Dear Dr. MPDoc68,


Coming late to this thread and though I did read many pages, not all as is my norm! Well, the ball is now clearly in your court with her revealing her photos!


My thoughts? You seem to have different styles about things . . . . You're a guy who seems to like to get to the bottom line quickly (nothing wrong with that whatsoever) and she's a girl who's more cautious (it seems) and warms up much slower to people and situations (apparently) than you do. Now it could be a good match in that you might balance each other out in complimentary ways or it could be an extremely painful match.


I'm not certain if you still really have enough information yet on which to base a solid decision. When I read about your conversation, the pain reverberated within me and I knew exactly what you were talking about. . . . Taking the higher road, it probably was just aspainful, if not more so, for her as she's not good at "cold" conversations with a person she doesn't know. Maybe she's better with people she does know - again, just enough is not known.


Several thoughts came to mind. One is: You could write her, thank her for posting photos, and ask her assessment of how she thinks your first phone conversation went! It's sometimes a good idea to get the other person's take on things and see how she viewed it!


Of course, you could always close the match based on the one unsatisfactory conversation and other things that irked you such as not leaving a message (I find some do and some don't and try not to think anything about it).


You could write her kindly and say how you realize how awkward first conversations can sometimes be, ask her her assessment of it, and then go further and write that if you all were to go on a date, you'd like some ideas from her of things you all might like to talk about as you felt the last conversation was something like "20 Questions," and that made you feel uncomfortable as you felt you were doing most of the "volleying," of the conversation. There's nothing wrong with being honest in a kind way and soliticitingher input and ideas on it.


Ultimately, as you know, the choice of what you will do is yours, but you're a curious kind of guy who does like to know things, and since things have been going in all sorts of unexpected ways with her, it is outside your usual norm and is a bit of an adventure and mystery - that is if you can stand some bumps, dips, and surprises along the way.


I endured a very painful two-hour date with a gentleman a couple months ago but really did seek to make the best of things and did learn a few interesting tid-bits. People usually always have good points too, and even though you may realize upon meeting, like I did, that this is not going to work out, it doesn't preclude you from learning and finding something good about the other. When I found myself in that situation, I just relaxed and went with the flow - it made it so much more enjoyable.


By the way, don't fill every silence with talk. Be quiet, too, and let it go to the point of awkwardness and see what her threshold point is before she has to say something. Hopefully, the whole time will not be spent in silence, but there is that saying: "Silence is golden!" It would be interesting to see which of you could keep silent longest in person!!! (Oh dear, my sense of humor is getting carried away I see! Forgive me please!).


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