Giving your number when you're the guy

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I'm curious what peoples' opinions on doing this are. Whether it's progressive and non-pushy or just timid and not realistically conducive.

I did it because I found out a few days in advance my job would be ending at a certain location that I knew a certain lady from. She quite often came up and chatted with me, (or tried to ) but other than that I felt it was pretty much borderline whether she was interested in me or not: she seems generally to like to be social and get along with everyone. Maybe a more neurotypical guy could have said for sure what was up, maybe not; it seems like she's pretty sharp/self aware. I was also in the middle of a week-long anxiety attack because of this job ending, so that didn't make things very easy for me to notice, either.

Anywho, on my last day, I let her know I'd be gone, and according to an acquaintance who'd been standing nearby, she was "taken aback," (this guy also asked if she was into me...) and she said she'd be back before the day was over. At lunch time, she offered to get me something, and brought me some coffee, so I gave her my cell number, if she ever wanted "to sociallize at lunch sometime, or whatever." My logic was: I'm not sure she's interested, but I'm leaving the place that facilitates our meeting, so I'll leave it open before I go. I didn't feel like we'd established the kind of familiarity that I could just ask her for hers, so I improvised.

She hung around and we chatted some more; she mentioned bringing a mutual acquaintance to lunch, who I'd just started playing basketball with to try and extinguish some of my anxiety, (Don't worry, I just started taking an SSRI a week ago, see how that goes) and she even expressed interest in coming to watch us play.

HOWEVER, it's been a week and a half and I haven't seen or heard anything from her, and I admit I don't have any experience with this kind of thing, but it seems like that might have been all she wrote. Did I come on too strong and overestimate, or too soft and disappoint her/thwart myself?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Might as well learn something...

It sounds as if she likes you, but it's usually seen as the guy's job to ring/ask out the woman, not the other way round.

I know that's not really fair, but that's the norm, even these days. The book "he's just not that into you" even goes so far as to make a entire chapter entitled "He's just not that into you if he's not asking you out".

Their reasoning is that most guys like the chase and most girls like to be chased. It 'spoils the fun' if the girl asks the guy out. Un-PC as hell, and I wish it wasn't the case, but just from personal experience and observing other relationships, it does appear to have some truth. Even if you are the exception who is interested and won't take her for granted, well, how is she to know?

If you like her that much, then she should be worth taking a risk over and asking her out on a date. She may say no, but at least you won't be left wondering about lost oppurtunities

Hmmm... think I'll have to read that.

Just to find out how much of an "exception" I am, so to speak.

Ask her if you can write it on her boobs.

WHAT?! !

Write what? Are you in the right place, mon frere?

edit Oh, I get it now.

I would never give any woman my phone number unless she gives me her phone number first. My usual approach when I meet a woman I like is to ask her right before we say goodbye how she plans to stay in touch. It's a very non-threatening way to get a phone number or email and if she likes you as well she shouldn't hesitate to give it to you.

Anyway, it's usually expected the guy calls the woman first and not vice versa. Only very few women are willing to break that rule.

In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience with this, if I leave a girl who has my number to call me, often it turns out to be the end. Two or three times the last thing I ever heard from a girl was "I'll call you myself". I don't know what the rationale is on the other end - if they get too anxious to call, are fickle with their interest, think I'm not really into them, or they really aren't interested and just want me out of their life (with at least one of them I think this was most likely), in any case I can't tell.

If a one-on-one conversation goes really well, well enough that she seems slightly flirtatious and I think she would like to keep speaking to me or speak to me again, and at the same time I'm not sure I'll see her again (so we aren't, say, college classmates meeting for the first time), I will make an excuse to ask her for her number at the end. These circumstances are rare, but were sufficient since in each case I did get the number, so it really isn't that big a deal. On the flip side of the "not a big deal" thing, though, none of these turned into relationships. You have to not expect very much even if things suddenly look promising.

I'm once again realizing the value of conventional wisdom for it's own sake if nothing else, (as in it's all most people are comfortable with) and henceforth will remember to bow to it. Although my gut feeling, such as it is, also attributes a fair bit of this outcome as me just having overestimated the meaning of this lady's penchant for liking to get along with everyone, too. In any event, you have to take the best stab at it you can for even the chance at making something happen.

BUT, I think it would be very impressive to find a woman who didn't bow to conventional wisdom for it's own sake...

TY for the replies.

I have business cards for that purpose. Some people may say it's too formal, but it works for me. I don't need to carry or hunt for a pen, I can drop them off for free lunches, it looks like I got my act together, it's harder to lose a business card (versus a slip of paper), it reflects status and power, etc. Which women subconsciously dig.

But mostly it's cuz it's free from work and I get free lunches.