AIN'T NO TONICHA

I hate dates.
Not the fruit,

Those are fine.
I mean when there's someone who's a possible love interest so you meet to talk and figure out if you have enough stuff in common and can stand each other's company for more than a hour and a half.
This all sounds like a plausible grown-up thing to do. And I can see why most people I know get excited about going on dates.

But I have a problem. If I fancy someone, the LAST thing I want do is to be completely alone with them.
Even talking while in a group is hard.
I will want to be near. But not ready to interact yet.
Like a love sloth.


I think I need a sort of progressive exposure for my charm to work. The amount of time we spend together has to gradually increase over, say, a month.
I made charts to compare it:

In my approach, on the first day we only see each other for 5 minutes (so there's very little I can say to hurt their first impression of me). Then day 2 is 15 minutes (the stakes are a bit higher, I may have to talk about the weather) and so it goes up and up, to a solid 2 hours time or maybe even more.

So far, most people I like liked were kind of in my friendship group zone... So I didn't really have to set a time and place to get to know them better. I wasn't lazy either: I did make a huge effort to be with them and went through amazing loops to get them invited for things without having them know I was the one inviting.

But, still, less pressure and it was never said out loud that we were going on dates. We were just doing things, together. sometimes. not even romantic things, necessarily. Unless you count washing a dog in a bathtub, or going to the supermarket as a romantic activity.

If that wasn't enough, I'm also very nervous to be on the other side of the situation and getting asked out. For all the above reasons and more:
Generally when someone invites me to go for a drink I say yes. I like meeting new people, and I like drinks. Both are great. But then, occasionally, I find myself in a dim lit place and wondering "where the hell are his friends?" and realizing I was the only one invited and this looks like romance.

This happened a few times when I was new in Vilnius, and therefore had no friends and had to go around meeting a lot of people in bars and film sessions and parties and night things because apparently that's how you make friends when you are not in school anymore. And making new friends outside school is really hard, and I was constantly worried I would be sending them the wrong vibe.


Maybe it's not just a coincidence that most people I ended up being friends with, in Lithuania, already had boyfriends or girlfriends.

So, I'm putting this two dilemmas on your competent hands, dear readers. I don't think I can or should avoid dates, but I would definitely love to have a magic card trick that would turn them less hmm "daty". Any ideas?

And, also, how to be friends with someone who's also single, and meet them, and have them know I really enjoy their company, without making it sound like it's something else? 

Gaaah, this is hard. I should probably just give up and stay home.