TheSkaFish said:
If you don't mind, how did you escalate things? Was it long-distance? Usually everyone you meet online lives so far away. How did you maintain and increase interest, how did you keep it alive?
First of all, just to be clear, I am not a pick-up artist. I don't "game" women. I treat them as equals. I'm just a normal guy who has had some successes, some failures, and everything in between. This is an example of two people starting out as friends who found themselves in love.
This friendship started online, as I said. I'm in California, and she was in New York City, so she was 3000 miles away from me. When we first began to PM, she contacted me first and there wasn't any romantic interest. None. Zero. I thought she was cute, but that doesn't mean anything to me if she can't converse. Fortunately, she knew how to carry a conversation. But I didn't start chatting with her with the notion of becoming her boyfriend. To me, she was just a nice person that I enjoyed PM'ing. That's it.
After a while, we realized that neither of us were jerks or flakes, and since the PMs were a success, she gave me her phone number. We started having some marathon phone calls. We texted each other every day. It was some great times and some great conversations. She was just really nice to me (and vice versa,) she matched my temperament quite well (which is calm, relaxed, and laid-back,) and we went from there. We just talked about anything and everything. I talked to her as I would with my best friend.
In the beginning, we were building a comfort level with each other with polite conversation that evolved into talking about our deepest emotions and some of our darkest secrets. We'd joke a bit, talk about our passions, our childhoods, and I realized that I was liking her more and more. She was a great person, intelligent, attractive, kind, warm, and a lot of the things I desired in a companion.
It was then that I noticed the butterflies in my stomach, the staring at her pic just a little longer than before, and the feelings of anticipation when I'd dial her up again. Yes, I had started to develop feelings for her.
So, just to have a little fun, I started to make small, subtle sexual innuendos. Nothing gross or graphic. But it was a test to see if she was receptive.
For example, if she said anything even remotely sexual, I'd lower my voice and say, "Oh, yeaaahhhh," (kinda like George Takei's "Ohhh, myyyyyyy,") which made her laugh. Even if it was something completely non-sexual, I'd occasionally make it sound like she said the most erotic thing imaginable. Like, if she said, "I love strawberries," I'd go into an over-exaggerated, sexy voice and say, "Oh, I bet you love OTHER things, as well." Again, she'd laugh because I was being purposefully funny about it, but I was also suggesting to her that I liked her without me having to say it outright.
(Disclaimer: If I didn't hear her laugh, or if I felt in any way that this kind of talk was making things awkward, then I would stop the innuendos immediately. Fortunately, she was totally on board.) Soon, she started making her own innuendos at ME, and that was MY cue that she was on the same page, and maybe it was time to climb the next step of the ladder.
After a while of mixing the playful chit-chat with serious conversation, I felt that we really liked each other, but neither of us had said anything about it yet. So, I just opened up that can of worms myself. lol - One day I just told her I had feelings for her. Straight up, no filter, and no fear. (This approach had backfired on me horribly in the past, so it was definitely a risk. But, as it is said, "No risk, no reward.) Amazingly, she said she had feelings for me, too.
And that's how it went from friends to "more than friends." From the first PM to the "I have feelings for you, too" bit, four months of communication happened. It wasn't long after the end of that four months that we were making plans to meet.
Ah, good times.
