Took a break from actively pursuing "pick up", quit drinking, and decided to focus on myself for a while last year.

Anyway, I was walking my dog at the park off leash and this chick was sitting with her dog in the grass.

I took a large circle around her as I was not in any type of mode to "open" or whatever. Just enjoying myself. My dog though was looking at her dog and hers at mine.

She opens "how do you get your dog to listen so well?" Kinda called out from a few yards away. I just banter a bit but I know enough when a chick opens in any way, dog or not, she's putting herself into orbit.

We let our dogs start playing, and as I'm talking with her I'm checking her out, seeing if I'd be interested in even going for her number. Cute face, cute butt, cool dog. Seems legit.

Back in the day I would've been trying to force things, and fill up any dead air but I'm at the point where I'm not chasing tail right now. So we'd talk and I'd let her fill the space if she wanted to. See if she invests. Eventually it goes from talking about our dogs to she asks why I moved out here and other things so I recognize she's at least 5/10 interested. I decide to get her number.

Nothing big, I'm not trying to impress anybody so I just invite her to come out with me tomorrow to walk our dogs along the river. She had told me she hasn't been there yet, and I was going there anyway so it was just a take or leave offer from me. She's down, and I ask what her schedule is like and she tells me she has the day off. No reservations, so a pretty good sign.

This is where I was rusty. I did get a little nervous ok, and fumbled on my phone a bit to open contacts to save her number. Took longer than expected. Get her saved, do the name test. She asks my name after I get hers, so that's good too.

I used to have a rule to always set dates in person, and if they can't I just don't hit them up. But I was caught off guard in this situation, I wanted to set the time tomorrow but I was too caught up in thinking when would be the perfect time? So I'm getting a little inwardly "needy" so I just abandon that and tell her we'll meet at the river but I got to check my schedule for tomorrow and I'll text her a time later.

Kinda rusty but all's well. I'll just hit her up tomorrow around 11 or so and give a time and we'll see what happens.

Another reason I set dates in person usually is because I texted her my name so she had my number but she didn't respond. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't in this regard, but now I'm stuck "double texting" when I set the time tomorrow. A little thing but it's still a thing. I try to avoid as much texting as possible before the first date.