Dear Wendy

Three hours distance really isn’t so bad. You could easily meet halfway, like lianne suggests. When Drew and I started dating, we were half a country apart and sometimes had to go 4 weeks without seeing each other, and even when we DID see each other, it meant the expense of plane tickets, long commutes, and often missing a day or two of work. You guys are in a much more ideal situation. You can definitely make this work if you’re both committed to seeing if there’s potential for something real here.

This actually isn’t all that conventional… for the friend zone.

I once went out on four dates with a guy who never kissed me and I remember thinking that was so weird and what did he want and was the something wrong with him or wrong with me. I think I was just so ready to find someone and had talked him up in my head and made excuses for the lack of chemistry that I probably would have given him a fifth date (and maybe more!) to make a move, but he ended up ghosting me after the fourth and that was that.

When a guy’s really into you and not just trying to figure out if he’s into you and not trying to talk himself into being into a woman who’s good on paper, you won’t need four or five or six (or seven or eight or nine!!!) dates before you know. He will remove all doubt earlier than that. And if he doesn’t, well, he’s probably not someone who’d be good at a relationship anyway.

Dating: it really, really sucks. Until it totally doesn’t.

I say if there’s no kiss at the end of tomorrow’s date, MOA. Eight dates and nothing physical sends alarm bells. Something is off. And what’s the point in trying to figure out what that something is and trying to fix it? No point. I’ve had a couple times in my life when I went out with a guy three or four times and got not so much as a kiss and it was always a sign that we weren’t right for each other. I’m sorry – I know that sucks to hear, but if I were you, I wouldn’t waste any more time on this guy if something doesn’t happen by the end of tomorrow’s date.

Also, I think it sort of says something that of the three date options you gave him, he chose the most g-rated (not to mention the shortest time commitment). I mean, you can get frisky in a dark movie theater. You can definitely get frisky in someone’s home. But a crowded ice cream parlor on a summer evening? Cute, sure, but not very sexy. I’d think my date 8 (or is it 7?), a guy would want to go sexy. But… let’s see what happens.