Advice on how to proceed

LegacyUser

There's a girl who hangs out in our group of friends whom I have been on a date with having previously just kissed.

Slagging the 2 of us about our date is all the rage at the moment with the group of friends. I have not given any signals to the girl (or friends) re wanting anything more than just a date/fun but she has.....I also know through friends that she already has strong feelings for me.

Knowing this I don't think it's fair to see the girl on a date again even though I enjoy her company and had a really good time with her. In truth I was really looking forward to the date but decided that night that there was not enough spark for me to want anything more between us.

Any advice on how to proceed? Do you think I'm obliged to explain how I feel given the situation?

jurgenscarl

If you want to tell her arrange to meet her for a drink or see a movie and just tell her straight out. Put her down gently by showing her it's no big deal.

But I suspect you are letting the slagging make up your mind for you.
If you kissed her you probably have feelings for her and she probably has feelings for you. It seems you got cold feet because you are letting embarrasment get the better of you.

If you like her go for it and screw what other people think.
If you are sure she's not for you, be a gentleman and tell her straight out.
She'll be a bit peed off, but she will respect you for telling her and she'll get over it.

Things should get back to normal quick enough.

neveah

Well if ye hang around together then it's going to be hard just to ignore that anything happened isn't it? Especially when ye went on a date.

I think you probably will need to address the situation with her especially when you know that she might have developed strong feelings. At least she will know exactly where she stands and you can't be accused of leading her on etc. I think the rest of your friends will respect the fact that you were upfront and honest too. It all depends if you want to keep her as a friend as well, she may not appreciate it if you just start to ignore her.

It's kind of awkward all right because you don't want to go up to her and just announce out of the blue that you don't want to take things further. I'd say wait until an appropriate time comes up if you are having a conversation wth her and just say something like 'i really enjoyed our date but to be honest I'm just not ready for anything serious' or something like that. Say it casually without making a huge deal about it and I'm sure she will accept your explanation. You may break her heart a little but I'm sure after one kiss and one date she will get get over it.

I have kissed a couple of my male friends over the years but we never went on a proper date. There can be an initial awkwardness when you first see each other but once you get chatting things get back to normal fairly fast. It never really affected any of my friendships. I think things will work out fine in your situation too:)

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies, Already helping to straighten it out in my mind.

Just so you know, I genuinely could not care less about the slaggings it has in no way affected my judgement but I am concerned that the attention is making our date out to be a bigger deal than how I saw it (a bit of fun) and therefore put more weight on her expectations. I hope this makes sense.

I want to make sure I go about letting her down the right way. This is not the only girl I have been on a date with recently and being single I naturally want to go on more until I meet someone I myself could develop strong feelings for. I'm being as honest as I can here, It's just not going to happen with this particular girl which I fully realised the night of our date.