Not necessarily, the way I see it this could have three results.
1)She IS a flake, she schedules another date then backs out. It’s probably just how she is in real life, it’s up to you to decide if you’re okay with that.
2)She’s not flake, there’s other things or people in her life, she liked you but just wasn’t ready to meet you for any one of a million reasons, and she calls again and sets up a real date.
3)She was trying to let you down nicely, she won’t reply to this email and that’ll be that.
This is why I suggested sending one final email and then moving forward with your life. If she writes back, great, if not you weren’t putting your life on hold for nothing.
Uh, yes you do owe something. At a minimum, you owe someone with whom you’ve made prior arrangements at least the base courtesy of notice that you’re not going to be available to make the planned engagement. I find it hard to conceive that you’d treat a date–someone who has at least made sufficient effort to attract your interest and arrange his schedule to meet–with less courtesy than you’d treat an anonymous salesman. What kind of mangled code of civil conduct did you learn growing up?
It seems to me that the kind of people who have an attitude on common courtesy similar to Alice The Goon’s shouldn’t be surprised to find themselves single and still looking into their 40’s…
(I am pretty sure Alice once recently said she was in her mid-40’s)
If it is option #2, then she should have at least called back or SMS’d and indicated that she wouldn’t be available this afternoon; the thirty seconds of effort that would take is scarcely a burden on even the modest emotional reserves she may employ. If it was Option #3 (which really makes no sense to me, because she had plenty of opportunity to excuse herself or even just disappear into the wind), then the obvious response is just not to contact her.
Ultimately, for the o.p. it doesn’t matter whether she is constitutionally flaky or whether she is yoking him around to boost her ego; the fact remains that she has demonstrated a lack of basic courtesy and doesn’t deserve the interest or time of the o.p. It is her onus to come back and offer an apology and reschedule, else he should just move on, and get used to this, as it is more the rule than the exception.
If she was trying to be nice, I’d say she had failed miserably. She should have just made up some lame excuse, it doesn’t really matter what it is, and tell me she won’t make it. That way I wouldn’t have wasted my time waiting for her. It’s not nice to tell a guy “sure, let’s meet up this afternoon, but let me check with my friends to see when we’ll be done” and then just disappear.
There will always be lonely guys willing to put women on pedestals and put up with this nonsense, unfortunately.
Edit: As for trying to let him down nicely- exactly, what ^they^ said. If she’d said “Oh… gee… I’m busy… maybe some other time” as is standard dating protocol he would have gotten the hint and moved on. But no, she specifically told him that she was interested and that she would be meeting him that day- she did this twice. That’s leading him on.
This also allows you to be more casual, and do something rather than just sit across a table trying to make conversation with someone you don’t know and who has apparently lost the power of speech. I kind of like browsing at a book store, going to a farmers market, or meeting at an art gallery or botanical gardens because it gives you something to walk around and comment on instead. I personally find it a lot easier to be fun and engaging when my focus is on something else rather than on the woman I’m with, and I’m less likely to drive the conversation (which I find I nearly always have to do) by turning it into an interview.
Don’t bother wasting any more time trying to figure out what is going on in her head, 'cause you’ll never know and the answer probably wouldn’t make you any happier. (Trust me, I’ve had insight into the female thought process via my female friends and it is unbelievably convoluted.) Just move on.
No, I’m not in my mid-40’s, I suffer no paucity of dates, and I’m not even the one that brought it up. I knew it would cause a bunch of panty-bunching, though. All I’m saying is, if you’ve been online dating for a while, it gets to be like the other person isn’t really human to you until after you’ve met them. Depending on how prolific you want to be, you could converse online with hundreds of people over time. I think it’s only natural and human to, at some point after doing this time after time, start to look at it like that- the real people in your life take precedence over a picture of someone online. I’m not saying I flake on people- I really don’t unless I sense danger- I’m just saying I can see how people get like that. It’s done to me all the time.
I said I wouldn’t, I didn’t say that it comes up and I don’t. It doesn’t really come up for me- I try to meet someone I’m emailing with within a week or so, because I’m not into chatting forever and trying to establish an emotional connection first. I carefully plan my dating times, as I’m a busy woman and can’t just fly by the seat of my pants, and I don’t schedule friend-time during dating-time. So rarely would I even be telling a guy I might meet up with him later in the day- I just don’t operate like that. I plan things in advance. I was JUST saying that I could understand that mentality. Jeez! Put down the goddamn torches!
She sounds like a flaky pain. I’d stay away from her, sorry.
Strike 1: She told you to call her on Friday. This is a pet-peeve of mine, so make of it what you will, but she has a phone just as much as you do. So she doesn’t need you to call her to confirm a plan; she’s can call you. I hate it when people tell me to call them. It’s self-centered. Taken by itself, not a big deal, though.
Strike 2: She said she was going to call you right back. Did she? No. That probably means she doesn’t respect you enough to do what she said she was going to do. She just wanted to get off the phone. How lame.
Strike 3. There’s no reason she couldn’t have checked with her friends about brunch prior to sending you that last email. If she really wanted to lock down a time a place to see you, she would have squared up her other business like an adult.
Online dating just isn’t for the tender of heart. It’s a cold, cruel world out there. You just move on and keep fishing. She’s (probably) out there, somewhere.
I would suggest that you really don’t want to get involved with people who do that - it wasn’t nice, and there really isn’t any excuse (barring some actual emergency). I did the online dating thing, too - I don’t think I ever flaked on a commitment I made to meet someone. That is rude, and I wasn’t raised to be rude.
Kind of funny story - I thought my husband was late to our date the day we met; we arranged to meet at a restaurant with a lounge and a restaurant, and I was in the lounge, and he was in the restaurant. Punctuality and reliability is very important to both of us, and we started off with both of us thinking the other was late.
So, am I the only one who read the OP and figured she is married and trying to sneak around?
She couldn’t take his call randomly (husband around).
She has to reschedule at the last minute (husband wanted to do something)
She has to check what her “friends” are up to (husband)
