Fundamentally, I do like you, but there is a but.
My initial elation very quickly vanished, to be replaced with a more pragmatic mix of angst, exasperation and some curiosity. LK and I had been chatting, catching up, and following up after my London trip, the main driver for which was a (second) date with her. After church at Hillsong - always a great bonus on these trips - I made my way towards the Angel Station where we’d planned to meet and then do lunch and talk.
She arrived just after 2pm, looking gorgeous, her multiple layers of wraps against the cold notwithstanding. Lunch was Italian at Jamie’s, after which we had one of our better conversations. I felt a lot more at ease this time than the first time at our coffee shop, less tentative, for want of a better word.
Three hours later, our wide ranging conversation had all but ended, it was too rainy to do anything more and she had a bus to catch, so I walked her to her bus station, at which point I asked the salient question around me being keen to take our connection to the next level, if there was one. Typically, her response was understated.. Essentially defaulting to her needing to have a serious think to chew over everything.
That was the background to our conversation that Saturday morning, during which it turned out she did like me, but not physically. Not the first time I’ve been given the you’re awesome but speech, but on this occasion we resolved to let things flow naturally as they have and see. Not quite the clarity I was looking for, but also not the slammed door in my face it might have been.
So, LK and I remain in that nearly just friends zone. I’ve gone on record to let her know I am attracted to her, and enjoy her company and all. In fairness to her, she’d gone on record previously to say that chemistry was a biggie for her.. I just didn’t pick up on that.
The plan, if that can be considered one, is to give IT - this poorly defined connection between LK and I - February. Maybe send a Valentine’s gift in her way to reiterate my interest and then see how February pans out. If I do not get the sense of progress, it might just be the trigger to wrap things up and scale back my emotional investment to such a level that is commensurate to being just friends. It will be - admittedly - difficult, given how well/ far I feel we have come in the past three months… But it is what it is, I guess…