Post The Post-Mortem

Recently my wife and I spent time with another couple for the first time. As is often the case, our first conversation afterwards was discussing our reaction to the person from that couple neither of us had previously met. When you're in this situation what comes up first for you in a socializing post-mortem?

Without saying it out loud, my wife and I then moved toward the inevitable question: Do we want to see these people again? I'm guessing the other couple was doing a similar thing regarding us - I mean, don't you? There are only a few basic variables to deal with: Did we each enjoy the people as individuals? Did we each like the way the couple were together? Since I had already built a friendship with one of the partners here, in this situation it was down to two variables for me (one individual + one partnership) and three for my wife (2 + 1). And given our history of 33+ years, some of the guesswork about how my wife would react to the partner I knew was reduced beforehand. Both of us can reasonably predict how the other will react to someone one of us already enjoys. But there have been surprises so...

If all the variables come up positive, we're onto the harder questions: We initiated this first interaction, so what happens next? If nothing happens on their end for a while (how long?), do we risk vulnerability and reach out (again)? Or, do we invent a story? Which one? The insecure story: One or the other (or both) didn't enjoy one or the other (or both) of us or...the way we were as a couple. The rationalizing stories: They're very busy or... they lost our phone numbers, cell numbers, e-mail addresses, snail mail address, Pony Express station numbers, longitude/latitude coordinates, etc. What stories do you invent when in a similar situation? What excuses do you make to others who try to maintain contact you don't want?