I went on a date with a woman I was meeting from a dating app a couple of days ago.

The first half of the date went well, we were having fun and there was a bit of tension between us, lots of eye contact, etc. However at that point there wasn’t really a spark on my end, she’s a nice person but I wasn’t really falling for her if that makes sense.

On to the second part of the date : I told her my age and she was VERY surprised to learn that I was younger than her, she actually didn’t even believe it until I showed her my driver,s license which was kinda uncomfortable. Also, we were both drained from the first half of the date, so I guess conversation got a lot less fluid and playful (which is mostly on me, I was exhausted), and although we stayed together for quite a bit of time after that I think it felt less like a date and more like two old friends keeping up-to-date with one another.

On my end, I find her very likeable, witty and pretty, but it didn’t trigger much within me. I think she might lack the oddity that I like in girls, but I realize that this might not be the kind of personality trait that shows the most on a first date. I don’t have any romantic attraction to her at the moment ; however, I usually take a somewhat long time to develop this attraction so this might not mean anything.

On her end, she expected to be seeing a man who shared her culture and was older than her, and she realized that she was seeing a man who is younger than her and doesn’t share much of her culture.

As far as I’m concerned I’d be fine with stopping things here since for the aforementioned reasons as well as others I’m like 70% positive we’re not a match. I think a second date would be necessary to bring this up to 100%, and I wouldn’t be opposed to going on a second date with her because I do see her qualities and I realize the date’s setup wasn’t quite ideal for me to fully make up my mind on us, but she seemed so turned off when I told her my age that I don’t really think she’d be down for it.

I’ve never been in this situation before so what do I do ? I respect her and care about her feelings so I don’t want to just not say anything anymore. Ideally we could be friends since I do enjoy her company and she’s fun to be around even though I believe we’re unlikely to be anything other than friends. She told me that she had fun so I believe she could feel the same about it.

What’s the etiquette there ? Do people text back after a “failed” date when they don’t really want to “recover” from it, and if so, what do they text ?