I think I may have just been stood up. Perhaps there was a legitimate misunderstanding or some emergency, but this young woman that I invited for coffee and conversation at Starbucks was a no show on the agreed upon time. I don’t have her phone number, but I am able to message her on myspace.
I’ll hold off on making any judgements on her for now, but this got me interested in the entire phenomenon of being stood up.
If anyone reading here has deliberately stood someone up, please share with us why you decided to do that instead of just telling the other person “No.”
Also, let the victims of this practice speak up and share their annoyance. Know that you are not alone!
I have been stood up and I have stood up. The one occasion where I stood somebody up went like this: He chose a very fancy hoity-toity place to meet, and I asked him couldn’t we meet somewhere less foofoo as I wasn’t really that type of person and wouldn’t feel comfortable meeting someone there for the first time. But no, he insisted that we were going to meet there. I had every intention of going, and even *did * go, but when I got there I circled the parking lot and left. It just hit me that if he has no concern for my comfort and happiness now, then he never would, and it would be pointless to meet. So I left.
Several years ago I (female, age 23) was set up by a work friend with a blind date. I was to meet said date at a downtown bar at 8 p.m. on a Thursday night. I went there and sat down in the dimly-lit restaurant section adjacent to the bar, checking out the guys who were coming in, waiting for my date who was said to be wearing a red necktie. It was a quiet, slow night at this bar, only a handful of people in the place.
Dear readers, please, forgive me. I am confessing now. I was a bad, rude, shallow, judgmental person who let one of God’s very own creatures down; a man, a GOOD man, an intelligent and eligible man (I had been told by the work friend) who wanted to meet ME - I stood this fine human being up. At 8 p.m. on the dot, this pathetic… creature with a red necktie walked in. I took one horrified look at what could only (of course!) be my blind date, gasped, and fled. I tucked my long blond tell-tale hair into the back of my coat, lowered my head, and barrelled out of the joint like it was on fire. I simply could not go through with what would be a waste of my time, and his.
The next day I told the work friend I “hadn’t been able to make it” and please apologize to the potential date, but I was going to get back with my ‘ex’, thanks anyway.
I have been stood up and I so hate the feeling that I can’t just not show up on a date I agreed to.
Stood up: I had a great first date with a handsome fellow and was eagerly awaiting our second when he flat didn’t show. No call, no call the next day, no call the next week, with me pacing the floor that night and checking my messages all through the week. 3 months later, he calls to apologize, saying he hoped enough time had gone by that I wasn’t mad at him anymore. Some of The Guys had brought beer down to the yard and he was going to have one before rushing home to change for our date. One turned into many and he “got drunk and forgot.” He was wrong; I was still mad.
So instead of standing up a guy who badgered me until I agreed to meet him at his house, I called instead of showing up. I said I was sorry for wimping out on myself but I didn’t feel comfortable at all going to his house and I should’ve been more firm and stood by my original No, because I didn’t want to go to his house and it didn’t matter why not so much as it mattered that I didn’t want to. Yes, there was a lot of back and forth Why Nots again, but I did learn not to agree to something I didn’t want or feel good doing.
I know it wasn’t a great thing to do, but I have a lot of anxiety about meeting new people even in a comfortable place that I like. The combination of the anxiety about meeting someone and the anxiety about being in a place like that just flipped a switch inside of me and I* had* to go right now, or so I felt at the time (years ago). I rationalized it with the thought that he kind of deserved it by not caring if I were comfortable, but still, he didn’t, did he?
I was stood up a few months ago by a guy who I had been going out with a few weeks. He “forgot” that we had made a date the night before, face to face, right before we parted. He didn’t answer any phone calls or respond to any texts. I saw him once more, briefly, to retrieve some items of mine he had borrowed. Haven’t spoken to him since.
I stood someone up when I was 19 or so. I met him on the Internet. He sent me a picture of himself. We agreed to meet at a local mall, and then pick and drive to a restaurant.
Well, I was already feeling like meeting him was the wrong thing to do. When I met him at the mall, he was at least fifteen years older than his picture. Plus I got a horribly creepy vibe from him.
I agreed to meet him at the restaurant and then drove home. I was young and naive and didn’t know how to tell him to his face. I’m now 33 and have never done it since. It isn’t right to do, and I wouldn’t do it. But he deceived me first.
I had run into this gorgeous guy at school, and we talked, and we talked and talked and talked and talked. One of us suggested we meet for coffee that Friday. Incidentally, it was Friday the 13th. At the time I did not think it was significant. We said we would meet at four.
I was over the moon with excitement, that I’d bagged me an adorable, accented, smart grad student. I told all my friends about it, and they all agreed that I was about due for a date with a nice decent guy. Inexplicably, I wrote down in my planner 4:30.
Friday arrived. I carefully picked out my outfit, did my hair and makeup impeccably, and set out. And promptly missed my bus. I didn’t arrive until 4:45, by which point my lovely date had long since left. I was devastated.
I did manage to catch him later online and impress upon him my great, great, great sorrow and flakiness. He was sufficiently impressed to agree to see me again. At this point I carefully, CAREFULLY wrote down the RIGHT time in my planner. And again I did my hair, did my makeup, picked out a cute outfit…and then, when I turned to leave, I discovered my computer had played a cruel trick on me and for some reason the clock on it had skipped an hour. I was thisclose to missing another date with this guy.
I flew to the bus and made it to the coffeehouse a half-hour late just as he was getting ready to leave. I told him the whole sordid story, and apparently he bought it. We wound up talking for three hours. And we have a date next week.
I would never stand someone up deliberately. Even as a girl I have enough balls to tell some dude no.
I have never stood someone up. The only situation where I think it is justifiable is if you’re afraid of the person like in Anaamika’s story.
There was one time when I had made plans to “hang out” with a guy at a coffee shop on a Saturday night. The Friday night right before it, a longtime friend of mine confessed to having feelings for me. I was thrilled to hear that from my friend, but, man, the timing was a little awkward. I told the guy I had plans with for Saturday that I was in fact now dating someone (!), but I still offered to meet up with him as friends. I was kind of surprised when it turned out that he was game for it! So we did in fact go through with the meeting, even though I think we both found it rather awkward. Hard to tell how much of the awkwardness was from the weird situation and how much was the normal awkwardness that I have with meeting new people though. Anyway, my point is, even in that kind of scenario, I never even considered simply standing up the guy.
I think some people really are flaky on the internet. They don’t think about other people’s feelings if they don’t have to see the person face to face.
If I were about to meet someone and there was an egregious reason why I didn’t want to hang out with them for an evening (like the aforementioned ugliness or being in a fancy place), I think faking getting sick and needing to go home right away is preferable to just not showing up at all.
I’ve never stood anyone up. The way I look at it, if you don’t want to go out with someone, say no or break the date. I’d rather have someone cancel on me at the last minute than just not show up at all and leave me hanging. It’s extremely disrespectful and I’d never do it to someone else.
I stood a girl up, years ago. I had a date to pick her up after she got off work at 8:00. We were going to dinner and a movie. First date thing.
I got off work at 4:30, ate a small snack, laid down for a short nap and woke up about midnight. I still have guilt trips about that one.
A few days later I met my ex wife so I never saw the girl I stood up again. I’ve often wondered if the blunder that was my first marriage was karma for standing Patricia up. If so, it was one helluva payback.
I’ve been stood up a number of times. What’s weird is that they’ve all been women who asked me out in the first place, which always puzzled me. I could kind of understand being stood up if I’d been the one who’d asked them out, but not the other way 'round.
The weirdest one was a classmate in one of my early college math classes. We’d started to get coffee after class, would go to each other’s home to do homework, etc. Then she asked me if I’d like to go to church with her that Sunday, then get lunch afterward. Sunday came, and I went to her church, but she never showed up. Sat through the service, went home, called and left a message (“hey, didn’t see you at church, hope things are okay…”). No call back. Then, she didn’t come to math class again. Odd.
The day of the final, she showed up, sat down next to me. “I am so sorry that I skipped out like that; my ex-boyfriend came over that Saturday with a bunch of coke, and we spent the weekend doing lines and having sex all over the place. God! I had such a coke hangover after that, too. Hey! Wanna get some coffee after the test?”
Wow! Congratulations, Student Driver, I’m proud of you! Seriously. There’s a popular saying, ‘don’t stick your d*ck in teh crazy’, and you are one of the rare men to actually NOT do it.
The only time I ever got stood up was actually by my ex-girlfriend’s current girlfriend. See, by some too-good-to-be true miracle, I managed to arrange a meet up involving me, my girlfriend, my ex, and my ex’s gf for what would hopefully be a guy/girl/girl/girl foursome. Unfortunately, the only person in the meetup who I HADN’T been with in bed before was the one who decided at the last minute that she didn’t want to go through with it, and instead of owning up to it, she turned off her cellphone and hid at a friend’s house the rest of the night. When we talked about it later, she said it just came down to her getting nervous at the last minute, and being worried that everyone would be pissed off about her ruining the party.
And no, the 3 of us who showed did NOT go through with the act. The weirdest thing of all is that it was the IDEA of the one who stood us up to do this in the first place!
Yeah, I got stood up once. There was this great little Italian restaurant very close to where I lived. It was the perfect date restaurant for me, because it was fairly classy looking, the food was good, and it was CHEAP. So I ended up taking a lot of dates there and the staff got used to seeing me every other week with a different woman in tow.
Well, it really sucked one Saturday afternoon when I sat there for 90 minutes waiting for my date to show up, and the waitstaff KNEW I had been stood up because it had been the first time in a year I had arrived sans ladyfriend
I had a friend (opposite sex) who stood me up a few times a while back. Once we had planned to go for a hike up a local escarpment, agreed that she’d meet me at the train station near her place. I show up around 10am, appointed time and she’s nowhere to be seen. I call her house and there’s no response. Since I lived about an hour away by train I thought I’d stick around a while, just to give her a chance in case she slept in.
Well a few hours go by, I’m hanging out in a nearby coffee shop or something. I finally got a hold of her. She told me that she had forgotten that she had to work that day, and she really had to go in, couldn’t cancel. Since I’d made the commute out there we agreed to meet before her work started, just to catch up.
A few hours later, still no show. I gave up at that point and did the hike alone. I let her have it a few days later, telling her how pissed I was. She had no real excuse. Eventually through mutual friends, I learned that this was actually pretty standard with her, she’d just flake out and forget or miss plans.
We’re actually still good friends today, we meet up every few months to catch up. But I’ve got one stipulation, and I’m not shy about letting her know it: she has to come and meet me. I take all of our meetings as a mere possibility, I don’t cancel any plans on her behalf. If she shows up, great, if not, I’m not left holding the bag. It seems to work out well, and she hasn’t missed a date since then.
I’ve been stood up a fuck of a lot. The fact that most of you are telling just one story as your big OMG-I-was-stood-up-this-one-time story is really making me pissed off at life.
Never been stood up, or stood anyone up, but then again I think I’ve had two formal dates in my lifetime. Gosh, it sounds like a really painful experience for a lot of folks.
I told the guy I had plans with for Saturday that I was in fact now dating someone (!), but I still offered to meet up with him as friends. I was kind of surprised when it turned out that he was game for it! So we did in fact go through with the meeting, even though I think we both found it rather awkward. Hard to tell how much of the awkwardness was from the weird situation and how much was the normal awkwardness that I have with meeting new people though. 
