The last field report was about how I got into a first date after much isolation from actual dating. "[FR] First date since I married some 6 years ago"(Link removed because bot) I stated that I was rusty. Truly, after the faintest sliver of light from what actual dating is, I can say I never knew how to do the thing at all!

Today, I was a bit down from the girl(Chilly) in the previous FR. She cut contact with me after disagreeing with the hour of the next date. 8pm on Sat.

Chilly: "It's too late. I don't have a car"

Me: Well, the other choice is Thursday 7pm."

-- One day later --

Me: Whoops, sat is off. Only choice is thurs at 7"

Based on the information you provided, I decided it was best for my mental health to stop all contact there.

-- Not all is gloom is you open your eyes and pay attention --

So, I decided to make some payments and headed to one of the malls nearby. Luckily, it had just stopped raining. On the way there I found this girl HB6 or 7 perhaps. Not strikingly beautiful, but pretty. Milk chocolate skin, petite and an inquisitive mien. She was eyeing the bread through the glass outside a healthy themed cafe.

I approach her making conversation about the bread. She's open to conversation and casually mentions she's waiting for the rain to subside. She didn't want to stain her white shoes. This was my cue.

--- By this point I've been doing light kino her arm. It was one of the most commented mistake on the previous FR. In response to that I've been kinoing all of my workmates. Thanks to gaying a bit with the workmates and being closer with the gals as well, the kino has been a lot easier. No unacceptable touching on work tho. No woman working there is worth my goddamn career.

I tell her I'd like to have some bread and she hesitatingly answers negatively. I just signal her and walk towards the entrance. I don't even need to check behind me, shes walking with me alright. We go inside and I pick a tray and tongs. I give the tray to her. I tell her to pick her bread and I put it in, then I chose one for me. All of the breads are whole-wheat and I know I'm not going to finish the thing, so I pick one of the small muffins. She chose a pasty.

I ask her how we're doing this and she suggests me to pay for her pasty. I tell her I'll agree if she pays for the drinks. But she says she doesn't have cash and her card won't have money till 8 o'clock. I have her try the card regardless. 'It's like they say: It's the intention that counts'. I pay for one hot chocolate and the pastries and I tell her she now owes me a drink. After that, I go get my chocolate and tell her where to sit.

Once I'm back at the table, I remove her purse from the chair next to her and sit. I didn't want to sit in front of her. Here the conversation continues and she tells me a lot about her. I continue light kino with remarks about her and shut up as much as I can. I'm pulling on a testicle and tying a knot of Tibetan silence around it in hopes of keeping my mouth shut. I've had less problem overcoming fear of death than suppressing the impetus to speak.

--- Didn't think about the table thing beforehand, but in that instant I thought it would have been a good idea to explicitly tell her where to sit. I'll keep doing that in the future. As for the chair and her purse, the experience from the previous date had me dread the front sit a lot. I've read having your whole body face the other party can be overwhelming and detrimental. It also definitely hindered my chances of kino previously. She also started mentioning that I look at her too much. Thank you good friend for suggesting the 'I see you're not used to having people actually pay attention to you'. It worked wonders.

The conversation flowed well and I got to know her quite well. She's a public servant, no nightlife, alcohol, smoke. Not even freaking soda. She's quite the health freak. That explains her slender frame. She's enjoying the thing and I am as well. The kino on her arm has her pull it a bit towards her on occasion, but she's not complaining.

At this point, we already shared our names. She asked for mine and forgot to give me hers, I pointed this to her to show her she was getting flustered. Playful laughter ensues. Then she asks for my age and we find out we're the same age, both 29. I explain that technically I'm 28 still, but my birthday is this weekend, so she's older by a couple of days. She gets very interested in this and tells me she's going to find my name where she works and she's going to confirm if that's true.

I tell her there was no way she's going to find me as the name I gave her is not my actual name. It's my nickname. I tell her the reason for this is that as I was beginning a new phase in my life some time ago I decided it would be best for me to adopt a new name. To honor the person I'm became now. It doesn't matter, I tell her, since she'll find out eventually and it's nothing particularly interesting. She buys this and mentions that such things are usually divorces or other such big events. cough cough. Then she asks if I'm married, quite bluntly by the way. I'm technically no longer married, as my divorce is proceeding without issues, but she doesn't need to know at this time. I said that I'm not married, that I'm single.

--- I was not bullshiting her when I said what I said. I did adopt a new nickname, a new persona for me. The old me was but a boy and now that I suffered the pain of my own rite of passage I decided I had to find a new name. It's slightly unusual where I live since it's foreign sounding.

Conversation flows comfortably and she presents an interesting shit test when I start playing with her hands. I mention that in one of her fingernails is a white dot. When we were kids, we used to say that these things meant that you had one suitor per white dot. We laugh at the absurdity. Then she mentions that she actually has one and around fifteen days she found one. At his work one other dude went to her and explicitly told her that she was pretty and approached her. I played the romcom scenario and explained how they met, married and went to a sweet beach honeymoon, returning to a movie ending back in this city. She didn't stop talking about that and I told her that he seemed like a nice guy. She deals with pretty complex economic science and the fact that he can understand that is pretty cool since I don't work on that field. "Anyways, he's just a friend" she says.

--- This was the jealousy shit test, right? I tried making fun of the happy ending scenario she was painting and overly exaggerating the thing to disney levels. When she didn't instantly shut up, I tried the more reasonable approach of siding with the guy. "He seems cool". Anyways, her last statement makes me believe I didn't do so bad in that regard.

After playing with her hands successfully, she continued the conversation about how some of her friends presented her their guy friends. By now, I started to play with my legs brushing the side of her calves. This was extremely amusing to me, because as I was now freely doing this, she was talking about how she didn't like how she wanted the relationships in life to happen naturally.

--- The leg playing was something I've never done before. But given she never mentioned, never pulled away and actually started talking more freely and comfortably, I believe I did acceptably in this regard. I did find the whole thing amusing tho, because at a certain level, the fact that we were talking was not something bound to 'happen naturally'. Not that it was bad, however. Mother mortality is something extremely natural, but our technology prevents that. In the same way, perhaps I was never meant to met her, or any other woman this way. In a 'natural' way. But it doesn't mean it's bad, for any of us.

It's been 40 to 60 minutes now and she mentions she has to leave, get a shower and ready her stuff for tomorrow. I remember she mentioned she liked teas and remember I have a very stupid excuse to invite people to my place, matcha tea. Then I remember we're stuffed from eating stone-heavy, rich-in-fiber pastries and decide it's best not to push the thing. I now reignited a bit the conversation and decide it's now a good time to tell her we need to leave.

We exchange numbers after telling her we need to do this again. She says we do since she owes me a drink. We part ways, both walking with a stupid grin.

#close, date on the spot, no kclose, no fclose

Game Over

Continue?

-- Lessons learned --

  • Paying attention to what people say opens possibilities for you -- Had I been aloof, distracted or overthinking what to say next, the moment she mentioned waiting for the rain to pass, I wouldn't have concluded she had time to spare for a drink and a dry pastry.

  • Showing control may be done in a something as simple as pointing out which table to sit -- This one I realized by accident. I've read that women want to feel someone is in control so they can relax. I believe it might be expressed in as little a gesture as this. Replicate a hundred fold and now you're the man in control. It doesn't even need to have a reason, random is reason enough if you consciously DECIDE random is good.

  • Kino is something you need to get used to by exposure -- Given the pleasant conclusion to today's event, I'm inclined to believe my little work kino experiment is working alright. I need only to keep it professional and human touch might as well open more doors for me. A little boost in charisma perhaps?

  • Shut up (Lesson Relearned) -- It works wonders.

  • Keep your place squeaky clean -- Opportunities happen all the time, and you catch them because you do your preparation. Had I been able to bring her back today, I would have had a clean place for us. I did made sure it was clean before getting out.

  • Use of aliases or fake names -- I'm now currently wondering just how much of an issue it might become if I keep presenting myself as my alias, instead of my real name. It is certainly a sign of distrust, but I really don't want to feel tied to what I was anymore. Having the inner voice use my alias has helped me cope with the amount of change in my life. In this scenario I downplayed the thing, specially saying that she'll find out eventually if she continues. Perhaps this can be a slight boon? A small provocation of curiosity to discover the true identity of this man. Or perhaps it might be more of a hindrance? I'll keep doing it and see its effects.

  • (Extra) I need to find a way to link other TRP threads. -- It seems standard linking kills the post.

Edit: formatting, I see I suck at reddit formatting.