I would have told my friends I had made other plans first, before texting her with your choices.
You put her on the spot. Agree to meet your friends, and she has to have a first date with a bunch of other people. Agree to just you, and she’d be wondering the entire time if you wouldn’t rather be with your friends.
If she means that much to you, apologize profusely and ask for a second chance. If she says no, take it as a lesson learned and move on.
I think there’s a tiny possibility that she met a likely prospect when she was away. Did she get involved? How involved? Did she still have hopes for you?
Who knows? But she was clearly ready to pull the trigger and bail if there were any shenanigans.
Calling, while she’s on her way, to change entirely the dynamic of the ‘date’ definitely qualifies, I think!
Do not ever modify first date plans to involve your friends, unless they already know your friends. But really, not even then. Just kinda screams 'I don’t really want to spend much time with you, how about I get some other people I can talk to?"
“But I have hand!”
“And you’re gonna need it.”
“Do I shave my legs for this?!”
Granted. Agree absolutely. In the ideal world both parties will behave that way: thinking of how it will be received, and thinking of what the sender must have meant, respectively.
The reality is lots of folks are crappy at one or both communicating roles. So their counterparty ends up having to do extra work both ways.
As well, the better you know the other person, the more your knowledge of their biases and contexts become part of your shared history and you don’t have to consciously think about how to say your message; it just happens subconsciously. But tailoring the message to the audience *is *going on. As is them tailoring their listening to the sender. e.g. after 30 years I don’t have to cogitate much on my wife’s context or likely reactions. Nor does she have to guess where I’m coming from.
OTOH, when dealing with people you hardly know, such as arranging a first date, the smart communicator assumes a pretty much lowest common denominator ability in their counterparty. And desperately hopes to be pleasantly surprised as the relationship blossoms. While being, as I said in my first post, willing to walk if the counterparty proves to be more trouble than they’re worth communicating with.
Over the years we’ve had threads out the wazoo about dating. I’m amazed at how often people say that current practice is the first date is either a really big hit or you walk, never bothering to respond to their call or txt again. Anything less than an instant 8+ scores a zero. To me that is an insane way to try to meet somebody for a semi-permanent relationship. Permanent relationships are 99% steak and 1% sizzle. That method of scoring is all about looking for Mr./Ms. 99% sizzle, 1% steak. IOW, its a near-guarantee to fail at your primary mission: finding a stable long term relationship.
But given that this attitude is commonplace, the first date especially seems to me to be *the *place where the smart player thinks at least twice, maybe three times before throwing a curveball. It’s a high leverage high risk move; make damn sure it’s gonna work *before *you pull the trigger.
Our OP neglected to think first, then do.
I’ll certainly agree with that part 110 percent.
I’m not quite as far into geezerhood as you are, but I’m not too far behind, either. And I wholeheartedly agree that this texting culture is just too much some times. Don’t get me wrong… texting is GREAT when you need to convey information. Or just casual conversation. But when you’re trying to make a decision, there is nothing to replace human interaction. If it can’t be face-to-face, at least have it be voice-to-voice. It gives everyone a chance to explain himself, and you can hear things in someone’s voice that text just doesn’t convey.
Plus, I think we all tend to be a bit more edgy when we’re writing as opposed to speaking to someone. I’m sure I’ve posted stuff on this MB that I would rarely say to someone’s face. It’s just natural. This conversation should never had taken place, but if it had been over the phone, I think it would not have been likely to end in a total blow-off like it did.
Another thing we don’t know is what texting occurred between the woman and Velocity after she cancelled. If he had been more understanding and/or apologetic, then it may not have escalated into just calling off any chances for the future.
The answer to the OP seems pretty straightforward to me - turning something from a one-on-one date to ‘hey come hang out with a crowd’ is cancelling the date, and making it an invite to hang with people you know but she doesn’t is worse. Semi-cancelling it but dumping the decision on her just adds indecisiveness and unwillingness to accept responsibility to the mix. Doing it when she’s already gotten psyched up, dressed up, and on the way is pulling the rug out from under her at the last minute. Taken altogether, it shows disinterest in her but is very far from an honest, understandable ‘I’ve changed my mind’. The people saying that she’s acting unreasonably don’t make a lot of sense to me.
What size dating pool are you talking about? If you’re a man looking to date men in a small town, then you have to make the most of any contact. But if you’re straight in a big city, the pool is effectively limitless, and filtering out people who aren’t a fit really makes a lot of sense. A lot of the people that I’ve seen cut things short after one date do things for very much ‘steak’ reasons, like fundamental incompatibility or big red flags (mistreating wait staff, not respecting boundaries). But we are all just going off impressions and guesses, you might be seeing a different behavior than I do.
Also, the OP wasn’t just ‘less than an instant 8+’, the OP was scoring somewhere in the 0-2 range IMO.
I have heard of people who ended things on a first date for a sizzle reason… but it’s the rare minority. Most first date horror stories are red flags big enough to serve in a May Day parade.
All of this.
I don’t date. I think the inherently nerve-wracking nature of the whole thing would kill me.
But I totally understand why a person–especially a woman over a certain age–would say “fuck it!” in this situation. It’s not about lack of kindness or compassion. It’s about knowing what you want in a dating partner. If you don’t want to be with someone who would put you in this awkward situation, why pretend otherwise?
I don’t accept invitations lightly. Saying “yes” to someone is a big deal for me. So if an invitation changes at the last minute for no good reason (and I’d say this was a “no good reason” situation), it really isn’t that hard for me to say “fuck it”, just to spare my feelings in the case I’m being jerked around. My desire to not being played a fool is much more important than the desire to impress someone with my “niceness”. People who value being nice over their own instincts tend to regret it later.
This is not the end of the world, Velocity. Going through shit like this is necessary to learn what works.
I would not appreciate an invite to hang out with my date’s friends instead of having a proper first date. I would probably go ahead and pick the original plan option and go through with it, but that’s strike one.
I’d like to think that if I had got to know someone a bit before the first date - even as tenuously as via the Internet - that she wouldn’t run off at the very first sign of weirdness or social inadequacy.
No - getting a text from a friend to hang out and then texting your date asking if she’d like to hang out with your friends or original date plans is not a typical reason for flaking on a date. Oh wait… ;).
Anyway, I agree with those who said it wasn’t that odd that she cancelled once you seemingly changed the date (she probably thought you were more interested to hang out with your friends, because who does that, right?). And being in her late 20s, she probably thought she doesn’t need to waste time dating people who aren’t right, especially if she wants to have kids.
I really don’t know what was going on with your date and you – there’s just too little information to have an opinion. But speaking for myself, a one-on-one date would be more stressful than meeting up casually with a group of people. I’d have jumped at the chance to meet up with friends. It spreads the conversation and socializing around, and I enjoy meeting people. Also, there’s the chance I would meet someone I like better than my date, and that could lead to good things.
Your last minute change would have made me assume that you’d changed your mind while I was out of town. The last minute nature of it would have made me think you’d forgotten until that moment, and had just realized you’d double booked yourself for the evening.
I would have backed out, but because I’d have been convinced, based upon your behavior, that it was what you really wanted but were too much of a gentleman to come out and say it.
If I’d put a lot of thought into the possibilities, maybe had my hair and nails done and gone to considerable trouble to look nice for the date, I might also be fairly offended that you hadn’t just said something the day before. All that nervousness and botheration for a guy who had changed his mind in the interim? Bah!!
And for all you know, she was missing something she’d wanted to do with her girls, because she had a previous commitment with you. You see, some folks consider social commitments to be sacrosanct. We don’t consider other options, no matter how much better they might be, once we are booked.
In fact, as I sit here, I am convinced that you really did change your mind. It seems clear that you were not greatly looking forward to having some time to spend just with her. Dividing your attention and hers was preferable enough to you that risked changing, last minute, on a first date, in order to achieve it. You MUST have known this was a risky thing to attempt, as you are at pains to make sure we know you left the choice with her.
And you didn’t say “Heck no, sorry boys, I have a date with an angel tonight . . .”
While it would not necessarily be appropriate for a romantic partner to expect that level of priority every time forever, if the first date is not a priority to you, she is justified in assuming it never will be. And texting (not even calling, so you could gauge her response?!?) on the way to the restaurant?
Seriously, dude, you bailed. Why you don’t want to just admit it and move on is the only thing puzzling me. She let you off the hook. Go do what you obviously really want to do.
Her reaction seems extreme, but it’s also extreme to plan a date several weeks in advance and to randomly try to change your date to a group outing with a bunch of strangers.
My bold. I think the fact that you did it over text instead of calling her was probably a factor as well. Call and discuss a change of plans with someone instead of texting them. It’s more personal and you can more easily communicate your exact intentions. I would add “no last minute changes by text” to your list of mistakes to avoid.
If the friends had been meeting at a restaurant that the OP knew the date wanted to try, or they were meeting up for bar trivia and she’d been bragging about how awesome she is at knowing random facts, then it would be slightly more reasonable to offer a change of plans at the last minute. It would seem more like he had a better idea for their date instead of seeming like he wasn’t interested in the date anymore. But even then it still could be misconstrued. I’d say the best option would have been to go through with the original plan, and then if everything is going well and they want to keep hanging out but not yet ready to go back to someone’s apartment, then the OP could see if his buddies are still hanging out nearby and offer that as an option, but also offer the option of staying for drinks or dessert at their current restaurant.
I agree, with so much lead time she might have had time to overthink things, and maybe she was wondering if he had met someone new and that’s why he was changing plans and maybe not interested anymore.
I bet she reads women’s magazines with all sorts of advice on how to skip out on dates with men and she was all “omg, he’s using my plans on me!”