Is a facebook message a bad move for contacting the elusive lady?

February 1, 2013 1:39 PM

I don't want to breech the fb borders yet, as I feel it could kill some of the mystery and magic of getting to know her in real life, but we may never cross paths again. Do I exercise my limited patience for a moment that I can't wait for or just send a msg and start the ball rolling?

So I'm in one MA program, she's in another. We crossed paths in the workshop a couple days in a row last week and I nonchalantly interacted with her. I think we caught eyes a few times, under a short space of time. I was instantly attracted.
At the cafe in my campus, she was sitting with a friend, I sat next to them, but didn't acknowledge her, just asked across the table to the friend if the seat was available. There wasn't any other seats really available so I wasn't conspicuous.
Later I saw that friend and got the courage to ask if the girl I was interested in was single and should I approach. She said,"Oh you mean "P" ... yes, sort of, and yes go for it. I asked what degree they were on, then left. I had a first name and a degree line.
My research into that degree revealed, she was only visiting our campus to use the workshop, but it also turns out that the studio she is normally in is the same one that my classmate's GF is in (call her F) because they are on the same course.
So now I've visited that studio, through F's unsuspecting kindness, under the guise of seeing the facilities to judge for a friend considering the program. The truth slowly rolled out, as I saw the lady I'm interested in and slid a small romantic poetic anonymous art note onto her table when she turned away. As F saw and watched me shy away from approaching her as we walked past the space, she kept encouraging me just to go talk. But I didn't want to intrude while she was working and in her work environment.
I don't know how to approach this. I have asked F to let me know when I should come to the studio to say hi. I went to the gallery she works at today on the off chance she was there, and now feel like sending a facebook message is a last resort. I have to leave for a week on an emergency trip back home tomorrow. Life is short.
Trouble is, I don't want to breech the fb borders yet, as I feel it could kill some of the mystery and magic of getting to know her irl. But then do I keep going around like a stranger trying to be at the same place at the same time as her and hope the moment is right and I'm not frozen when I see her...I don't want it to be awkward either.
What's the hive mind take on this?

posted by talljamal to human relations (26 answers total)

Don't use Facebook to make contact.
(Someone did this to me recently and I found it creepy - especially as he'd had, like you, an opportunity to meet me and chat IRL.)
Find her again in person and scrounge up all the courage you can and start a conversation.
Eg 'hi, I saw you here two weeks ago with F right? How was the course...? ' or whatever.
Break the ice IRL.
posted by honey-barbara at 1:43 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]

slid a small romantic poetic anonymous art note onto her table when she turned away.

Oh lord, just message her already. You shut the door on "not being awkward" when you left her an anonymous note.
posted by kimdog at 1:43 PM on February 1 [25 favorites]

Trouble is, I don't want to breech the fb borders yet, as I feel it could kill some of the mystery and magic of getting to know her irl. But then do I keep going around like a stranger trying to be at the same place at the same time as her and hope the moment is right and I'm not frozen when I see her...I don't want it to be awkward either.

Trying to orchestrate a meet cute is kind of weird, mildly stalkery, and not going to do you any favors. I mean, how do you expect it to go? "Ha, we seem to keep bumping into each other!" "I KNOW MOUTHBREATHE I'VE BEEN FOLLOWING YOU AROUND MOUTHBREATHE DID YOU GET MY SECRET NOTE MOUTHBREATHE"

Next time you see her, just talk to her like a human being. Or if you're not going to see her for a while, send her a message on facebook. This isn't a romcom. While you're out there farting around trying to accidentally see her at lunch, she's out there potentially getting asked out by dudes who are not you.

Just talk to her. Stop wasting time!
posted by phunniemee at 1:46 PM on February 1 [34 favorites]

But then do I keep going around like a stranger trying to be at the same place at the same time as her

No.

You've given her a note. You've asked her friend about her. She knows you're interested. Don't send her a facebook message and don't show up at her job again. You have asked your friend when you should come to the studio. Wait until you hear that it's time and then do it. When that happens, just go talk to her. Ask about what she's working on. Be cool.

This is already awkward. Don't make it worse.

Also, nota bene: You asked her friend if she was single and she said, "Yes, sort of." I won't tell you your business but you may want to spend a bit of time thinking about what, exactly, she meant by that.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 1:46 PM on February 1 [20 favorites]

No.

But you know somebody who knows her. Tell that girl you're interested in taking out the girl, and if she thinks it's a good match, she will help. Maybe she will pass a note to the girl for you (that says something like "I noticed you in the WS and I'd like to get to know you better. Would you like to go out for coffee? Here's my #." or get talk the girl and ask if she can pass on her number to you so you can call her.

But you're already being creepy stalkery. Stop being weird and just talk to the girl already.
posted by DoubleLune at 1:50 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]

Dude, you are already so bordering on creepy and awkward that you need to just actually speak to this girl like immediately to find out if she is at all interested.

Just walk up and talk to her like a human being, stop slinking in shadows and trying to bump into her everywhere she goes. Get your friend to set up a meet if necessary.
posted by magnetsphere at 1:52 PM on February 1 [11 favorites]

Just because you're attracted to someone doesn't make it okay for you to bother them. After the note, just lay off. She gets it. Don't be creepy.
posted by discopolo at 1:52 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]

Don't facebook message her. You know where she is, just go up and say hi. Ask her about the program she's in, the weather, her favourite pokemon, anything. Make contact before she starts to wig out about a stranger she doesn't know following her around and leaving her anonymous love notes. If I realized someone was doing that I would shit my pants! Not romantic! Scary!
posted by Dynex at 1:54 PM on February 1 [3 favorites]

Oh for goodness sake. If you like someone, no matter what, invite him or her out for coffee. That's what we did before we had Craigslist Missed Connections and Facebook.

You're already creepy. Call her friend and invite them both out for coffee or a beer. Then in having a conversation you can suss out the situation, and at the end of the coffee date, you can ask the girl out for a movie, or cocktails or dinner or whatever.

I suppose you can message her on FB. Keep it simple, "Hey, we met in the workshop a couple of weeks ago. I'd love to meet for coffee to discuss what you're doing in your program."

This way, you have a conversation starter. If coffee goes well, you can say, "You're great to talk to, can I buy you dinner next Friday?" (Notice how unambiguous that is?) If she says yes, then you're on the road to dating. If not, then not.

Do not get all wrapped around the axle about dating and girls and stuff. We're just people with vaginas, not mystical unicorns who appear on the mists in the edges of your dreams.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:55 PM on February 1 [32 favorites]

Trouble is, I don't want to breech the fb borders yet, as I feel it could kill some of the mystery and magic of getting to know her irl.

Also, what feels like magic to you may feel terrifying to her. You've put this so weirdly that I worry you're objectifying her. Either you want to get to know a girl you know nothing about or you want her to be a prop in your fantasy.
posted by discopolo at 1:57 PM on February 1 [17 favorites]

At the cafe in my campus, she was sitting with a friend, I sat next to them, but didn't acknowledge her, just asked across the table to the friend if the seat was available. There wasn't any other seats really available so I wasn't conspicuous. Later I saw that friend and got the courage to ask if the girl I was interested in was single and should I approach.

If such a situation should occur again, here is what you do: walk up to the table and say 'oh hey, you were in that workshop! It was so neat when [thing at workshop happened]. Listen, would you like to get coffee sometime?'

I am a woman and the things you are doing would make me feel uncomfortable. The ball is now in her court, but if she doesn't get in touch with you, chalk it up to a loss and move on.
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:59 PM on February 1 [5 favorites]

the ideal way to go would be to talk to her in person or have a mutual friend introduce you.

however, if you choose to message her rather than talking to her in person, i will caution you that facebook may not a great way to do so as it sends messages from people who are not your friends to a deep dark recess of your inbox. she may never see it.
posted by marshmallow peep at 2:03 PM on February 1

Wait. You lied your way into her studio and left an anonymous (but not really b/c her friend saw you do it) poetic (!) note on her desk and then later went to her gallery hoping she was there? Don't do anything else. If she's interested, she can contact you. I'm usually in the "yes, ask the girl out!" camp, but in this case you will almost certainly make it worse.

For future reference, it's possible she was interested initially but your behavior freaked her the hell out. You could have just asked F to take you to the studio and introduce you properly.
posted by DestinationUnknown at 2:05 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]

I see I effed up. The note wasn't some love poetry thing, just an I'm curious about you thing and it was in line with the art I make so it was honest. But still I see how it could be weird. facepalm.
Hopefully she's not freaked the hell out. I'll chill out and see if I can catch up with her in person.
Thanks for the help everyone.
posted by talljamal at 2:13 PM on February 1

Stop facebook stalking her and just ask her out.

You're toeing the line at which "fluttery and promising and eeee I like this person" goes on too long and becomes belabored and awkward.

I doubt you freaked her out with the note, but seriously, JUST GO TALK TO HER. You know, as you do. Because you're a member of the human race. And so is she.

(FWIW I don't think the note thing is creepy, and I don't think sending a facebook message would be creepy, I just think actually talking to her is the clearest way to get what you want without miles of guesswork and drama.)
posted by Sara C. at 2:52 PM on February 1 [2 favorites]

Don't trip about the note. It could've been received totally well. You just gotta take the next step now! Remember:

 FORTUNE
  FAVORS
 THE BOLD
posted by wemayfreeze at 3:14 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]

So now I've visited that studio, through F's unsuspecting kindness, under the guise of seeing the facilities to judge for a friend considering the program. The truth slowly rolled out, as I saw the lady I'm interested in and slid a small romantic poetic anonymous art note onto her table when she turned away.

I went to the gallery she works at today on the off chance she was there,

In my opinion, fortune favors the bold, other things being equal, but things aren't equal at this point. You've mostly likely blown this one and you should leave her alone. In the future, don't make up false pretenses to occupy the same space as a woman of interest, don't send anonymous notes, don't show up at her work. Those are creepy things to do and you should not do them.

Fortune would have favored the bold here: We crossed paths in the workshop a couple days in a row last week and I nonchalantly interacted with her. I think we caught eyes a few times, under a short space of time. I was instantly attracted. Now it is too late, leave her alone.
posted by Kwine at 4:49 PM on February 1 [6 favorites]

Talljamal, am I misinterpreting this, or did she never even tell you her name? I can't imagine responding favorably to a Facebook note from someone I'd met but never given my name to.

Later I saw that friend and got the courage to ask if the girl I was interested in was single and should I approach. She said,"Oh you mean "P" ... yes, sort of, and yes go for it. I asked what degree they were on, then left. I had a first name and a degree line.

I'm left with the impression that all you really know about this woman is what she looks like. (You thought, after all, that it was conceivable to her that you might not recognize her in the cafeteria.) I'm going to assume she's very pretty.

If she is, please know that this happens to her every week. She meets some strange guy and he sidles around her and sidles and sidles and sidles in her peripheral vision. And every beautiful woman has had at least one terrible experience with some strange guy sidling around who eventually started screaming at her for having the temerity to date someone who was actually speaking to her directly, rather than the sidler. She thinks you're one of those strange, sidling guys now.

You blew it when you sat down at her table and failed to even acknowledge her presence. Now she knows you want her, and she additionally knows you're terrified of her. (And Yoda taught us fear leads to anger.) I'm with Kwine: leave her alone now. There are three billion other women you haven't blown it with yet.
posted by cirocco at 5:05 PM on February 1 [13 favorites]

I haven't read all of the comments yet, sorry, but I know that if you send a FB message to someone who is not your friend, it may get filed in an "other" folder in the msg queue and she may or may not even see it.
posted by lakersfan1222 at 5:07 PM on February 1

I have a friend who is with the campus police of a large public university. Women have made formal complaints against people for doing much less than what you have already done.
posted by 99percentfake at 5:40 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]

cirocco has it. Lurking and slurking in the background can be seductive, if done correctly, for about five minutes. After that it becomes Creeping.
posted by tel3path at 5:42 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]

You blew it when you sat down at her table and failed to even acknowledge her presence. Now she knows you want her, and she additionally knows you're terrified of her.

That was my first thought too. You're trying to make a dramatic fantasy relationship out of what is a rather awkward few exchanges. If you reverse the situation and look at yourself from her eyes, what do you see?

A guy overwhelmed by her appearance, to the point where he cannot even muster basic civility. An attraction and love so deep... that he doesn't want to get to know her, rather he's creating a mental fantasy around her appearance. Asking her friends about her. Dropping notes. Yet never actually engaging with her.

What's the difference between quirky and psycho? Quirky means it worked. Psycho means it didn't. If she's not showing any response, you have to man up and move on from this one.

The reason you haven't messaged her on Facebook is that you already know the answer. Your intuition is right. There's nothing here, and you may well be coming off somewhere in between 'shy' and 'menacing'.
posted by nickrussell at 6:48 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]

aww, don't let these folks make you give up before you've even asked her out. Yeah, over the internet it comes off as creepsterish but she may well have thought you were cute.

You'll be able to tell when you talk to her... to ask her out. Be prepared for the negatory response but I see no reason to abandon ship when there is no indication of how she feels about you yet.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 9:13 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]

Here's the other reason you shouldn't send her a FB message: if you aren't friends on FB, it's going to go into her separate "other" inbox, and most people never check that.
posted by Ragged Richard at 8:34 AM on February 2

I think unfortunately you did exactly the opposite of what you should have. Facebook is sort of a socially acceptable safe place that people basically put themselves out there to be "stalked." Getting a message from a guy you met in class or at a party briefly who found you through a friend of a friend or even just searching is pretty non-threatening and common.

Physically stalking someone and showing up somewhere that she is "by chance" and chasing her friend down to find out if she's single is pretty aggressive and would make me extremely uncomfortable. The note thing pushed it to a whole new level of highly inappropriate. Leaving a little hand written note with poetry for her is a very intimate gesture and such an intimate gesture is extremely inappropriate for someone who has never even told her your name. This crosses a huge social boundary. Things that are cute in romantic comedies would rightfully get you arrested in real life. Maybe you were able to do it in a non-threatening enough way that she didn't totally flip out, but if she doesn't run away from you if you actually randomly ran into her at coffee shop you are doing well. She knows who you are. She knows your interested. She can find you if she wants to. You need to never initiate contact with her again. This woman is a person, not a receptacle for your romantic, and let's be honest and stop trying to elevate it, sexual fantasies.
posted by whoaali at 8:39 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]

people with vaginas, not mystical unicorns who appear on the mists in the edges of your dreams.

That would be a great band name.
posted by DigDoug at 1:20 PM on February 3