Massive blunder when courting! Irreversible?

Hi guys, new here.

I'm a simperingly dozy, lovestruck man. Admittedly I have very little - okay, admittedly I have no - experience with dating and the whole process is alien to me. I often find myself not attracted enough to care about pushing on with the whole dating thing. On very rare occasions though I find myself completely besotted! I have recently found this experience once again. I'm very shy and very ignorant of all the right "moves". So far I've been blagging confidence and bravado and things have been going ludicrously well with this lovely lady - obviously confidence really is the key. Infact, I have found myself more and more at ease with her and even with my poor ability to spot the signals I can say with some confidence that she is really interested. She makes a point to come talk to me, and me her. Yes, things are – or were – going great.

So what's wrong, you ask? Well, I made a faux pas, one I'm sure is a massive one. Here goes, and please don’t scold or judge me too much. It’s a mistake made on a spur of the moment decision. When walking home from work I happened to notice she was walking behind me but at a significant distance. I won't lie, I did considering the timing when I left. Perhaps it was my over eagerness to push things forward, but regardless in my childish excitement and with a rush of blood to my (barely functioning) head I decided to take a slight detour on my way home and go the same route she was. It wasn't so far out of the way of my own that it could be considered "stalking", but to anyone with a brain it was pretty clear it was purposeful. Anyway, I was walking slowly and she was getting closer. I don't know if she saw me but I turned around and gave a wave of acknowledgement. Not a stupid “I love you!” wave but a "Oh hi" casual raise of the arm as I walked on. She didn't respond but instead was on her phone. I don’t know if she actually saw me do it.

I cannot deny that it was a mistake, a massive mistake. Even I know that. Although I cannot confirm it, I cannot believe for a second that she didn’t see me on her route at the very least. The annoying thing is I hadn’t put a foot wrong until this moment and then my stupidity has landed my in a bad situation. I suspect she’ll have been creeped out by me being on her route or definitely creeped out if she saw my acknowledging “wave”. I probably would’ve been!

So my question is, particularly to the ladies, is this calamitous mistake an irreversible one? And if it isn’t, how can I best come back from such a screw up? There’s a few different circumstances that could have happened.

1) She didn’t see me on the walk home at all
2) She saw me but didn’t wave
3) She saw me wave

I don’t get much opportunity to chat to her in the day/week, but when we do we get on well and seem to have built up a solid “lunch break” chat. I really want this to work, but I fear I’ve blundered badly. Is this salvageable? What if she calls me out on it tomorrow or soon, what if she did see but chooses to ignore it? Should I address it? Or should I just say “Yeah I saw you on the way home yesterday...” or something to that effect? Because if she did see and I just pretend it never happened, that’d be weird in itself!

Advice please!

It's easy to get distracted when on the phone. Even when I'm just listening to music, I've walked past friends waving/saying hello from along the street. I don't think anyone would be too freaked out by a small wave, so don't worry about it. If it does come up in conversation, laugh about it. Try not to make a mountain out of a molehill. Just relax and enjoy : P

Probably true, Mongoose. Maybe I'm over thinking and overreacting. I suppose in the great scheme of things it isn't such an insummountable blunder. I feel quite foolish and a little needy, should we say, but I suppose laughing it off if it crops up is definitely the best route. Just don't want to balls this one up!

You think WAVING was a mistake? Wow dude, you need to chill out.

How well does this gal know you? Aren't there hundreds of plausible reasons you could have happened to be walking in the direction of where she lives?

It was on my way home. She knows I live that way as I told her. I've never walked that way before though so to suddenly appear going that way a day after knowing where she lives probably seems a little obvious. Plausible that I could just happen to be going that way, but not probable.

As for the waving, yeah maybe I'm just over thinking the whole thing. Now that you've put my mind at ease it doesn't seem like that big a thing. With hindsight I should've just played it cool and gone home as normal!

You're thinking about it too much. Yeh it was a lame thing to do.. but from her point of view she's walking home on her phone like normal.. she didn't see you or maybe she did but thought nothing of it.

Why don't you just tell her: "I walked home this way yesterday, hoping to see you, but you were so busy on your phone, I didn't want to interrupt. Now I know to ask you in advance."