Went back and re-read Rob's post. I'll sit on the email for a day, then respond with small chit chat declining the offer to get together. He was pretty specific on the face-to-face contact. Sound like a plan?
I'm not Rob, but my vote is to thank her for the offer, tell her you'd like to go, but would like to take a rain check, as you're swamped right now. (This will buy you some time to be more awesomely awesome, but yet not reject her.)
Rob....? Oh, Rooooobbbbb?
(Ferg - I've told ya. I'm not great at advice, so wait for others!)
Actually this is an interesting conundrum isn't it? We like NO CONTACT but... she contacted you, you can contact her back. She wants to take you out to dinner, that's actually a good thing, especially if she's paying. You see we associate value to things we invest in, if you invest time, energy, resources, etc. into things, we associate value to those things and we are attracted to things that have value. So the dinner thing might actually be a good idea for this reason plus it also gives you the opportunity to style a bit. If she wants to take you out to dinner and treat, let her - it's probably been a while since she's offered to do this, I say go for it.... but there are some rules ;-)
Don't get all melty man and wussy, it's just dinner. Treat it as a casual interaction, look good, smell good, change up the style.
She associates a specific mindset & image with you. If you go to dinner looking a lot different than you normally look, this will throw her off a bit.
You see you've done a good job of this already. No contact. Packing her things and getting them ready for her to move out.
She wasn't expecting any of this.
Go out and then after that, no contact again. Remember it's ok if she initiates contact, we just don't want you to initiate contact.
let her pay, if I didn't make that clear enough, it's your birthday dinner, let her pay and don't hold back on ordering what you like to order, spend her money, you're allowed and don't wuss out on this part either.
The mindset behind this is, you know your own value and self worth so if someone wants to treat you, let them, you're doing them a favor, they want to do this, allow them to. Her asking you out for dinner is a form of pursuit, mind you, very mild pursuit and don't read anything into it.
This is where it can be difficult. If you're totally dark it's SO much easier than having positive interactions. But I have faith that you can do it.
Go out and get at least a new shirt, if not an entire new outfit. Have a salesperson help you pick something if shopping and fashion aren't your thing. Trust me, W will notice and wonder who you went shopping with. But that's not really the point. If you look great, you will feel great. My credit card just cooled off from last spring's shopping spree and I both looked fantastic and felt great.
If you love somebody, set them free. http://tinyurl.com/2empx2g
Jeff, let me introduce you to girl-speak, the kind of passive voice I used to use a lot.
"I was going to ask you to dinner, but I didn't know if you would want to go."
There is no question mark there, but if I said that it would mean. "I want to go to dinner with you but I didn't want to ask in case you didn't want to go cause that would be super embarrassing so I will sort of throw the idea out there and wait for you to get the hint and maybe you will then ask me to dinner??" Yeah, I can see why Dan was frustrated with me sometimes!
Yeah, I can see why Dan was frustrated with me sometimes!