I don’t think they are either – they’re trying to be supportive. Which I appreciate, because the OP was a transparent plea for sympathy.
Fair enough.
fetus just did. Aren’t you paying attention? Oh, wait…
Stranger
I think it’s very rude that it’s been 48 hours since you sent your e-mail and there’s been no response. This, of course, is assuming that he got it and read it, which he most likely did. If he’s read it and hasn’t responded, that’s a rude and insensitive thing to do. Even if he’s not interested he should at least respond. Unless he’s on some sort of trip and has no access to a computer, there is no excuse for that.
Anyway, I hate it when people do shit like that.
No one is saying that, but like I said above, it’s rude.
Say, fetus, why would someone do this? Why do you think the guy would not reply to her e-mail after 48 hours? Is he just lazy, or what?
Fetus, if you went out on a date, and the girl e-mailed you a nice note the next day, would you respond right away, or wait more than 2 days, or not respond at all? And why?
More like 36 – we had dinner Weds. evening, and I sent the email Thurs. morning.
Please don’t judge any guy by some standard that he himself may not even have knowledge of.
Personally, I adhere to the 24-hour rule–I’ve lost too many prospects by being overanxious. (I have broken the rule when I was just so damn head-over-heels that I was going to drive myself crazy if I didn’t call her. Which has happened several times.)
However, it’s like Hearts: once the card is played, it’s “broken” and I can go right ahead and play my hearts card. (Awwww!)
More than 2 days? A little much. But I’ve known girls who do that. Some probably don’t want to appear overanxious. In the case of one ex, her responses to mail on MySpace are long and calculated, and she takes a long time to respond to a message because she’s thinking about what she’ll say back. You wait a long time, but once you get the message it’s a veritable gold mine of all the facts, opinions and emotions of everything that’s going on in her life. Mileage varies.
And FTR, please spell my name with a lowercase f. Thanks.
I hope he --well, I was going to say calls, but I guess we’re all standing by the modem now, instead of the phone.*
I’d date Stranger in a heartbeat, but I’m married. <sigh>
Sorry, Stranger, didn’t mean to make things awkward for you there–let’s say I’d go to dinner with you in a heartbeat–but ONLY if you agree to watch Age of Innoncence afterwards…Scorsese, but no DeNiro. It’s a compromise, like most of dating. 
So, this is the world I face if and when I am free and alone, eh? It sounds sucky and awkward and yes, humiliatingly frustrating. Much like life for me already. Hmmmm.
<stabs spoon into Hagen-Daz; commiserates with twickster>
*not real savvy on puter parts, so I might have that wrong.
I tend to agree with this, depending. You don’t want to appear too eager, and you might want to create a little tension. Too much tension, of course, is rude.
Every man is different, and every situation is different. But let’s say I went on a date with a woman that I felt was not so right for me. I’d probably just not ever contact her any more. A little rude? Maybe. But that’s how the game is usually played. If I got an e-mail that said a curt “that was fun”, I might send back a quick “thanks”, and hope it would just die out from there. If I got “that was fun, let’s do it again”, I might respond “I’m glad you had a good time, but I’m not sure we’re really right for each other.” If I got something so wonderful and heartfelt as what twickster wrote, I’d respond in kind, maybe including something about how she’s going to make some lucky guy very happy some day.
If my reply gets a reply, I won’t, er, reply.
If he doesn’t have knowledge of the universal standard known as “common courtesy,” then twickster is better off without him!!
You seriously believe that this guy’s failure to jump right on his computer and fire out an email indicates he’d be a bad partner for twickster, and that you’re the one to decide?
I can handle The Age of Innocence. Besides, I swear that Scorsese must have worked the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” into there somewhere as he does with every other film he makes. The marriage thing is a deal-breaker, however.
Stranger
That’s just my take on the situation. If he read her e-mail and decided for whatever reason not to respond after 36 hours, then I think that’s rude and not very courteous. That’s just my opinion, however. I just wonder why… I’m curious as to the mindset of someone who would just not respond to a nice e-mail from someone he went on a date with. The only thing I can think of is that he’s (1) not interested; or (2) lazy or insensitive.
So, twickster… any word yet?
What you’re calling lack of common courtesy is, in Dating World, standard operating procedure. The ignored communique happens far more often than not. It’s rude in Business World, Family World, and Friend World, but Dating World is a whole 'nother world. The normal rules don’t apply.
I think the thinking behind it is that any further communication is seen as encouragement.
And it’s not just men who do this. Trust me, women do the same thing all the time. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think of a time when a woman did not do this to me. OK, once. Recently. But she was a pretty close coworker. Guess what world she was operating in at the time?
Yeah, it sucks, and we can try to rise above it, but we can do little change SOP.
To be fair, I actually agree with you. To go this long without sending a reply is a little weird. I’m just saying that it’s plenty reasonable to believe that his own rule is more like a “48-hour rule” or a “72-hour rule” than a “24-hour rule”. “Hey, sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, things have been CRAZY at work.” Maybe he’s aiming to show her that he’s career-oriented, not a hopeless romantic–which, if I know twickster, would be a good place to look for a commonality. Could be anything like that. Not the nicest thing to do to an enchanting date and a great wordsmith ( 
), but I wouldn’t call it “rude”. Potato, potato, I guess.
ETA: Re tdn’s point, I’m kind of struggling with this right now. Now that I think about it, there are three different women I’m ignoring all communications from, for two reasons: one, I don’t want to encourage them, since it’s not going to work out well for anyone involved; and two, since I haven’t gotten laid much this year, I’m afraid I’ll agree to something I shouldn’t out of desperation if I have any more contact with them. I’ve actually had sex with two of them, though, so maybe that’s a little different.
Nope.
OTOH, I’ve arranged to get together with a (different) gentleman friend for the weekend, coming up on the 12th-13th … so now I can start clockwatching on that instead. angelic smiley
Yeah, as far as an x-hour rule goes, if you’re that rigid about your rules, it’s you that’s going to break in a strong breeze. On the other hand, you have to have some sort of boundry, else you be a pathetic loser waiting by the phone (or computer) pining for the callback.
I think the best attitude to take in this situation is “I communicated what I wanted to, I left the door open, but I don’t care one way or the other what happens from here. In the meantime, there are 2,999,999,999 more guys out there, and I’m going to go meet 23 of them tonight.”
It’s your best chance at a win/win.
Perfect. While you’re waiting for that to happen, line up another two guys for the weekend after that.