Girl seems hot and cold...

Alright, this is a bit long so I apologize for that.
I met a girl through an online dating site, we exchange emails and start chatting through MSN and everything goes well.

We have a first date one Saturday that goes very well.
We arrange a second date next week at the same time and it goes better than the first (stronger kino more IOI etc.) At the end of that date she talks about the next weekend and how we should do something again, I say sure we’ll talk.

The next day she is chatting with me on MSN and suggests we go out again that weekend to a restaurant she likes. We live 1.5 hours apart so we have to plan these out a little in advance. She mentions she might have some personal stuff that weekend so she will let me know for sure near the weekend.
Up to this point, I would say the interest level from her is strong. She’s prone to initiating conversations with me through text or MSN and I’m mostly just responding back. I’ll initiate some but I’ve consciously tried to keep that to a minimum so I do not look clingy/needy at all.

However after that Sunday when she actually planned a third date, she has been very distant on MSN/text. So much so that I found myself being the one trying to initiate with her on Mon/Tues, so I immediately decide to Freeze Out unless she contacts me. Late on Weds she does send me a message saying she has had a family issue come up and may not be able to do anything this weekend.

I say “no prob just let me know.” I don’t mention anything to her on Friday, but I notice she’s online and she ends up initiating with me. We talk a lot about random stuff and she doesn’t even mention going out this weekend. Against my better instincts I do ask her if she ever found out if she’d be free. She said Saturday probably wouldn’t work because she has to do something for a friend if she decides to go out, and that Sunday she might have to do the family stuff she had been talking about, so she says Monday will probably be good.

At this point she also gets more distant again and less responsive so I’m seeing she does that when I mention going out, which is a bad indicator to me. I decide to just disassociate but then on Sunday she texts/messages me more and more and it seems she’s interested again so I ask her if she thinks Monday would still be a good day. She says “probably I’ll have to let you know” she immediately is acting weird again and I tell her that since I work on Monday I really need to know before I get off work if I’m driving down to see her (the third date was planned in her town which is 1.5 hours away, the first two were in my town and she drove to me.)

Monday around 4pm I text her asking her what’s up because I need to know before I leave for work…no answer. So again, I’m thinking Flake/write off, but then around 8 PM she gets on MSN and gives me this huge apology and says she got stuck late at work. I act like it’s no big dea land just say “I figured that’s what happened, we’ll have to do something again sometime.” I intentionally don’t ask her out again because I’m feeling this isn’t going to work.

On Tuesday she is again being very chatty with me online and in text. So against my better judgment I mention we need to do something again and hopefully she won’t cancel on me 3 times in a row like last time. She doesn’t respond at all, so I just say “but if not no big deal.” She then acts like she hadn’t seen my earlier message and says “oh yeah that’d be good but I’ll be out of town this weekend and not sure when I’ll be back.” Now, I actually know this is true because 3+ weeks ago when things were going good she mentioned she was going to visit family the weekend of Halloween (so if this is a lie she started it way before things got weird between us.)

I decide to just cool it more towards her and on Weds/Thurs we chat a little bit, she does the initiating on Weds but I’m mostly only half-responsive. I decide to initiate with her on Thurs and she’s kinda unresponsive, but mentions she’ll be on MSN the weekend she is out of town.

At this point I don’t really understand the situation I’m in, so I decide that maybe because I chatted with her so much early on she feels I’m someone who is at her beck and call in terms of listening to her and stuff like that, so I decide on Thursday I’m done talking to her unless she initiates with me and shows some clear sign of interest again.

My plan basically being if she reaches out to me again I’m not going to make any small talk but just joke with her a bit and then ask her out for a specific time/place and if she backs out I’ll be 100% done then. Obviously if she doesn’t reach out to me, that’s that.

Any thoughts on this situation? I guess it’s hard for me because I’ve never done the online dating, and this girl really seems to prefer chatting through MSN where I’m not as good as I am with cell text messages or w/in person conversation.

What's weird is every time she has backed off, I've basically stopped talking to her and then within a day or so she'll initiate with me and seem really interested in chatting with me until I bring up going out in person again and then she becomes distant.

This situation doesn't seem too good. I think after you have initiated a date with her turning you down most recently, without her making plans to re-schedule, then its pretty much over with her. Time to drop her or just Freeze Out and see what happens. Just don't take her seriously anymore.