Hi, I'd love if you guys could help me sort though my feelings after getting rejected for the first time.
I'm 28 and up until a month ago I had never been on a date. I took up dancing back in January and I met someone through my dance practices in late May/June and become pretty good friends with them. Then in November, with some encouragement from my other friends I manage to muster up enough courage to ask her out and to my surprise she says yes. We go on two dates that I thought were pretty good but towards the end of the second one she tells me that she sees more of a platonic relationship between us. I was disappointed but ultimately OK with it, I can admit that our dates had more of a "two friends hanging out and catching up" vibe than "two people making a genuine romantic connection". Honestly my worst case scenario with asking her out was always that things would get awkward between us and that I would lose a good friend so I'm glad that didn't happen.
I've seen her at some dances a few times since our last date and things have been fine. We talked and danced like we normally do, though I feel a little more awkward that usual. I guess what I'm really asking is how do I get over this feeling that I dropped the ball and let a chance at a good relationship get away from me? When I'm at home or have a slow day at work I'm constantly thinking about what I potentially did wrong, "Did I not ask enough questions", "Should I have initiated more physical contact", "Should I have flirted more?" etc.
I'm happy that I asked her out and enjoyed the time that I did get to spend with her one on one. The reason I started dancing in the first place was to help me work through my social anxiety so that fact that I manged to go on a date at all really shows how far I've come. But I keep beating myself up thinking that my lack of experience is what kept this relationship from progressing even though it most likely just a lack of chemistry on her end.
