There’s this whole list of things I can’t quite figure out. Not, like, the stock market or how some people still don’t accept homosexuality – not, like, mysteries of the universe. It’s more social things where the rules are unwritten. Like – what you’re supposed to do if you’re 100% certain your best friend shouldn’t marry the guy or if it’s okay to pursue a guy who has a girlfriend if he tells you it’s “totally over with her.” Things like that. Things that, I’ve found, no one’s really quite sure about. My weekend prompted one such thing.

I meet a guy with whom people who use the phrase “hit it off with” would say I “hit it off with.” I’m not one of those people. It’s like “I have a strong buzz going” or “I’m totally obsessed with.” Just don’t like the way they sound.

Guy and I converse exclusively, guy offers to purchase me a drink, and when it’s time to go get coats, guy accompanies me to coat check. Three pieces of fair evidence. There also may or may not have been a hand grasp. Not a hand hold – an intertwining of fingers lasting greater than 30-seconds and generally repeated throughout time spent together – a hand grasp – a quick-though-lingering, romantic-seeming touching of the hands generally occurring prior to one person entering or exiting the area or in cases where dancing is involved. So maybe four pieces.

For various reasons guy and I part ways. We don’t, as expected, exchange numbers. I wasn’t feeling particularly forward, and who knows what guy was thinking. All fine and well. Stranger things have happened.

The next afternoon I open gmail to a Facebook friend request from guy. Enter thing I can’t quite figure out.

Has the friend request replaced the phone number exchange as the first point of contact? Is it a sure sign of interest? A next step? I asked around. No one knows.

This particularly scenario really tested the issue.

How could guy be so certain I even had a Facebook account? Were guy’s feelings about me undecided enough such that he was fine dropping it if I didn’t have a facebook account? Did I at some point tell him I had one? And if so, did knowing I had one and that he could reach me via that less forward first move change his entire strategy? Did he first think “nah, probably don’t want to see her again”, then think more about it later and decide, “hey, maybe.” Did he first think maybe and then figure a little Facebook stalking would get him to yes or no?

Endless unknowns. I tried to determine how a Box Car child or Angela Landsbury in Murder She Wrote would deal with the situation. So I put on overalls and made a list of things I knew for certain in a British accent.

1. Following our interaction, guy’s interest in me was greater than 0.
2. Nothing negative occurred during our interaction such that guy’s interest was of a malicious nature. He likely did not friend me to later hurt/sabotage me in any way.
3. Guy remembered my first and last name sober. Or at least exactly what I look like.
4. Guy is, himself, on Facebook

But with every certainty came even more questions:

Should guy’s choosing the friend request over the number exchange be a deal breaker? Should he have waited the requisite three days commonly applied to phone number exchange before making the friend request? Should he have left a message with the friend request like he’d have to if his first contact was via text? Do I leave a message if and when I confirm?

I have no answers, no matter what accent I use. For now it remains one of the great quandaries of our time. I decided to let it go, appreciate his thought, and confirm the request, regardless of its meaning. Maybe while I’m at it, I thought, I should friend that great guy from Saturday afternoon. If only I could remember his first and last name or exactly what he looks like…