I met this girl through gaming about a month ago and we quickly found ourselves liking each others company, we both soon discovered we were within traveling distance to make something real from this and both are attracted to each other but I can't help but feel anxious.
Despite the age difference, we're in the same stage in life, both trying to make something of ourselves. We flirt, we game, we share our daily events and some of our woes, from a surface level I can't see anything wrong between us to warrant regular anxiousness unless its because I'm worried that I'm about to get flaked on or maybe is it my insecurities? maybe my worries are justified or real? I can recognise that we're in this talking stage and I really want to go towards the dating stage.
We spent our first week just existing, but by the second week, we really glued and towards the end of it, I suggested we could go for drinks but that was turned down, her response was that it was a little early and that she moves slower with people online. I thought that was fair, and told her that I'm happy to go at a slower pace. I summed up my eagerness to usually being fast in real life and on tinder. By the end of the third week, I made one comment about how we'd 'eventually meet up in 2 to 3 weeks right?' because in my head going slower meant that a month of knowing each other would have been plenty of time to get acquainted and comfort but that was also met with it still being too early. So I told myself I'd just set an internal timer to not mention meeting up for another month and let her be the one to bring it up hopefully.
I reflect on this feeling of anxiousness often and something that comes to mind is that I must feeling this way because of my history with flaky, inconsistent romantic interests and the only time I felt secure is when the relationships has developed past a certain point. I am also worried that because I've already asked to meet or indirectly hinted at it a couple of times, it means that I can't really ask anymore without risking sounding like a parrot and that leaves room for me to be lead on. Its tiring having these anxious thoughts when the reality of how we interact and how consistent she has been are mismatched with how I forecast whats going to happen to me.
I'm unsure how I can navigate this to feel more grounded.