Here's some advice I can give you.
If you are talking to a woman, and you and her are enjoying some nice back and forth, ask for her number or ask her out.
If you go on a date with a woman, and are enjoying some flirting, at an opportune time of the night, kiss her.
It's all stuff you can learn through experience, the one thing you have to realize is that opportunities rarely fall in your lap. Sometimes, you have to be the aggressor so to speak.
And if you meet a woman who's wishy washy or sending you mixed messages, give them the 2 strike rule. They blow you off once, twice, wipe your hands of them.
Those are actually sound. And I'm pretty sure that's exactly the sort of mindset everyone wants to bring to a date or whenever they're talking with someone from the opposite gender, but then it backfires. You start caring too much about their answer, you think maybe you did something wrong (when in fact it's just a matter of not being attracted to you, and so you end up questioning
why they're not attracted to you

) You impose the 2 strike rule, you wash your hands off, they still continue sending mixed signals.
There doesn't need to be a whole lot of effort involved in becoming emotionally invested in someone, if you like them, not just physically, but as a person you'll build that pretty quickly. When I first started dating my wife, she went on a volunteer trip to Mexico bringing medical supplies to a village, I asked her to call me when she was on her way back so I knew she was safe. I was emotionally invested already and we'd only been out a few times at that point, but I cared about her, there was no real effort on my part to make that happen, it's just how I felt.
See that's just perfect because it
worked out for you. It was reciprocated, both of you felt the same way. Something like that happens and it's golden. But honestly, luck does play a part there. What I meant by "nurturing emotions" is that you acted upon it, you let that natural feeling grow and y'know, didn't just ignore it or forget about it. It might not have seemed like actual effort but you did act on it, and now she's your wife. The word I'm looking for is "congratulations," dude, coz just next to that luck was your own commitment to her.
The big problem here is you're seeing these things as "tests" and wondering what the appropriate response is. Stop trying to figure things out, just let instinct take over. I'm starting to think you really do like this girl, but you're too afraid to put yourself out there, so you're just making excuses to keep from getting hurt.
Yeah I'm guessing I am but at the same time... let instinct take over. that's just... I dunno. Let instinct take over on a social level? I've done that before and got miserable, one too many times. It's humiliating. The best bit for someone like me, I figure, since overthinking is something I can't stop doing, is to do more of it to the point where I
am conscious about everything that's happening. For someone as introverted and socially
lost as I am the best bet is to either not bother with it until I've figured myself out or not.
See, I don't even know this girl and I'm already letting her get to me and talking about her online. We had
lunch which wasn't even a
date, and I think she cares. Today, in class, she saw me with this other female friend of mine (and there's history with this friend between the two of us) and pot-head girl here was making all these snide comments about how "we look like siblings" and "maybe the two of you really need to get a room" which was weird but I think she got jealous, a little. If
Erz's 2-strike rule applies to her that means she's struck me out.
The other thing I want to talk about is this friend. She... I dunno. She really gets to me every time because there's really
very little she ever agrees on. Y'know, the sort of person who disagrees for the sake of it, and then when you bring out the idea of the counter-cultural trend that embraces that sort of anti-tradition, she even disagrees with that. And I guess, that's fine, I mean what's it to me right? But then I keep going back to her because there was a point when I did care deeply and instinctively and it
backfired. And I mean terribly backfired--and I'm glad I don't have to involve myself like that with her anymore, emotionally. What I learned from that is to not start to care for someone too much when they don't feel the same way because you end up hurting yourself... a lot.
But again, that's not really an excuse for me. I guess she still gets under my nerves from time to time and today pot-head girl was actually pointing it out. But... ehh.
If it is luck, mine's terrible. The only girl who's giving me some attention is also the one who spends her weekends bored out of her life and shooting up on acids. Geez.
Losers always whine about their best, winners go home a f the prom queen!
The Losers is also a comic-book about a team of soldiers who are secretly awesome.

But I get your point.
So there's a girl I had been communicating with from a dating site a few weeks ago. I suggested meeting up back then, but then she never got back to me. Anyway, yesterday she sent me an email after weeks of non contact suggesting to meet next weekend. I wonder whether I should bother to meet her.
In nearly all our emails, she barely ever responds to questions, is always apologising that she'll respond later and barely asks any questions either. I had pretty much written her off because it's like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone with her. But since she has now made the suggestion out of the blue, do I want to bother meeting or not? Will it be more of the same non-responsiveness in person? If she's like that in emails, will she be much the same in real life?
Is she hot? Give her a shot, take
Erz's advice on the 2 strike rule, see if she's as much of a snob as she is in person as she is online (I doubt it because even the snobbiest person will not act that way in front of you, least of all in a date). See it through,
just don't get too attached mate.
i think i have an inferiority complex. i'm not liking this
Join the club... I guess? Help yourself to the Pity-Mead (as opposed to Heroic Mead) and Cheese Crackers (as opposed to real cheese) in the corner. We'll be doing a marathon on
LOST soon, if you're interested.