A month after our second date, she texted to ask how I was doing. By then, I’d decided she wasn’t interested. Apparently, I’d closed a conversation that was still open on her phone.
We’re both 30. We’d been on two dates over two months, which was less dating than I would have liked. I wanted to see her more often, but she was always busy. There wasn’t a dramatic falling-out or an awkward declaration to point to. There was mostly the difficulty of getting another date into the calendar.
After the second date, we kept texting for a while. Then she said she’d be traveling out of state for work over the next few weeks. She’d let me know when she was free. I replied, “Sounds good,” and left it there. A very agreeable response from a man who didn’t expect to hear anything further.
Neither of us texted after that. I didn’t chase her for a date, and she didn’t offer one. I’d left the next move with her because she was the one who knew when she’d be available. She’d said she would let me know, and I wasn’t going to keep asking for updates.
I chose the interpretation I thought experience had already settled. When someone is repeatedly busy and never suggests another time, I usually read that as a polite no. Not a cruel no. Not necessarily a dishonest one. Just the kind that lets the conversation fade without anybody having to deliver a small rejection speech.
So I stopped thinking about her. We’d only had two dates, spread far enough apart that there wasn’t much momentum to lose. I’d wanted more, but wanting more didn’t make her calendar any less full. As far as I was concerned, the whole thing had quietly finished.
Then came the check-in. It wasn’t a proposal for a third date or an explanation of the month in between. She was asking how I was. Maybe the work travel really had been the whole explanation, and she was picking things up when she could. Maybe she just felt like getting back in touch. The message established that she wanted to contact me; it didn’t establish what she wanted next.
What caught me off guard was how certain I’d been. I’d treated her lack of a new date as an answer, and now she was back without apparently knowing an answer had been recorded. She hadn’t promised a deadline; a month was simply longer than I’d expected anyone interested to stay away.
I haven’t replied yet. Her message is still a simple question about how I’m doing. Mine, so far, is taking considerably more work.
