DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So right before the COVID lockdown I was building up some courage to ask out a lady I saw pretty lady at a regular social gathering with friends. Didn’t want to ask out in a text because that felt lame, but there were always just enough other people around that asking out felt like it would’ve put her on the spot. Then COVID happened and the group stopped meeting in general, and since she’s not on Facebook I have no real idea what her current life situation is.
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Is texting out of the blue to see if she’d be interested in a date after basically an entire lustrum rude, and as lame as I thought it was back then?
Five Years Too Late
DEAR FIVE YEARS TOO LATE: OK there’re two very different questions embedded in this letter, FYTL. Let’s start with the easiest one: is it rude to ask someone on a date out of the blue, five years after the last time you’ve spoken? Kinda, yeah. Will it work? Hell no.
I think anyone who gets that text is going to be bewildered, possibly needing a moment to process why, after five years of radio silence, you’re messaging her now and saying “hey, want to go on a date” without so much as a “hi, how are you, long time, what’s been going on?”
And that’s if she even remembers or has your number in her phone. She may well think you’re another spam text trying to lure her into a pig-butchering scheme if she doesn’t just scratch her head and report the text as junk.
If you were going to try to ask her out, you’d really need to spend time to re-establish a relationship with her. And I mean a lot of time. Five years of no contact is a very long time to go without speaking. Expecting to pick up where you left off is wildly optimistic at best. Yes, there are some folks out there who don’t have what one might call a “friendship degradation mechanic”, who re-engage with friendships like no time has passed… but you really can’t rely on her to be one of those people.
This is why I’m a big believer that you can’t wait for “the right time”. You make the right time happen, or else you accept the higher risk that you’re going to miss out.
Now as to your second question: is asking someone out by text lame? Not really, with caveats.
This is the 21st century; most of our communication is done via text and our thumbs. We live our lives – for good or for ill – on networks and computers and screens as well as in the physical world. Entire relationships are conducted and managed via text, DMs, email and voice chat in video games. So in and of itself, no asking someone out by text isn’t lame.
Now that being said, if you weren’t texting her already and that’s your first message to her, ever? Yeah, that’s going to seem a bit weird. It could be a bit understandable if you two were talking regularly when you saw each other and you could never find a time when you could ask her out, but it’d still seem a bit odd.
But if you weren’t even talking to her at all – not beyond basic niceties and small talk, the “know each other well enough to say hello to” kind of conversations? Yeah that’s going to seem kinda lame and more than a little clueless.
With all that in mind, let me give you a little tip for next time: when you’re hoping to ask someone out on a date, your choices aren’t limited to “ask her out furtively in secret “ask her out by text” or “put her on the spot in front of God and everybody”. You can get a sort of effective privacy without actually pulling her away into the trees where nobody can see.
What you do is use a combination of physical distance and body positioning. You get a bit of distance from the larger group – not much, but enough so that you’re not standing in the middle of a crowd, just a bit off to the side. You’re still within eye and earshot – hell you may be just outside of arm’s reach – but it gives a bit of psychological distance that’s greater than the physical distance. Then you position yourselves so that her back is to the group while she’s facing you.
Doing this creates a sort of privacy bubble; you’re not actually away from everyone else but you’re clearly having your own conversation that doesn’t involve the others. Not having the feeling that all eyes are on her or paying attention to what you or she are talking about creates the feeling that this is a private conversation even though it’s still right there. And then you have your opportunity to say “hey, there’s $COOL_THING going on this weekend and I think you’d really enjoy it. I’d love to take you if you’re interested” without you or her feeling like she’s being put on the spot.
Just as importantly though, you need to work on not treating asking someone out on a date like it’s a shameful or weird thing. It’s all a lot easier when you don’t act like you’re doing this risky thing or making a huge ask when all you’re really doing is saying “hey, I like you, I’d like to spend time with you, would you like to spend time with me?”
Get used to just owning being interested in taking someone on a date without fear or shame, and I think you’ll have a much better time. And you’ll hesitate far less and thus not spend five more years trying to figure out how to undo that mistake.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com