:eek: Get this. She didn’t know we were going to dinner. She thought it was a party. At the restaurant. After I said “OK, we’re still on for dinner at 7:00, right?” Twice.
I do believe that she really didn’t understand the situation correctly. It completely explains all the weirdness (bringing friend, waiting until later). Please just give my judgment the benefit of the doubt in this and don’t let the thread devolve into “nah uh” “yeah huh”
She pleaded with me to come out and have a couple of drinks to make up for it. So get asked to bring company, agree to postpone two hours, and then go after her in a setting I in no way planned? No way, jose. I told her she could call me if she ever wanted to do anything. Disco Stu don’t strut to that beat.
That makes me feel better, actually. I can’t even imagine how badly my brain would blank if someone asked me that. Complete blindside.
This is exactly what I’m thinking. If a guy asked me to dinner, I would assume that he had asked all the people he wanted there. The reservation is a perfect excuse for letting her know that this isn’t cool - dates are not for people to just invite other people willy-nilly.
Plus, if she truly forgot she was going to hang out with her friend, how long before she forgets that she made plans with you, too? This isn’t a character trait that I find attractive.
If you really want to feel better, I once went to a movie with a group of friends including a girl I liked, she knew I liked her, I paid for her ticket, and she didn’t even sit next to me.
Just to clarify, did the three of you actually go out to dinner? If so, when and how did this girl finally “get it” that she screwed up (if this was indeed unintentional)? When you three sat down to duck ala third-wheel? How did you handle the check? Did girl and/or third-wheel gracefully go dutch? Or was the whole thing aborted before it got that far?
I think you have escaped lightly, ForumBot. Of course, we can’t know for sure, and speculation can go on forever, but on the evidence available I’d say that, whether you were being messed around or she genuinely didn’t understand / forgot, this particular lady isn’t your best bet for a happy togetherness.
So, if we believe her own words, she’s the sort of person who makes a promise, and not just to anyone but to an apparently close friend, and then forgets about it, even though the interval is only a week - not a big stretch for anyone with normal memory capacity. Not a big stretch for someone with the ability to scribble something in a diary or on a Post-It note or in her email calendar function or whatever. How hard is something like this to remember?
Maybe, maybe not. I suspect that she understood perfectly and was trying to convert a ‘date’ into something less. She’s entitled to do this, of course. Just as you’re entitled to forget she exists, renew your self-esteem and look for someone who knows how to treat others well, and with good manners. And with enough brain cells to remember agreed arrangements from one week to the next.
For a good take on this, may I quote from a female friend of mine, who was talking to me about dating and being asked out. She said, “If it’s something I want to do, I’m always available. If it’s something I don’t want to do, I’m never available”. This is how it goes. If this particular lady had had some serious interest in you, the claimed ‘arrangement’ with her friend would have been set aside as irrelevant and she wouldn’t even have mentioned it.
Though a lot of the time the SDMB seems to resort to a kneejerk “if there’s any imperfection in interaction, run a mile” opinion in most issues pertaining to relationships, which I usually decry, in this instance I tend to agree with ianzin, and in particular his female friend.
People do what they want to do.
The older I get, the more I realise that about 90% of the time, people reveal their feelings by their actions. There’s no point in picking things apart to reveal the inner truth: the truth comes out through behaviour. If someone brings a friend to a date, there’s a tiny chance it might be a misunderstanding. But the biggest likelihood is that she’s just not that into you.
If it makes you feel any better, ForumBot, when I was 18 I asked a girl out to the movies, she agreed, I was over the moon - and it was only as we left her house that I realised she was bringing her 10-year-old brother with her too. Needless to say she sat him between us at the cinema, and that was the end of that.
That makes sense. Honestly, if I knew a guy worked at a restaurant, I might think it odd for him to take me there for dinner. Don’t ask me why. Maybe because resto workers might feel weird being served by their co-workers, or 'cause they’re sick of eating the same food.
As for the friend… I don’t think it’s that dire. I have been the third wheel for much of my life (I know, the expression isn’t quite right re: tricycles and all that). Not for dinners, but for drinks and going out. I wasn’t a total cock blocker. More of a litmus test. But I would just as soon encourage a friend to go for a guy I found nice as I would drag her away from a guy who’s drunk and starting fights.
But what’s the point of all the second-guessing and speculating - the way to find out for sure would be to go along with it and see what happens, all the while, acting graciously and politely. Ideas based on speculation might turn out to be self-fulfilling disasters.
You did the right thing, ForumBot. She didn’t consider it a date and her response to you AFTER you made everything clear tells me that she still thought that way. “Come out for drinks!” is not what a woman who’s into a guy says. If you went along, things wouldn’t have ended up well for you I’m suspecting.
A friend of mine had this happen. I was almost the date.
I called him up that night and,
Me: Hey, A, what are you doing tonight?
A: I asked B out. We’re going to X*
Me: Okay, cool. I’ll see what else is going on.
Later, I got a call:
B: Hey, we’re all getting together for drinks at X*
Me: Um… I don’t think I’m invited. I think you’re supposed to go with just A.
B: No! We’re just friends!
The next night I hear:
A: Well, that sucked. C showed up. He was there all night.
*I should point it out that it wasn’t X, which hadn’t even opened at the time. It was a quiter, smaller place called Rumours.
C is pretty clearly the other person who went with B, since B thought A and she were just friends. A thought it was a date, and C never left to let it become one.
This isn’t a date. It’s an LSAT word problem.