Dear Meredith,

I am in my mid-20s and I am not very good at catching people’s eye. I am shy and soft-spoken, but still make friends easily and enjoy the company of others. For many years, I have been completely immersed in my schoolwork and training for career that I love. I feel so grateful to be working on a PhD focused on a topic that I am immensely passionate about. Therefore, it is easy for me to push off aspirations of meeting “the one” for a later time. Sometimes I even worry that marriage and children would diminish my career prospects in a demanding, male-dominated field.

However, since the pandemic started I began to have a change of heart. In truth, before SARS-CoV2, I never spent so much time in my apartment alone in a new city, away from both my work and my family. This experience made me realize that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have another person to come home to, someone who supports you, and is willing to share life’s challenges, successes, and surprises with you.

About a week before the city shut down, I went out with a guy who is in the same program. I wasn’t expecting anything, but it turned out to be a fun-filled day of brunching, ice skating, museum-going, dessert eating, and thoughtful conversations. At the end of the day, he told me that he had a wonderful time, and we mutually decided we wanted to go out again. But since the pandemic, this hasn’t materialized and we’ve been slowly losing touch. Whenever I reach out, he immediately responds and we proceed to have long conversations over text, but if I don’t initiate the conversation he rarely reaches out on his own accord.

I have since stopped, because I feel that if he indeed wanted to move forward with this, he would have taken more initiative. But, in truth, I still have feelings for him and would like to explore where our relationship could go. Maybe I am letting a good thing slip away?

– The Dating Newbie