I've obviously been misstating that whole thing...I was never really getting bad press, the one making that joke about me being unadventurous is the married friend of mine, she said it jokingly and used it to basically tell this girl, "Well I don't see any way I'll talk him into it, but I bet YOU could"...she reinforced this after the above happened. When we were talking at the bar, I jokingly brought it up again when we were talking about how we ended up here; without even thinking about it, I started with "I've really liked the adventure of moving thousands of miles away from home to be out here"...then thought about it and jokingly said "...but as you know, I'm still a pretty unadventurous guy." That whole "unadventurous" thing was a harmless aside, honestly.

Indian food didn't actually happen yet because of an unexpected and unavoidable lunch meeting getting thrown into my path that day. Doesn't sound like I actually got off the hook yet though.

I share your fear, though obviously hope you're wrong.

If she says no, I wish there was a way for the weirdness level to be predictable so I could act accordingly. I'd like to think that if it went badly, I could handle the situation well enough that I could at least minimize her awkwardness, but who knows. That much is pretty impossible to tell up front. I am an avid poker player though, so I know how to conceal emotions on the surface player as well as anyone.

Ultimately I don't think it'd be very easy to just step back and detach from any hopes of wanting to be more than friends with her unless I knew for sure that she wasn't into me, so I probably should be honest and try to make something happen. Three things could happen:
1. She's receptive and we head toward being something more,
2. She's not, but we have a good talk and we can move toward sincerely just being friends,
3. She's not, she's weirded out, our friendship is severely hampered if not ended.

Two of the three are obviously way better than the status quo, even if #2 contains an embarrassing/awkward moment. #3 would be really bad obviously, but at least I wouldn't have to wonder if I let a chance slip by. While not a desirable choice at all, I'd rather live with a temporarily hurtful situation than a long-term regret.

So, as long as the situation is what it is now, I guess I'm sort of determined to either succeed or go down in flames, for better or for worse...unless I get some stronger negative signals to officially tell me that I'm up a creek. If that happens, I'll adjust accordingly.

I don't think that she would waste all of that time with you and then say, No! Now what are you going to do when, she say's yes? Both of you will be spending more one on one time together!

Remember this A kiss is just a kiss, unless it's a miss, But a kiss is also bliss with a good kiss!

Harvey7.

Alright, time to dust this old dinosaur off. I've still been trying to make this happen without just blurting out "I like you." We were off on break for a week, texted back and forth a couple of times during that week, nothing significant.

She comes over to hang out a couple of days after getting back. Upon entry, she says "I made you some apple crisp! Here, I'll put it in your fridge." I tried to read the situation, the exchange went...
Me: Oh wow, thank you!
Her: No problem. You let me have some of that amazing cheese last month from Washington, so...
Me (laughing): It's okay, you can just tell me that you made it for me because you like me so much.
Her (laughing): No no, of course I do! But I just didn't have anything tasty to bring back from my state, so I thought this would be the next best thing.
I joked with her a bit longer about how she didn't owe me a thing, but I couldn't get a read. Then, after hanging out for a few hours, mostly just talking, I said "Well hey, it's pretty nasty out, let me give you a ride home." She lives a pretty close walk from here, and insisted that she'd be just fine. Much like declining when I offered to walk her home a couple of weeks ago, that didn't seem great.

Fast forward to a Halloween party thrown by a classmate of ours a few days ago. She contacted me to see when I was going over, so we went over together. I decided I should start being more forward to eliminate any potential ambiguities still hanging around; started complimenting how pretty she was, etc. She said thanks of course. I wasn't sure what kind of vibe I got, it didn't seem very good, but she didn't seem to distance herself either. She hung with me for most of the party, talked about making plans together for the next week, and eventually left together; this time, she accepted my invite to walk her home. And she initiated a hug goodnight. Maybe actions speak louder than any body language that I might have tried to read when I was being complimentary? The next morning, I got a text from her randomly saying "happy Sunday"...so again, obviously not distancing herself a day later.

I had mentioned at the party that the Seahawks would be playing the Lions this season (yes we're aware that our teams are awful), she said we totally needed to get together to watch that game, and she's really not much of an NFL fan. I hadn't realized it, but that's this coming Sunday. So, I shot her an e-mail talking about lunch plans this week, giving my availability, then mentioned that Seahawks-Lions was this Sunday. I said, "Try to have your homework done by 4:00 that day, because that's when we're headed to the sports bar together." She e-mails back, gives a lunch time that works for me, so that's set, then says:
<> Argh. She wants to...sit next to me in the bar and read? I know we're starting to hit the stretch run and are in the last six weeks of the semester, but given a full week's notice, I would think she could plan ahead to set the books down for a few hours if she wanted to. This seems like another stop sign.

Anyway, still kind of lost in this whole thing. It actually does seem like we're becoming closer...slooooowly, but it seems like it's happening. Might just be as friends though. I really don't know. I'd like to just man up and say something, but the aforementioned best friend from the original post keeps preaching caution, and I largely trust her judgment, so I'm left kind of jammed up. Guess I'll just keep patiently trying to chip away at the situation for now.