Met this girl through cold approach a week ago.

We met for bubble tea. The beginning of the date was filled with a bit of awkwardness. When I saw her inside the shop, I didn't go for a hug right away. And then after a few seconds then I went for the hug, and she also had a backpack on which made it even weirder to hug her.

After we ordered, I said we should sit outside. But I wanted to stay inside until they called our order so we wouldn't miss it. She went ahead and sat outside while I stayed inside to wait for the order. It was only a few minutes, but it felt like we were starting the date very disconnected.

Once I joined her, we started to vibe in conversation. She had her sunglasses on, which felt like negative body language, but eventually she took them off.

One thing that I did well this time was I allowed time to breathe in the conversation without feeling like I had to fill the silences. And a lot of the time, she would end up asking me a question during that silence. I was actually quite surprised that she had some interesting questions to ask, definitely not the normal boring ones.

We found common interests to relate on, and also a recent travel destination that we were both in.

I was sitting across her at the table so did not do any kino escalation. I've been trying to focus purely on improving my verbal game, body language, and eye contact. Also, I didn't want to be too try-hard during a daytime date.

I ascertained her plans afterwards. She was planning to head back to the library to study and then meet up with friends. I also felt like there was a bit of stagnation after being in the same venue and sitting for so long, so I suggested we go for a walk. We walked back to campus and then before parting ways, I gave her a hug. Kiss closing would have been too aggressive at this point. She said she had a good time.

My worry is that although we had good conversation and rapport building, I did not have much escalation. I did tease and banter with her, but her responses were maybe 50/50. Sometimes she would laugh and smile, sometimes she wouldn't engage with it. I did not have any kino. During silences in our conversation I would try to hold eye contact to create tension, but she would sometimes be looking away. Overall, her eye contact was not very strong. And because I couldn't kiss close, I am worried that this might end in a platonic / friendzone situation.

Also, during the date we had found some common background / interests (we both liked jazz, and played the same instrument). I was actually planning to attend some local live music events in the coming weeks, and I had mentioned I wanted to go to some of these. Should I have suggested that we go to them together? Or was putting the idea out there enough? I didn't want to appear needy by suggesting a second / third date idea while on the first one, but it seemed like it would be an easy and obvious way to seed the next date.