A curious situation

This funny thing happened to me during church on Sunday, and it’s been puzzling me recently.  I almost forgot about it, but it came back to me during work.  It doesn’t have a whole lot to do with writing, but I thought I’d post it here to see if anyone could help me understand what’s going on…

After sacrament meeting, I was hanging out and chatting with different people, and one of my FHE sisters walked up to me.  We talked for a little bit, and then she said “you know, you can ask me out anytime you want,” and then she left.

The question in my mind isn’t “what did she mean by that?” Her statement was so blunt and direct that it’d be hard to take it the wrong way.  What I’m wondering about is what prompted her to say this, and what course of action should I take?

Now, this seems like a pretty cool girl–confident, outgoing, fairly attractive–but I’m not particularly interested in her.  That said, I’m not particularly uninterested either–she just hasn’t been on the radar.

Would I mind taking her out?  Not really, but I don’t know her that well and I don’t know too much what to do.  Besides, it is kind of a hassle–I’m always very busy, so I don’t really want to set aside a large chunk of time to do something unless I think it’ll be worth it.

The thing that puzzles me is what she was thinking that prompted her to come out and say this.  Did I give some kind of a false indication that I was interested in her?  Or is she really interested in me, and doesn’t know of any other way to get my attention?

This reminds me of another incident with this same girl a couple of months ago.  I was on my way somewhere, and I stopped by my apartment for a little bit before leaving.  I noticed that some of my Arab friends had come, but they were all upstairs where this dance was going on.  I wanted to say hi before I left, so I went upstairs and chatted with them for a little bit.  While I was there (and I had a shoulderbag on, so it should have been fairly obvious that I wasn’t there to dance), this same girl came up to our group and started talking with me.  We chatted for a bit, and then she said “well, I’d better go off and find someone to dance with.” The impression I had was that she was voicing her annoyance that all of us were standing in a group and none of us were dancing.  I left a few minutes later.

This other girl I work with made a good point when she said “it doesn’t really matter what she thinks–if you like her, ask her out, and if you don’t, don’t worry about it.” I’m not too worried about it–to be honest, I’m more amused than anything–but I’m trying to figure out what would happen based on my next move.  If I do nothing, will she feel humiliated?  Will she be angry with me?  If I do ask her out, will it be worth the hassle?  How will she interpret it?  If I wait a couple of weeks before asking her out, will she get really annoyed and think badly of me?  If it’s the case that she’s interested in my, why doesn’t she just ask me out?  Would I really want to date a girl who sees dating as so formal that only guys can ask girls out, not vice versa?

Honestly, if things were to run out their usual course, I’d probably have totally forgotten about this whole thing.  For some reason, it came to my mind while I was working, and I found it amusing and curious so I thought I’d post it here.  What do you think?

In the meantime, I’ve been making some mad awesome progress with my writing: 2,000 words in The Wormhole Paradigm (it needs a new title) and 500 words in The Lost Colony.  I also calculated that I have 45 days left before the deadline I set for myself–45 days in which to accomplish my goal to finish this novel.  And man!  I can actually do it!  I am really excited for this!