Letting things happen at their own pace

[Hirundo Bos]

To this post of mine Hielario asked this question:

Say, this reminds me of something that has been banging around insinside of my head for a while. Since you have Asperger's like me, maybe you could explain what this "letting it follow its own pace" actually means?? As someone with serious social deficits, it sounds nonsensical to me. Things like those don't happen by themselves, at least when I'm involved, someone has to make them happen. Anything that involves other people doesn't happen by itself: happens because someone is putting effort into it (or gently pushing the other into it and hoping they'll like it). If I stay still, i don't get anywhere.  The only straight dates I've ever had, happened because I asked and they were OK. The only time I kissed with a woman, it started because I poked her several times until she stopped going rigid and escalated from there. Waiting for things to happen like everybody has described around me in meatspace a thousand times just...well, kept everything the same it was, to say it politely.

and I think I will answer in a separate thread because there might be an interesting general discussion to be had. I am afraid I won't have the capacity to be very active myself, but there still seem to be some activity around here, so maybe someone else will have some input? Or maybe even some examples of their own?

In the story I told in the other thread, "at its own pace" meant kissing on the third date. And with my ex, it meant going home with me on the first, at her suggestion – originally, only to sleep, then to kiss, and before the lights went off, some additional physical milestones were passed (though others remained into the coming weeks). And in comparing the two, I got a better sense of what pacing meant, what it was for, and how it was negotiated.

Or rather "negotiated" in quotation marks, which I guess is where it gets unclear for more direct communication-types like us. Because there is always some sort of negotiation going on in relationships (and that's any kind of relationship), just like there's always some sort of transaction. I give a little of myself, perhaps what they call emotional work, and you give a little of yours. We're not supposed to keep score, but when it gets out of balance, we notice.

But there is a social taboo against treating it as formal transactions and negotiations, and sometimes even to use the words; a taboo against making the score explicit. If someone does me a favor, I may owe them a favor in return, but they may get offended if I start measuring up the exact worth of the favor.
Aside from social norms, there is also an ethical side to it: In business, you negotiate for objects, while in relationships, you are negotiating with other subjects. The tactics you use and pressures you apply in the former becomes manipulative if you use them against family, friends, or lovers. And most people are rightly on guard against them; if you look like someone who would pressure them in that way, it will put them off.

I think one of the things people mean when they say "just let things happen at their own pace" is to not be too goal-oriented when you go into a social interaction, especially an early date. To keep an open mind about the outcome because you cannot make too specific plans about an interaction with someone else, as they must have room to make their own decisions – and so, by the way, must you. (What if you find yourself less attracted to them than you thought?)
It's good advice, in its way, but it assumes several things of the recipient, like that they can access and understand their own emotions, and easily pick up on the emotions of others, and that they have some fluency with the relevant sets of social codes of skills. It also sounds a little confusing for someone who tends towards literal interpretation. It can sound like an admonition, as you say, to just show up and do nothing active at all.

With the person I kissed on the third date, I was anything but inactive. I expressed interest, and I did my part in creating opportunities. And so did she. I will give some examples. (For me, at least, more specific examples can often help me make sense of less informative phrases like "at its own pace".)

• When the first date ended, I had already suggested a second one, and she agreed. That's both showing interest and creating opportunities, for both of us, but it also leaves room for her to say no, or maybe, or maybe later, which again would be a signal for me on where she stood.
  
  
• As we were saying goodbye, we were discussing whether to hug (pandemic and all that), and decided to wait, and during that discussion she explicitly used the word date, which was a signal that she still saw it as something that could lead to more.
  
  
• For the second date, we went for lunch. She enjoyed the food a lot, and I told her her happy smile made me feel happy as well. As a compliment, it was more than just casual, and in some contexts would have been out of place, but in the context of a date, it was appropriate. It was showing interest and appreciation, and it was genuinely felt; it was not sexual, not really about physical appearance, and it did not come off as angling for something, or as expecting a particular response.
  
  
• When lunch was over, I said that if she wanted, we could have dinner at my place later the same day (I'd bought some ingredients, in case), and she considered it, but in the end declined, mostly because she was running out of social energy. My invitation and her consideration were both expressions of interest. At the same time, I made it clear I had no expectations, it was just an offer, and when she moved towards declining, I explicitly supported the decision.
  
  
• I texted her later and asked if she wanted that dinner another day, and to that she said yes. That was me taking initiative, something I have been generally struggling with in social as well as flirtatious settings.
  
  
• In between those dates, we were texting about writing projects, and without planning it, I mentioned one of mine that was somewhat NSFW. When I warned her about that before describing the details, she said something like "oh, I don’t mind that at all", which was her showing interest, certainly in my writing, but also possibly in me as a sexual person.
  
  
• I did not bring up the latter possibility, though, or turn the conversation towards other sexual stuff – I think that would have been too soon. That was me sensing the pace, determining what would be the organic speed of things.
  
  
• Then finally, after the dinner at my place, she said something about "considering if it was the right time to ask if I wanted to kiss", which was her making it explicit, but still giving me room to say no.
  

The reason it happened right then was probably the sum of all the signs of interest we had exchanged, as well as some convention-based cues, like being at my place, and the date being our third. It did not mean something had to happen, or that any of us could expect anything to happen, but it did mean it would be appropriate to ask.
In the end, I think pacing the development of a relationship is about measuring up the steps. Sometimes it happens in strides, sometimes the steps are smaller. "Letting it follow its own pace" does not mean you shouldn't take any steps at all.

What it does mean is you should try to get a sense of how big or small steps the other person is comfortable with, and how big or small steps you are comfortable with yourself, because your comfort is just as important. And then the pace may change during the course – you may speed up or slow down, and people try to adjust to one another in that as well. When they succeed, the sense is that it develops "organically".

I don't really know how, in general, to do that – hopefully I have a better calibrated sense of it, but not one I can necessarily verbalize. But as I said, concrete examples like the ones above can be more useful anyway than general rules, and I would recommend people confused by social practice to look for more of those, request them at need. And also, when someone says things like "let it happen at its own pace", you can always ask if they have the energy to follow up with something more Asperger level specific. (Like you did here.)

[Hielario]

I'm not sure I've understood a lot of this, but it is way better explained and thought out than the common platitude salad I used to get from most acquintances, so thank you.

[Hirundo Bos]

Yeah, I guess it was quite a long answer, with a lot of my own thoughts mixed in. I can try a more condenced version:

"Letting things happen at it's own pace" doesn't mean waiting for things to happen on their own. It means that both people do things to show interest and create opportunities, but they do it in small steps, take time to measure one another's reaction, and either escalate or pull back a little according to what they perceive. It does involve quite a bit of social calibration, and while I've been able to make some progress, I can't say for sure that others will ... but apart from real life practice, which happened for me mostly by luck, one way I've been able to calibrate myself is by seeking out stories of how other people flirt, and look for specific examples of showing interest, responding to interest, escalating, pulling back etc.

I do have a back up-option, though. Sometimes, I'll simply say "I'm not really good with subtext, does this mean you might be interested in X/does not really want me to do Y"? I try to make it clear I'll be okay with either response, and then make sure that I actually am. And if someone thinks that is a strange thing to ask, well, that's okay too, but then we probably won't be compatible in the long run anyway.

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