In which I talk about courtship. 

I’ve been meeting with this girl a fair amount lately. We got along in the class we had together, enjoy walking cities together… And so on. Today we met up to go swim for a bit, and then went for lunch and chatted. 

I pride myself a little bit on being not too bad at reading body language. It’s not a perfect science by any means, but I got some experience while working hotels, and then just by the sheer number of people I have met in the last several years. It’s been good practice. 

Sometimes shy people are really hard to read, because they’re trying very hard to hide what they’re thinking or feeling. And sometimes they are really easy to read, because it’s easy to see that they’re hiding it. 

She and I have had some time to hang out, and we do get along well, even with the language barrier. But I feel like I generally get some mixed signals. Us hanging out is great. And we get along great. But… sometimes I get the “we’re friends vibe.” 

Today, when we got back to the main train station and were making ready to part ways… would be the first time I really felt like taking a chance. I really wanted to reach out to her, and… didn’t. 

If you believe the movies, you believe in dramatic confessions of love and affection, and that they work. In real life it’s not like that. In real life, big dramatic confessions scare people, mostly because the fantasy is one-sided. You can confess affection, but it’s probably best to not have expectations unless you think the other person will receive it. 

Otherwise it’s a dicky thing to do, and puts the person in a difficult position, and there you are like a selfish person pressuring them into a choice they didn’t know until now that they had to make. It’s not cool. 

One way to help things along, I think, is to make it clear that you’re interested from an early point. You don’t have to say it, but you can still show it. And that way it’s not a big shock and they would have given some thought to it for when you do get around to saying something more or less officially. That way it’s a measured decision. 

That makes sense, and it’s worked well enough before. But the tricky bit in this case is just that she’s not long out of a serious relationship. Coming on too strong too early just feels cheap and not terribly respectful of her as a human being. But if there’s any lesson for my romantic life, it’s to grab opportunities as they come and don’t let them pass me by. 

She’s going to Paris again in about 10 days or so. She says she’s still worried about randomly seeing her ex on the street somewhere. I worry that that kind of accident could complicate things a lot. It tends to for most people, I think. 

I plan to meet with her before she goes, and I intend to follow through and see where things go.