Am I overthinking the communication hurdle with my date?

[I’m sorry – I actually feel physically ill after letting the US election råesults sink in…and feels quite trivial to write at a time like this but I have to get it off my chest. ]

I’ve been on four dates (I know, it’s early days yet) with a girl I’m quite infatuated with. For me it has gone rather quickly. I say this from the outset because I’m used to things going quickly, but this time around I want to tread carefully. We’ve done lots together so far. The day after Halloween we went for a walk in the park with coffee, and then popped into a pub for just lemonade (seeing as we didn’t want alcohol). But we really enjoyed our company so ended up having dinner and even a glass of wine, followed by a board game! Wednesday rolls in and we go to a live comedy gig followed by dinner. Friday and we meet up for a very late glass of wine until the pub closes and I finally make a move. We kiss and it’s quite a tender moment. I tell her by text later that I wanted to kiss her earlier and she asks me why I didn’t! That life is too short. Now I don’t want to get into a debate about traditional gender roles but I told her she could have made a move as well; it doesn’t always have to be the man. Anyway, on Sunday we go for a great brunch followed by a walk and a coffee break. We even went geocaching together in the biting cold! I can honestly say I’m genuinely loving being with her. But after the last date and the last kisses it felt a little rocky. She told me by text that she felt our intimate moments before I headed off were a little awkward, that she felt a disconnect. She even went so far as to say we should get drunk together because I don’t seem to relax around her. I told her I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea and that I’m so excited each time I get to see her, but she doesn’t seem to recognise it. I’m just wondering if I’m not appearing confident enough or affectionate enough, which is odd because I consider myself a warm person.

So I decided to step it up a notch. A couple of days ago I happened to be in the area where her office is around lunchtime (don’t worry, she told me where she works and I’m not stalking her lol). Working with the whole geocaching idea, I sent her some clues to find her own personal cache (I’d written an invitation for dinner and dancing on Friday and hidden this in an envelope in a public area, much like a geocache). Later that evening she sent an ‘RSVP’ for the invitation. So I’ve booked dinner at an Italian wine bar and will take her out dancing later.

For the past few days though I feel like the texting has been few and far between. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those that always has to keep in touch with a love interest, but I’m talking me writing in the morning and hearing back late evening. I wrote to her before bed that I booked a place and it’s almost noon now and I haven’t heard a peep. She’s the one that wants more affection by the sounds of it, and yet she takes hours to respond. Confusing!

Maybe I’m working myself up over nothing, but I’m very good at overthinking things. I suppose my question is: how should I approach our date on Friday? I don’t want to be overwhelming but it does seem she wants more from me. Maybe it’s just her way of flirting. I’m very tempted to hit the hammer on the nail and ask her about this whole issue, but I think I should just ignore that for now and see how the evening goes.

If you made it this far reading, thank you. Would love to hear your thoughts :)