a relationship without turning her away?”.   Brother, after you get a look at her, you may want to RUN away!   Hook up with her at a coffee shop or a local Borders somewhere and see what you’ve got here first.  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy yet.  Just a recon mission.

I have a couple of intuitions here… one is that she’s probably all into her career or whatever and it might be tough hooking up with her if you do start dating.   Be careful not to fall into the trap of being the one who’s always calling up and begging to get together.   This is not the HSM attitude you want to give off, it shows a scarcity mentality rather than one of social abundance. I don’t care if scarcity is the genuine truth about you, you still don’t want to let her know that you’re a rookie.  Second, this crack she dropped about “anything romantic & sweet you can do makes me happy” sounds like it could be a fat chick red-flag.   All the more reason to get her in a face-to-face situation.

When you meet her, if you dig her, just be up front about wanting to date and move things towards a relationship — if she starts giving you a song and dance about her work load and all that other crap you know that you really haven’t ignited a spark in her, which means that all future encounters will be like pulling teeth.   This is how you test for interest. TEST for it — don’t beg for it.   My advice is to save yourself further grief if that’s the case and pull the ripcord.   Put her back in the water and toss your fishing hook back in.   This is not your one and only last chance forever, lose that mindset right now.   You can probably set up get-together dates like an assembly line using that online system, so do it.

The important thing is that you got your ass motivated and are actually DOING something real about your social life now instead of just thinking and hoping. Excellent!   Just put in the time and effort, you’ll make a breakthrough with one of these chicks soon enough, and then you’re on your way.   Let me know what happens when you actually see her.