Reason for flaking on a date - is this typical?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I asked out a woman (let’s call her Laura) on a date - old-fashioned conversation over dinner at a restaurant, etc. - and she said yes. This is a woman I had known for several months, so we were to a certain acquainted. All seemed fine and normal up to this point. Several weeks elapsed between the time I asked her out, and the actual day of the dinner itself, since Laura had to travel abroad in between.

Fast forward to that day:

As the time approached, another person texted me and told me that several friends happened to be at a nearby restaurant, too, suggesting that I join. So I thought to myself, maybe I should suggest to Laura that we both go there and join in the festivities. (I knew these people, Laura probably didn’t.)

So I sent a text to Laura to the effect of:

*We have two options:

  1. We can join some of my friends at a nearby restaurant,
    or
  2. We can just meet up at the original restaurant and proceed with the date dinner plans as originally arranged. *(She was still on the way, presumably driving, as this occurred.)

I made it very clear that she had free choice and that either option was fine.

Laura’s response was a bit startling; she canceled the date dinner plans abruptly and said she wasn’t coming. She later texted again and told me that we would likely never date again, that I had put her in a dilemma, because if she went to join the party she would feel awkward but if she opted for us to simply go with the original date-dinner plans that she would come across as desperate, so she “had no choice but to refuse both [options].” And for a time from then she was also avoidant and/or hostile to me in a way that she wasn’t before. We have barely spoken to each other since.

Again, up the point where I sent that text, she had seemed perfectly fine and normal.

I am not so much asking who was right or wrong, as I am just asking if this is typical or atypical behavior. I’m quite confused, when trying to figure out what happened. IMHO, it seemed like a rather extreme reaction on her part. If I had told her “Dinner plans are changed, Laura, we’re going to join my friends at the nearby restaurant whether you like it or not” then that would have been totally jarring to her, and her reaction would have been understandable, but I had merely texted it as a suggestion and made it very clear that she was perfectly free to decline that suggestion and that we could simply proceed with the original date-dinner plans by the two of ourselves as planned. I made it very clear that I was offering her 2 options as a choice and that either of the options was fine.

Thoughts? I know many if not most Dopers are more experienced or informed than I am about this sort of thing.

2

She was looking for a reason to bail on dinner. You gave it to her. Doesn’t matter if it makes any sense or not.

3

In her defense, why did you decide to offer this alternative if you had initially wanted to go on a more traditional date? Was it just because of convenience of killing two birds with one stone (date and friends)? Why do you imagine she’d want to spend her first date with you, competing for your attention?

Look, you’re not a horrible person for suggesting an alternative last minute. Another person who isn’t Laura might have reacted very differently. But you put her in a situation where she has to try to impress you and a group of strangers. That’s a lot of pressure for some. Anyway, as a general rule, first dates are not typically group outings - unless that’s what you agree to from the start. Just learn from the experience and try to avoid it going forward.

4

As a side bar, I would say don’t make a date that far in advance. Weird things can happen. Might have been better to say that you’d give her a call once she was back.

5

That, or she assumed you asked her on a date as a potential prelude to a romantic relationship. She accepted, thinking that a romantic relationship with you wasn’t an undesirable outcome. Your last minute text indicated you probably weren’t interested in such a relationship, so she bailed.

Seriously, if your original intentions were for this to be a romantic date, you blew it. Even the suggestion of “Let’s convert this to a dinner with a bunch of people you don’t know.” pissed her off.

6

Good riddance. Move on.

Having said that (which I did), I would never suggest to whom had originally been a “date” that we expand it into something entailing more than the two of us. A date is just two people, unless originally defined differently.

7

Suggesting a change of plans was unwise. You’re nervous on a first date. Suddenly giving a person plan choices while they’re literally driving to meet you is just not something you do. You had a plan, stick to it. I can totally understand why she bailed.

From her perspective I can think of no positive interpretation of your sudden “hey, maybe we should hang with my friends instead.”

8

Oh, to set the record straight. You’re the one who “flaked” on the date. Not Laura. Whatever her other faults may or may not be. Which you’ll now never know. :wink:

9

And the change wasn’t just “Oh, this new Korean place opened up that I’ve heard good things about, do you want to go there instead of the original place?” You were trying to change it from a date into something else that’s not a date.

It really does smack of “I’d rather hang with my friends than be alone with you, but I’m too much of a gentleman to just stand you up, so do you want to come along?” I know you offered her the option of sticking to the original plan, but the fact you even considered going out with your friends is kind of insulting to her.

10

BZZZT. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200 dollars.

You just changed the whole dynamic OF YOUR FIRST DATE with this woman AT THE VERY LAST MINUTE. And you put the ONUS ON HER TO BE THE SPOILER. Unless you’re some fabulous catch, you just broke too many rules before you even got to the plate.

11

You brought it up to her b/c you wanted to hang w/ your friends equally as much as you wanted to see her. Her choice was to either refuse to change plans and risk how that might look or go along w/ your changing the plan and set a precedent that your plans cannot be trusted to remain as promised (some people are flexible like that and some aren’t). Those are not good choices and it was not cool of you to do that to a person you’ve only just started dating.
However, if that’s the kind of person you are then it was good for her to see your flakiness at the outset and not waste her time if she isn’t flake-tolerant. B/c you may not see it this way but YOU are the flake here. She didn’t change the plans, you did.
And yes, your vacillation is sadly typical in dating nowadays. I see both men and women in the dating scene over 30 years old who don’t seem to value the time of others very much. The good thing is those people are usually easy to spot and avoid.

12

Yeah, I don’t understand what she said to you, but when you posted the two options, my first read was: “She is going to think that she misread the situation and assumed you were asking her out on a real date; but now it seems like you want some kind of casual, no-strings-attached hangout thing that she may not be into.”

13

I agree with the majority who say you put her in a crappy situation. But I’d also add that she really kind of overreacted. How old is she?

14

Thanks to all the replies by everyone, the feedback makes a lot of sense now. I didn’t see things from the opposite perspective well enough. I think Nawth Chucka’s response encapsulated it in a nutshell best.

15

She is in her late 20s.

16

Pretty much agree with the feedback so far. I’m afraid you blew it.

If I’d been asked out weeks ago by a gentleman friend, agreed to it, thought we were going out for dinner for two, I would approach the whole situation as a date. Dressed for a date, groomed for a date, everything that entails.

If he then said at the very last minute - like, while I was en route to the aforementioned date - “hey, would you rather hang out with a bunch of my friends that you don’t know instead?”, I would be pretty narked. I thought this was a DATE ferrchrissakes, and now you’re telling me I’m already friend-zoned?! Forget it.

If you have romantic inclinations towards “Laura”, you might be able to rescue it by contacting her and apologising for being such a ridiculous klutz when it came to the whole date thing, that you realise now what a stupid thing it was to ask, and you’d really like another shot at dinner - just the two of you. Or just walk away.

17

Lots of people have a very hard time understanding one very basic fact.

It doesn’t matter what you (any you) said or what you meant. It only matters how it sounds to the other person from *their *POV and given *their *context. That’s the message that gets delivered. And no other.
For sure there are crazy people with whom you’ll never be able to communicate because their POV & their context is crazy. Good riddance to them. And there are hostile people just itching to find a way to be offended. Good riddance to them too.

The less well you know somebody, the more you have to say to yourself “I don’t know and can’t accurately predict their POV or their context. So I need to supply lots of extra context so we have some common context to reduce miscommunication. And I need to actively consider how this sounds to POVs directly opposite from mine. Because that might be the one they’re using.”
What the OP did was utterly fail to consider how what he said would sound to anyone other than himself in his context. That doesn’t make him bad. It does make him lonelier than he expected to be. Oops.

18

You probably dodged a bullet on this one. But you were wrong in how you handled it. You put her in the uncomfortable position of keeping you from your friends. Even though you said it didn’t matter to you, you kind of did say it mattered by making it an option that came up.

Most girls want guys that are self confident but at the same time make them feel special.

By saying that hanging out with your friends was an option (especially on a first date), you communicated numerous things:

  1. maybe your insecure being alone with her, or 2) your friends are more important than she is.

Live and learn.

19

Boy, count me as surprised as to how personally she took it and how this thread is reacting to it.

My first thought was good for you because you presented her with a get out of jail free card. Maybe she would have been more comfortable in a group situation, maybe she wanted it to be personal…you left it up to her.

Personally, I didn’t think anything is wrong with what you did and I think she overreacted WAY more than she should have.

20

I have to disagree. If I was meeting a guy for a first date I would think it was fun to meet up with friends. I’d find it flattering that he’d want to introduce me to friends, and most of the people I know and hang out with operate on the More The Merrier framework. I think her reaction is over the top - she could just have said “no I’d much rather hang out just you and me” and not made a big hairy deal out of it. She sounds like more trouble than she’s worth.