Two Months and Still No Kiss?

Dear Brian,
Hello my name is Steven. I live in NYC and even though it’s a tremendous city, it's very difficult to find someone who wants a relationship.  I am a very shy person and usually depend on personal ads to help me meet someone, and yet even on the ads the guys claim they want something long term, when in reality they just want to hook up. I am anti-hook up and believe in old fashioned romance. The last guy I dated (at least I thought I was dating) I met one night when I went out to dinner with 2 of my female friends. It was something out of a book: I walked into the restaurant and directly in front of me I see this good looking man smiling at me.

Well, let’s just say I sat at my table and after a few minutes of my friends convincing me to go up to him, I did. I gave him my number and to my surprise he called me the same evening. We were seeing each other once or twice a week, and would speak nearly every day on the phone, or via email, or Internet chat. We knew each other for two months and never once did we kiss. I threw hints here and there because I never wanted to disrespect him and his answers to the non kissing thing were kind of valid.

Needless to say two months have passed and still no kiss and it was driving me crazy. My instincts were telling me that he really liked me, and believe me; I made it known in different ways that my feelings were getting stronger for him. I decided to send him an email before he left for his trip to Puerto Rico, telling him how I was feeling. He wrote back in one paragraph basically saying he just sees us as friends.

I guess I feel stupid because I introduced him to my family and I told him that the only time I would do that was when I was really interested in someone. Now I am embarrassed because everyone keeps asking me where he is. My question is how long should I wait before knowing if someone is interested? Some people tell me to give it a month, others say 3 months. But when feelings start happening, it’s hard to keep sane for that long of a time. I honestly thought he liked me more then a friend by the constant phone calls and by the fun times we had with each other. So I fell hard and now I don't know what to do. I can't maintain a friendship with him because it's too hard for me. How do I avoid this from happening again? Thank you very much for your time.
- Steven

Dear Steven,
Two months is a long time to wait for a kiss.  By then, most couples are enjoying an active sex life. There's more to a serious relationship than sex, but really it shouldn't take more than a few weeks, perhaps a month, to determine whether or not someone is interested in becoming seriously involved in a relationship.  The man you described was apparently serious about wanting to be nothing more than friends, or, in a darker scenario, was a tease who enjoyed your attention and liked leading you on.  Then again, he may be uptight about his homosexuality and believes he can still deny his sexual orientation as long as he doesn't physically express his attraction. 

So, how long should you wait before knowing a man is interested?  The more you like a guy, the more patient you're likely to be, but if I couldn't get a kiss - a good romantic kiss - by the fourth or fifth date, I'd suspect the guy isn't interested.  The only exception would be if he's shy, but I think I'd be able to tell if that's the case, and you could, too.

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