It’s 9:30pm along the main river of Hoi An, I see a girl and approach her. “You seem interesting,” I say. “Thanks,” she says, “What are you doing here?” “Just wandering,” I say. “Me too. Do you want to just walk?” she says.

So for the next, idk, 15 minutes, I’m just going with the vibe. It’s friendly. I can tell I’m in the trust building stage.

“I’m with my mom,” she says, “she’s getting a massage. I have to be back in half an hour.”

At this point, I’m thinking about tomorrow. But I shoot some shots.

“I’m staying near the rice fields,” I say. “Really? I haven’t been there,” she says, “ is it near?” “30 minute walk, 2 minutes by motorbike. Want to go?” I say. “Eh, that’s ok,” she says.

We continue on with the friendly vibes. Here and there I tease her.

“Where are you from again?” I say. “Tajetkistan,” she says. I stop her and ask her to google map it. She does, and it’s a place I’ve “never heard of” “Doesn’t exist,” I say. “Yes it does!” she says.

At one point, she asks me if I’ve been to Spain, and that she wants to go. “What would you do in Spain?” I said. “Idk,” she says. I approach her and cover her eyes. “Now try to imagine what you would do in Spain,” I say. At this point, I’m staring at her lips her breast. I’m tempted to kiss her, but I wanted her to trust me. So I kept it light. “I can’t imagine it,” she says. “You have no imagination!” I say. She laughs.

Finally, after 20 minutes, we sit down by a stoop. I transition to read her palm. I start improvising a map along her palm lines, the distance between my hotel and hers. She loves it. But at the end, she goes “Wow, you are creative,” I said. “I am,” I say. Now I’m holding my gaze and I notice her eyes can’t hold the gaze. She starts looking to her left, breaking any tension there was—which there wasn’t.

My final attempt to escalate, we are walking down an unlit street. “What music do you like?” she’s says. “Here, I’ll show you,” I say, “Come closer.” I wrap my arms around her. “Let’s wait for these cars to pass,” I say.

As we wait for a few seconds, her body is slowly drifting away, loosening my hand until it drops. It took a while for the cars to pass, but I needed them to go for me to improvise the escalation.

“Do you hear that?” I say. “What?” She says. “Listen,” I say, “it’s silence.”

Now I’m gazing at her, but I feel this tension that she wants her space. If I step forward, I can sense she’ll step back. Again, her gaze holds and quickly darts left.

“So you don’t like music?” She says. “You don’t like silence?” I say. “I do,” I say.

I hold my gaze, smirk, and I still feel like she’ll step back if I inch forward. Eventually, she says ok let’s go. And I just chuckle. That was my best attempt at escalation and we didn’t feel anything.

A few steps in, I just pivot.

“My hotel is that way, I’m going,” I say. “Ok. What? Ok, bye,” she says.

I don’t say bye back. I was bitter. While I was proud that she was my first approach, and I enjoyed the laughter, my flirting attempts, she just wasn’t recriprocating.

I feel two regrets: not kissing her when I covered her eyes, and not atleast getting her number and admitting I want to fuck her, in more pleasant phrasing.

I’d like to add that, yes, I told her she was cute a few times. I touched her when able. But she was distant the whole time, except when I escalated.

Where did I go wrong?