Hello people,

Just signed up here as I have been out of the dating game for a long while. By long while I mean about 8 years, because I was with my last girl for 6 years. Then the last couple of years have been focusing on work and not going out looking.

Anyway I met this girl the other week at a mates party. She's friend of a friend of a friend, so I don't have any direct mutual friends with her. When we met the first time we had a good chat, but was mostly about work as she's in the same industry as me. The thing is I do sales and she would be the exact type of person I would sell to and she works for a large global corporate, so I was just as interested in setting up a work related meeting as I was in getting in to her knickers.

I got her email address and just sent a short mail saying it was good to meet her and would she be up for lunch one day in the week. She suggested the following Monday, which I agreed to.
I left it until Friday and sent her a mail to see if we were still on for the following Monday and she said that she's sorry, but has a couple of meetings that day now. She then said she had a weeks holiday booked from Wednesday and that we should catch up when she's back.

I asked for her number and said sure that would be good. She gave me her number and I didn't call her because I didn't know if she had got cold feet before and I wasn't sure if she was expecting me to get at her on a work level or personal.

Anyway two weeks later (Friday just gone) I went to a pub to meet some friends and she was there, but I didn't notice her at first. I've only met her once before and her hair was completely different, so was just sitting speaking with some friend when one of her mates came over and said wasn't I going to say hello and she would be upset if I didn't.

I figured that's as good a sign as I could hope for, so went over and sat with her and her friends for a couple of hours. Unfortunately as she was with a group of her friends that I'd never met before I felt very self concious and didn't speak too much.

Anyway she invited me to a New Years Eve party at the friend of a friends house, that I loosely know. At first I thought she was just being polite inviting me, but she did ask me on 3 separate occasions.
The problem here is, it's a long way to go on New Years on the off chance something might happen. I would need to book a hotel and persuade a mate to come up with me in case it all went wrong.

It's 3 weeks until New Years Eve. I told her before she left on Friday that if I was going to go, it would be good to meet her before then.

Any suggestions or tips on how I can follow up by text/email or phone today or tomorrow to try progress things so it's not all centred around New Years Eve?

All those views and not one reply?

Ok, heres my take.

You've posted questions about what to do in the introduction section, thats why your not getting any response


To the topic, WTF?

Ill be straight with you, I dont care if youve been out of the game.. You sat with her for "hours" and hardly spoke (in your own words) And your considering going to a NYE party with her and a bunch of other people you dont actually know.

Get a grip, you were with friends, you should have introduced yourself to her friends, then brought her over to yours, its social proof, they can DHV you and by doing it that way around you can sit with your friends and feel more comfortable than sitting with her friends.

The next issue, your considering hanging out with somone you barely know on NYE, one of the biggest party nights in the year??? Do you not have your own social life? In a way, considering it is like DLV'ing yourself. Have a wild party with your great friends youve known for years, or a girl youve met once with her random friends...I mean come on, thats not helping you bro.

You need to lead the situation, tell her you can't let your friends down as you hang with them every year ( or whatever/you promised them blah blah) and invite her, and tell her to bring some friends.
You need to set up a day2 thats OBVIOUSLY NOT work related, and blantant to see its a social event so there can be no confusion.

Thanks for your reply! Yes I figured that might be why, so duplicated the post in the mid game section.

Well most of them are my mates bothers mates, so I have "sort of" known them for years. Just they're not in my close circle of friends.
I was introduced to all of them. They were all drinking and I was sober as driving + I didn't really expect to see her there, so took me by surprise. I arrived with one friend who I did introduce, but he was stoned so wouldn't have done me much favours anyway.
The other guys there are all my mate's brothers group. The social proof had already been taken care of and they're a good crowd and give me big hellos whenever I see them.
Yeah I see what you mean and agree. How this went down was she asked me what I had planned for NYE.
I said "nothing yet. Usually I wait until the last minute and see how I feel as planning in advance normally leads to a let down." Then she invited me and I said thanks sounds like an option and left it at that.
At my age (37) less and less of my friends do anything so great on NYE, but I know nearer the time I will always have a few decent options to choose from.
It's one of her best mates having a house party. There's no way she is going to miss that party as they're a close bunch.
If I had something else lined up, I would have mentioned it even if I had no intentions on going just so that it looked like I had plans. On this occasion I had nothing and told it how it is.
She called her friend over whose party it is and told her she'd just invited me and was it cool!

Then before they left, she asked again if I was going to go. I told her if I did I'd like to meet her before then and she said "yeah cool, give me a call".

Personally I think I'm in, but if there's a chance of messing things up or talking myself out of doing anything than that's a likely outcome.

Face to face is not a problem. The problem is the follow up call that leaves little or no excuse for her to flake on me and get my intentions across without coming across as desperate or playing games.