For about a month, I saw the same woman every week through our church group. She complimented my appearance and always seemed happy to talk. I liked her, and I thought there was a reasonable chance the interest went both ways.
Reasonable chance is a comfortable place to live until you try to obtain more information.
Last week, I invited her to join something I was doing with friends. She said she couldn’t make it. That wasn’t the answer I wanted, but it also wasn’t much to go on. People do, inconveniently, have plans.
I told her I’d follow up the next week with another idea. This gave me a straightforward assignment: think of something, then invite her.
Somewhere between those two steps, I spoke with somebody who told me she wasn’t interested. That comment lodged itself firmly in the proceedings. Suddenly, proposing another outing felt like skipping a crucial preliminary hearing.
Before asking her out again, I decided I should establish whether she even wanted me to ask her out again. This sounded sensible while it was still inside my head.
So yesterday, I left her a voicemail. I said I’d like to get to know her better and talk to her about something.
I did not actually suggest the new date idea I’d promised. Instead, I left a message with the vague seriousness of an appointment nobody remembers scheduling.
Now it’s been more than 24 hours, and she hasn’t replied or acknowledged it. I keep circling back to what I said, as though the recording might become clearer through repeated internal review.
The compliments were real. The conversations were easy. She couldn’t come to one group outing. Somebody else said she wasn’t interested. Those are the pieces I have, and they refuse to assemble themselves into a useful answer.
Maybe she wasn’t interested before I called. Maybe my message made a simple invitation sound unnecessarily complicated. I don’t know whether the silence answers the question or just leaves it sitting there.
Did I leave an awkward voicemail after a rejection I hadn’t recognized, or did I manage to make the voicemail itself the problem?
