mixed or not-so-mixed signals?

[confused..?]

I'm interested in this girl; we'll call her Mary. I think I've been getting some pretty mixed signals.

We attend the same church. Sunday nights after church, a large group typically goes to a bar. A few weeks ago, we noticed each other at church and made a little eye contact. At the bar afterwards, there was more eye contact. At the end of the night, she introduced herself. On the walk out, she did they typical girl-hugs-everyone-goodbye and I was (happily) included. That night I friended her on FB. I waited a couple days and sent her a message saying it was nice to meet her and that I was sorry we didn't get to talk and that we should next time. I also asked if she was going on the retreat the next weekend. She responded within an hour saying yes to everything.

I saw her a few times at the retreat. I didn't want to seem desperate, so the only times I really chatted with her was in group conversation. At one point, she asked some people if we wanted to go play board games. I definitely wanted to go, but I held off and lagged about 15 minutes behind. I sat down with the other 5 people getting ready to play a game. She offered to be my partner, which I pretended like I didn't hear, because I thought I could be a bit more playful competing against her. During the game I really thought there was some flirtatious eye contact. That was our only notable contact during the retreat.

The next Monday after the retreat, I sent her another FB message:

"Hey! So if your team really did get [X] points in [game] (and some of those were questionable), then it seems a rematch may be in order. Unless of course you're not up to the challenge and would prefer something easier like Candyland or Chutes and Ladders...  If none of that sounds entertaining though, there's always free lunch at [my place of work]!"

She replied with:

"Umm we were definitely big winners.. And if you're willing to get your butt kicked again, we can most definitely rematch  
Apparently board games bring out the competitive side I didn't I had so beware.
Or we COULD combine rematch with free lunch and make it an eating competition?"

Going good, right?

I asked her what her schedule looked like, and she responded after a couple days and said she had a really busy week and asked about mine. I ran into her unexpectedly at church that night before I had a chance to respond. We didn't really get a chance to talk then. I made some comments about the stuff that happened at the church meeting in my response to her message when I got home. I gave her my number because she said she sucked at replying to Facebook messages. She texted me the next morning with a possibly flirtatious message in response.

I got an invitation to a cocktail party the next night, and Mary was on the attendee list. At this point, I had no choice but to take advantage of every opportunity I had to see her. I responded to her letting her know that I'd be going, and she asked if I had a "fancy outfit", and appended the unnecessary "I'm happy you're coming!" At the party, I didn't make a serious effort to spend a lot of time with her because, again, I didn't want to seem desperate, even though she was the only reason I accepted the invite on such short notice. I did have a couple 1:1 conversations with her though. There was a group discussion of a concert the next day, and Mary told me that I should come. Later on, when she left, she did not track me down to say good night, and I thought that was a little peculiar.

There's more, see below.
So I bought a ticket to the concert the next day. I texted her asking if she had plans before the concert and if she was interested in getting coffee or a late lunch. She said "Yes that interests me greatly! I already have plans though " I headed into the concert with a different group of church people and she attended with roommates. We texted each other a few times throughout the concert, and she decided to head over to meet up with us. She stuck around for one of the bands with our group, and we were standing next to each other. The possibly tipsy girls behind us were giggling and talking to her on her right side (I was standing to her left). It's worth noting, though, that she doesn't really know those girls all that well. She took off to go back to her group after the set. She didn't come to get drinks after church the next day, for whatever reason. I did see her at church that day though, and we chatted for a few minutes, but it was mostly just small tal
k. I texted her that night asking if she was going out for drinks, and she said "no, not tonight ", and I said "Bummer! Maybe something this week if you've got an opening " She offered "maybe a beer, or helping me choose a pumpkin perhaps?" I said "hahaha or both?", to which she replied "That might be a great idea". We hung out later that week. I think we really enjoyed each other's company but it wasn't mind-blowingly incredible. I texted her the next day asking if she was free for lunch anytime during the weekend and she responded the next day saying "Sorry about yesterday, see ya tonight?" (for church). I responded with "yep!, drinks with the group? or perhaps somewhere less hectic?" She responded with "i might go for drinks with the group! otherwise i'll just head home".
Uh oh. I must have screwed something up somewhere. I'm a fixer, and that wasn't okay. So I proceed to (possibly) screw things up more by asking if there was some subliminal message in there, to which she seemed confused. We toed at the topic a little more, and she said that she wasn't sure if I was asking her on a "date-ish type deal" to which I responded with "well date-ish type deal is kinda how I thought this friendship was progressing, but maybe I was picking up the wrong signals…?" and she dropped: "Well you're really awesome but I'm sorry if I made you feel like I was moving in that direction, [my name]. I'm just not really in a place to date right now, if that can make any sense" We talked a little bit more about it, and left the conversation off on a friendly note. My inclination here is to back off for a couple weeks to see if she'll approach me at all. Thoughts? Suggestions? Interpretations? Is this recoverable? She&#3
She's absolutely worth the trouble.

[relieveddock982]

Follow your instincts. :-)