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Hello matey – Happy Christmas
I know you are an absolute gentleman with very high standards of honour and decency– and my it’s hard to deal with the romantic rush. It sets everyone head spinning (until they become accustomed to it). It’s a wonderful experience but also a bit scary – so be kind to yourself
Well it’s impossible to say about the text –
She may have just been busy
She may be playing cool (she was very pleased to get your text but wanted to not seem too keen)
She may have got cold feet
I think you are very wise in just leaving it for a day or so. I’d give it a few days if I were you.
Girls and boys are girls and boys – and often send mixed messages to each other (by text or by other means). Romance is a bit of maze when you first enter. Just keep cool and keep your sunny side up – you are fine as you are. Every confidence in you old chap. Sometime something comes of the initial attraction – sometimes it does not. Funny old thing romance.
If it turns out good that’s great. If it doesn’t turn out good - don’t let it get you down (eek I’ve been there too).
Dick 
I’m technically on holiday from the forums, but I think dropping by for the sake of another twenty-year-old is a good cause. 
First of all, I feel your pain! Texting is possibly the most useful and most obnoxious component of a relationship – the misunderstandings of tone, the agonizing analysis of exactly what the ‘winky face’ might convey, and most terribly, the unending wait for a reply. Ugh!
Secondly, it sounds like the two of you have had a wonderful relationship to date, and you seemed quite the gentleman.
From my perspective, being a twenty-year-old college student myself, I would guess that she is still interested. This sort of text, more overtly romantic than a simple ‘Good Morning,’ is sort of a “next step” in a relationship. She very well might want things to continue developing (as her other actions seem to confirm), but she doesn’t want to seem over-eager. We girls (or at least me, anyway) are cautious of seeming over-eager. 
By waiting a day, she has a sort of leverage by “proving” (or pretending, anyway) that she isn’t overly focused on the relationship. (Does this make sense? It may just be a “girl thing” – we’re confusing sometimes and we’re especially adept at mind games! 
)
She might very well be busy, especially as she prepares to go back to school. (She’s probably feeling befuddled by lots of other things, and playing the ‘dating game,’ especially over text is so complicated that she may have dismissed it from her mind for a bit.)
I think it’s a good idea to send another text tomorrow, completely unrelated to the sunrise message. That way, she has no pressure to address the previous text but she can still show interest in developing a relationship with you.
Also, girls (or, once again, myself at least) are predisposed to think guys are sweet-talking them and are not interested in anything more (unless ‘anything more’ involves, as you put it, ‘funny business.’) In all the boy talks/rants I’ve had with friends, we all agree how lovely it would be to be asked “on a date.” Not to asked “hang out.” Not asked to “talk.” Not even to asked take a walk – as great as those things are. A real, call-it-what-it-is “date.” The idea seems to have fallen by the wayside, and we girls wish it weren’t so. In our minds, plainly and sincerely asking a girl out is the utmost act of gallantry, because so few guys actually address the matter in a straightforward manner. Asking a girl out for a dinner date, in our minds, points to more sincerity than a complimentary text.
So, I would text her about a new topic tomorrow. If she texts back, that is a good sign. And if you want to show that you a truly interested in getting to know her better, ask her out in a sincere and upfront manner. (The phone, which is more personal than texting, would probably be ideal.) It will be scary, but all my friends and I agree that asking a girl out plainly is probably the kindest act a man can offer a lady. We dislike decoding you men as much as you dislike decoding us!
I hope that helped a bit. (We girls are weird, so I hope I just didn’t confuse you more!) Good luck from Ohio!
Kate
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Your relationship with Christ and the awakening of romantic attraction are not mutually exclusive. Romance is the school of training desire so that the other we are attracted to becomes someone we love with body but also with soul and spirit as the person that they truly are rather than just as the projection of our desires (and to do this we also need to be honest and down to earth each step of the way)… Its’ a wonderful thing old chap - really wonderful. It can have very painful episodes and we can’t’ make other people act according to our desires so that’s part of the lesson. But you have every reason to be delighted with the journey and thank God for it.
I am always stunned by the insights of Kate – she is a real professor of the human soul. Still young – but so wise
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Very true, Uncle Prof – but very painful for us young’uns to learn. A lesson long, long in the making, but I think that’s how God wanted things.
Well, I am giving advice on twenty-year-old girls here, which isn’t too hard, because I am one. But that is a very kind description – I can assure you all I am incurably awkward in “real life.”
Hi Neil
Good to see you back on the forum .
Kate said it. For us blokes, girls are weird, unfathomable, impossible to understand . Even attempting to work out how the female mind works is a task that has confounded the greatest male minds in history. Faced with a girl who may or may not have wanted to go out with him, Einstein would have been just as perplexed as you or me .
Seriously (and I hope our dear Kate - and all the other ladies here - will forgive that bit of gentle leg pulling ) my advice to you would be to just carry on as you are, being a gentleman. If this girl is interested in a relationship, it will happen. If she isn’t, it won’t, like Dick says. Either you guys have ‘chemistry’ or you don’t, and if you don’t, nothing you can do will manufacture it. (As Bruce Springsteen says, “nobody knows, honey, where loves goes, but when it goes it’s gone gone gone”. )
I think the best thing you can do is follow Kate’s advice and ask your friend out on a date. This is hard, I know. Most blokes - the nice ones at least - find it hard to pluck up the courage to ask a girl out on a date. I always did. In fact, if my wife hadn’t literally sat in my lap at a party, I don’t think I would ever have had the guts to ask her out for a drink!
So, ask her out. What’s the worst that can happen? She says no. Nothing lost Mr Christian!
All the best
Johnny
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I’m not being smug just because I’m long in the tooth Just being encouraging And I do remember the lessons were sometimes very painful indeed - but worth it.
Perhaps this has already been mentioned - if you can, date a lot of girls. For one or two dates , maybe 3- since you are a Christian, many more dates than just a couple starts to build an intimacy that is fine if you are headed for marriage, but not good otherwise. A couple/three dates can usually tell you if this is ‘the one’ or not. And dating a few gals keeps things in perspective as well as sharpening your social skills.
Don’t date three at the same time who are all living on campus at a Bible College in Santa Cruz, Ca!! I mean, I’ve heard stories
T’was not smug in the least, Uncle Prof. We young’uns are genuinely happy to listen to those “long in the tooth,” even though we aren’t always keen to admit it. But, hey, at least 95% of relationship advice I’ve received came my 80-year-old grandma – and 90% of the time, it’s helpful, and only 10% of the time it’s awkward (but usually strangely helpful nonetheless. )
And, yes, Johnny, you speak the truth – We women are confusing. In fact, yes, we’re impossible. And I think we take a secret pride in being this way. 
But trust me, you men are just as awful!
I think you could combine Dave and Dick’s posts from above into a good general rule to follow in all new relationships. Try a date or two or three. Pay attention to if the person seems “right” (not marriage “right” – eek! That’s planning a bit too far ahead!) but “right” in the sense that you feel you’d be willing to exert an effort to love that person as they truly are and not just as a projection of your own desires.
Best wishes to you, brother in Christ.
Kate
My grandmother told one of the girls I was dating, “put a dab of vanilla extract behind an ear - men LOVE it.” I have no comment.
And believe me - this diagram will cause you to laugh many times in the years ahead
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Glad to hear the good news, Yeshua! I had a feeling things would turn out that way. And I’d also venture to guess that she mentioned being busy to discreetly show you that her lateness in responding wasn’t indicative of any negative feelings toward you. So go boldly and confidently, as a knight in shining armor.
And Johnny and Dave , I’ll be the first girl to admit that you both are absolutely right – We women are impossible. But if we’re impossible, then you men are the most enigmatic, cryptic, and unfathomable secret which God placed on this planet. I mean, we women have written book upon book, thesis upon thesis, trying to decode the male mind – and still, nothing. Thousands of years of observation and evaluation and still nothing!