HOW TO TURN A CRUSH INTO A DATE? STOP HANGING OUT! : OPINION BY MISSY

Do you hang out somewhere?

Let's call this place Scenarios.

You find you somewhere besides your own place to spend time. It may be that you need to get out of the house, are lonely or want conversation, or your housemate needs space, or maybe you want to take your laptop to do some work, or there's some reading you want to catch up on. Maybe you're between jobs. Maybe you are looking for love. For whatever reason,  you find yourself hanging out. You find a comfortable coffee house, café, or maybe it's a bar or a restaurant, and you begin some friendly interactions there. 

For women, finding a place where there are some men of interest and a place to hang out can be difficult, especially if you have to go it alone. Check what it says on Yelp or some other reportage about the place before you become a hanger-outer.  Does the place have a reputation? You're going to have to afford to hang out there. You're going to perhaps spend some time and money there before you get a feel for the place. You might be there often for a couple months before you realize that the scene there is mostly 12-Steppers out of meetings, or a man's man boys club type place where even new men find it difficult to fit in, or perhaps it's mostly families with children which might be good if you have children you can bring along. 

After you've been around Scenarios for a while, you you realize that you have developed a crush on someone or they have of you. They are chatty. They are flirty. There is a gleam in their eye and you're picking up a vibe. You are interested. 

Your crush never gets around to asking you on a date. You don't ask them out either because you're one to let the man lead, at least for a while. Or because you don't want to be so aggressive that forevermore he'll assume you're chasing him.

What is a DATE by the way? I've been thinking about this and basically I think a date in the purest sense is a time and place where you have some one on one interaction, uninterrupted by others. It's get to know you time. Caution: Seeing someone around at Scenarios is NOT A DATE and you should not leave there with them, not even to go for a bite to eat, and blur the definition, though it's OK to meet up with a group for dinner or a game. 

In truth, the person at Scenarios doesn't want to ask you out because if it doesn't work out he may no longer have his hang out, least not for a while. He doesn't want a relationship to play out at the place. For all you know more than one man there is interested in you and among the men they've talked about it. (One friend had three men vying for her at a coffee house and then they discussed it and chose the one man who would go after her - someone she wasn't interested in. To me that's terrible. None of those men thought she had a say in it.)

What you have to do is not be so available. If you have not been going to this place regularly for not too long, say a month or so, you can vary your availability and cut back for starters. Your crush should go on down there and not find you. He should be wondering if you are ever coming back. Don't be surprised if he has his friends informing him about when they saw you last there - even what table you usually sit at.  

Or if you stay for hours, cut back to a couple hours.  Don't stick around because you know he's going to show up, or just because he did just show up.

Let's say you used to go after work most weeknights. Cut back to one night a week. If you want dates, stay away on Friday and Saturdays, and maybe Sunday's too. If you go back after an absence and someone asks you where you've been just say you've been busy.  Make no promises about when you will be back there.  If you have been going on dates, don't say, "Oh I've been so busy.  I'm dating."  Don't say that when you have not.  This is not about pretending.  It's not about trying to make someone jealous; that's pathetic. It's about being more private.

If you've been going to Scenarios a long time it may not be possible to regain privacy. If you have no choice such as another better place an easy commute away, you may become a little less available if you cut conversations short to get buried in your work. Be pleasant but be sure not to interrupt anyone's conversations, go to their table to say hi, automatically sit with them, or otherwise make it easy for them to talk to you.  "Great seeing you around!"

There is a kind of friendship called a "Bar Relationship." This is when you have to go down to the bar /coffeehouse/cafe/wherever to see your friends. If you don't go there, no one will come looking for you. Months or years could go by and the same people may still be there when you come back. They will remember you maybe and be just as friendly but if the place goes out of business you might not know where anyone went.

That's because the friendships found in that place are based on the place and seldom go out of it. Sure some of these people do see each other around elsewhere - at work, church, another club, sports events, meetings, somewhere.

Crushes, however, need to lead to dates because otherwise they tie you up when nothing is actually happening.  They are sparks that need to be tended to turn into flames.

Cutting back on how often you go to Scenarios, or not going there at all for a couple months may compel a man who wants his crush to turn into a date to ask you out, but of course you can't be unattainable. Usually a man asks for your phone number first. Here are some ideas for you that may help him along, a little.

First, if you have been going to this place suited up after work or perhaps in old jeans or some other clothing that makes you look like one of the boys, stop that. Change clothes before you go there. Wear a nice, modest outfit, not showing cleavage or your stomach, or too tight, but with some feminine "he would never wear this" touches such a flowery top or a big hat or a dress or skirt. Remind yourself you're female.

Second, you can make some of your contact information known in general, not specifically for him.  As you may know, I believe that everyone should have a simple social card to give out so you're not scratching for paper and a pen.  It's OK to hand out your card to a number of people at the same time for your business - not the company where you work where no personal calls should be coming in - your business. "Just got some new cards."  I would not give out my home number this way, but perhaps a voice mail for this purpose.

Here are some things to remember. 

1) When you have a crush on someone and you vary your availability it also tweaks you.  You won't see him as much maybe and you'll miss him.  If you pray, pray for clarity.  

2) As my friend who was a mistress but ended up marrying an executive from a film company said, "If a man can't ask a woman on a date what else can he do?"

3) If you do start a relationship, you will probably have to let him have his hang out and stop going there completely.  Otherwise, whenever you go in, it may be assumed you are looking for him.  You can only do that if you are married and it's an emergency.  Some men simply need to bond with other men.  Sometimes they do this by girl-watching or having quasi competitions to get a date. In other words flirting should not be taken too seriously because some people do just enjoy the flirting.

*** For those of you who belong to a club, such as a 12 step program, well, you'll probably find that your meeting place is not a good place to start a dating relationship.

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