How soon should a guy make a move?

My dear faithful readers (all ten of you ;) -- I need your opinion. Since the first week of January, I’ve been seeing this guy I met on eHarmony. We met for drinks the first time, and a week later we went out for dinner. He’s 40, smart, nice, interesting, funny, creative, and lives right in the city. After our second date, as we were walking to the train and just as I was thinking how great he is and wondering why he is still single, he asked, “So…what do you think about us?”

I found his direct approach refreshing. “Oh, I like you,” I said immediately.

“Okay,” he said, or maybe he said, “Good.” Whatever it was, he didn’t say “I like you” back, which didn’t occur to me until later.

“Couldn’t you tell?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “everyone’s polite on the first couple of dates, so it can be hard to tell.” True enough, I guess.

He moved into the phone phase easily (another plus), so we were communicating by both phone and e-mail pretty early on. We had our third date a couple days later. I was hoping that now that he knew for certain that I liked him, he would kiss me, or at least hold my hand, but – no go.

Then at the end of January we had our fourth date. We went to a museum in Manhattan, had dinner, and then he asked if I wanted to come over and watch a movie he’d gotten from Netflix. Excellent, I thought, he’s going to make a move!

Well…not so much. We watched the movie sitting next to each other on the couch in his apartment, and he didn’t so much as try to hold my hand, let alone kiss me or touch me in any way. After the movie was over, we chatted a bit, then I left. (It probably didn’t help that the movie, “Eastern Promises,” was not romantic at all and was pretty violent! Good movie, though.) But he e-mailed me a few hours later, so I thought, Okay, I guess he’s still interested.

Then the week of Valentine’s Day came. Would he do something for me? Um, well…”no” on that count, as well. He’d said via e-mail he’d call me Tuesday night. It came and went with no call. Then he said he’d call me Thursday night, which happened to be Valentine’s Day, though he made no mention of V-Day. Thursday night came and went with no call. He e-mailed me the next day all apologies, saying he had fallen asleep.

This, I thought, did not bode well.

Since then, we’ve averaged about one date every three or four weeks. I’ve found that he’s kind of difficult to get to know very well. We seem to end up talking about politics or current events a lot, which is always fun (he's a fellow bleeding-heart liberal!), but it doesn’t make for the most personal conversation. His creative hobby is the equivalent of a second job, and since I’ve actually been working two jobs since February and three jobs since March, my time is tight, as well.

Last Saturday, we had our eighth date. Movie, dinner, he paid for everything…and we parted, as usual, with a hug (sometimes he lets loose with a kiss on the cheek, too). I decided not to contact him and see if he would contact me, or if he would just disappear.

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday went by with no word. But late Wednesday night he sent me an e-mail, which I didn’t respond to. And Thursday night, he left me a voicemail, saying he was calling to say hi since he hadn’t talked to me all week. So…I guess he’s still interested. But at this point it’s totally awkward because he still hasn’t made a move! He really should’ve done it when I went to his apartment that night at the end of January, and I’m still not sure why he didn’t. One of the red flags in that “Marrying Mr. Wrong” article I blogged about yesterday was not kissing by the third date.

Should I move on, or see him again and flat-out ask him what the deal is, like he asked me on our second date how I felt about him? So strange…if he was brave enough to ask me that, I don’t understand why he’s not brave enough to make a move.

What do you think?? Leave a comment, or if you prefer, you can e-mail me at BestDatesNow@gmail.com I eagerly await your opinion.