Just a little update:

I ended up managing to get a date that I went on, on Tuesday. The girl was cute enough, we had/have a simmiliar taste in music, simmilar (at least surficially) views on politics and religion. So anyways, I basically had the date set up within a week of when we first started communicating, she gave me her number so we could finalize plans later, but we started texting before hand, started flirting and talking more. She even said she had a good feeling about me, was excited about meeting, and wanted to move the date to an earlier time. great I'm thinking, lets do it.

So we meet up to have some dinner together, we start talking, her pictures do her justice, no surprises with appearance or anything. We start talking, I ask her low long shes been on okc for and if shes had many other dates. So she says "Well I've been on for over a year, and I've been on a few dates, but nothing that moves past a date or two, the best part though has been all the FREE MEALS."

From then on I had a knot in my stomach, turns out she was also a "former" heroin addict. Anyways, I was feeling a little weary, but I was willing to keep going with it becasue she seems to be having a good time and enjoying herself, and to a certian extent I was too.

Anyways we get to the part where I'm paying the check... and then it starts: "listen you're a really nice guy, but (insert random excuse)" she actually was jumping all over the place from the fact that I'm buying a house here (I had mentioned Im saving up money for a down payment on a house) and she wanted to move back to the Pacific Northwest.

My response was basically "lol wut!?" the bemuzment in my face immediately let her know that I'm not actually retarded and wont take excuses.

My basic response was: "Don't be afraid to hurt my feelings because you're not going to, if you're not feeling this situation tell me so we can be on the same page and move on"

She meekly responded that yes, she wasnt feeling the situation and she felt nothing for me. But assured me that she still wanted to "be friends".

Now I litterally laughed out loud. My response was "I allready have enough friends and I don't even need to buy them dinner".

so yeah, that was some experience. Either she was just looking for a chump to provide her with a free meal, or I wasn't up to the standards of a former Junkie. Pretty laughable, one good thing that came from it is the fact that I had'nt been out on a date in years, and it made me feel a little more confident about that kind of situation.

Onward I suppose.

Get used to it! The key is to learn something from it. You should not regard her as the prize, you should regard the process as the "prize".
For me the process of getting over love-shyness is like firing a Uzi, probability works with you, the more you fire the more your can hope to hit something interesting.

And if you can't afford to pay the bill without regrets, you should not go out then. I always pay the bill, no mater if I know I won't see her again or not. I regard it as paying for the company.

Learn what? Since every girl is different, even if you learn something, can you apply it to another girl and get different/similiar results?

You can learn a lot from a date. How to make small talk for example. These things need practice, and you need to practice with a girl that you are somewhat confortable with. I could not care less about weather, latest fashion and all that crap, but thanks to regular "dates" with such girls, I have some idea. My friends and I talk about Pink Floyd, the lates linux stuff, archery and similar stuff. Try talking to a girl about that, and she will yaun after the first 3 minutes (except arcery, which some how gets their attention). Go with a open mind and you may learn something. And if you are carefull to chose the location and do something that you like, then you may even enjoy it.

Yeah, I certainly agree with ya on that sorin. The only way dating will ever become natural (or at least more so) is to actively well...date. Just like anything else it takes "practice" and getting used to it, especially for guys like us that have had little to no interaction with girls in the past. I'm not talking about routines or little tricks and stuff, I'll leave that to the PUA, just plain old social interaction and being comfortable while doing so. You also learn some stuff about yourself in the process too. Like what topics you may be weak on and what one's you can enthusiastically contribute to, or say not being able to hold eye contact. Then try to improve what you're weak in, and fortify your strengths.

@Stranger1983: Yeaaah...that date account sounds damn familiar, cause I've been through that same situation myself. Though I do have to admit, that's pretty ballsy of her to flat out proudly announce she loves the free meals. That would've been the straw right there for me, depending on the way she delivered it and carried herself in general.

okcupid has some robust website features that other ones don't have. So the website itself isn't bad.

Now let me make my next statement explicitly clear, avoid the domestic american site. Their satellite sites all yield much greater results.

What are these "satellite sites" you speak of?

Sorry I was unclear. The foreign sites. i.e. okcupidmexico, okccupidphillipines, ect.

Why should we pay the bill?

50/50

company is mutual. the idea that she is doing you more a favour by talking to you than you are for her is just mangina indoctrination. if she really likes you, she wouldn't demand payment for interacting with you. girls that find you attractive want to be around you, often will find excuses to do so annoyingly persistently, provided they are confident enough to act on their feelings and have an appropriate environment to do so.

"Paying for the company"... I don't get how North American women are supposed to be "ultra" feminist but still act like, well like geisha (the polite word). I guess they're not even high class, highly educated, intelligent women so it's not as if the conversation could never be dull... in France, we "go Dutch", most of my friends do that, or the girl pays once for both, then it's the guy, etc, if it's an actual relationship, but then again we don't date and if we go on "rendez-vous", we usually just have coffee, but very rarely a meal unless you're 40 or/and from the upper class.

I remember watching an episode of the Big Bang Theory, Leonard asks Howard to hook him up with a friend of Bernadette who's so gross, and he complains at some point that she's eating very expensive lobster, and she answers "it's a date, right?!", and it took me some time to get what she meant.

It sounds crazy to keep this tradition going I think. If you are two to agree to go on a date, if you are two to enjoy the moment, you should be paying for you own share. As a girl, I wouldn't feel okay to let a guy I just met pay for me, I mean, I don't want to owe him anything and I'd feel bought off like a prostitute or something. And it creates something I don't like - the whole "I paid for her meals and I am right in expecting something from this date". Money screws relationship, so starting like that seems very odd to me.

Oh, come on .. if she isn't doing you a favour by talking to you would not be here. Let's be realistic, you are in need of company, that's why you are here. You are lying to yourself when you are thinking that you are actually interesting to a girl. I know it seems like PUA crap( or self defeating, or depressing) but you need to face the facts, most of the things you say aren't interesting to a girl, so go practice and make things interesting

Also, I don't say you should pay the bill, I'm saying that you should be prepared to pay the bill and don't have any regrets about it.

I call it OKstupid. Most women on there a liberals or progressives who I have no interest in.

I've had 9 girls, If I remember correctly, imply they found me attractive, sometimes overtly and verbally, in one case attempting to straddle me in bed, within the last 2 months.
your degree of fail in your assumptions is commendable, however.

.. however this is not a dick measuring contest.

On the other hand, you have misunderstood my comment. I wasn't referring to you in particular, I was referring to most people on this site (and I can't really guarantee that's accurate, I'm extrapolating from myself). Most people on this site I fail on getting a girl to spend some time with me, therefore they I should be glad if any girl does that.