Had a nice date set up tonight. Cute, brilliant woman with a scathing wit and wicked sense of humor. We were going to have a nice, early dinner at 5 at a restaurant downtown in an area I was unfamiliar with. Google maps made it look simple enough, despite all the one-way streets. Of course, seeing it on a map and actually driving into it are completely different things.
I parked about a mile north at 4:45. Plenty of time to make it if I walk briskly, I told myself. The sun was setting in the west, the restaurant was a straight shot south. So I look at the sky, gauge my location…
And proceeded to walk north. :smack:
Half an hour later, I realize that my idiotic inner radar has failed me. Turn around, walk half an hour back to my car. No way to salvage this now. We didn’t exchange numbers (online dating, natch), so there’s no way for me to even tell her how much of a dolt I am.
Arrive home. Angry email. Good luck with your life and dating, etc. I send a contrite reply, but I’m pretty sure I’ve blown it.
Sounds to me like she has a short fuse, if she assumes you did this on purpose rather than give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I’m too much of an optimist (never something I’ve been accused of) but if someone who wanted to go out with me inadvertently stood me up, I wouldn’t send them an angry email. And if someone sent me a contrite email explaining what happened, I would accept and make sure that numbers were exchanged right in the email.
If I did my hair and makeup, got all fancied up for a date and the guy didn’t show up, I’d be pretty displeased as well. I know you didn’t do it on purpose but I can imagine her sitting there, alone, after telling the server that she was waiting for someone. Sitting there embarrassed and getting more and more annoyed. Eventually accepting that she’d been stood up and collecting her purse and coat and heading out, alone.
Still would have been a good idea for precisely this reason. If you are about to meet them in person there’s really no reason to withhold your numbers. Could have totally avoided catastrophe and assured her you weren’t standing her up if you only had done so.
If its any comfort, I had 25 years of failures at dating. Hated it. I stayed in some bad relationships, reluctant to let go, just because dates were so excrutiating to go on. I sometimes joke that I got married just so I didn’t have to be out there looking looking looking for a mate - but there is the tiniest kernel of truth to it.
Ouch, being stood up on a first date, no matter the reason, is painful for both parties! Hard to salvage that. Better luck in the future.
The guy I went out to dinner with tonight obsessed to me about his couponing, and advised me that we would never go somewhere that he doesn’t have a coupon for. Now, he failed at dating.
When I met my husband (from an online site), he was LATE! (Cardinal sin for me.) It turns out we were meeting in a restaurant and lounge, and I was in the lounge and he was in the restaurant. I have my fingers crossed for you, Headrush, that your lady will give you another chance.
Well, you could do what I do and just not date. Being single doesn’t necessarily mean you are out there looking for a mate and having disastrous dates. Been there, done that, married two of them. I hate dating. I like having a male companion, but to paraphrase Hemingway, I don’t want to have to work to get one.
Maybe if you could email her a copy of this thread, throwing yourself at her mercy, she’ll see the light and give you one more go. But this time with directions. Good luck!
Well, you kinda sucked big time. *Get *the number, *don’t *walk 1 mile. I can see the wrong direction, but the other two things were so stupid that I will go ahead and blame you for that also.
Oh, if you walk briskly???
Listen, next time you have a date, come here with a step by step plan, and don’t do any improvising without our approval. Seriously.
Haha, I’m with you on that, handsomeharry – I accept all blame for this one, and I don’t blame her one bit for never wanting to speak to me again. I truly feel awful about ruining her evening.
Getting her number wasn’t an option, she made it clear there’d be a face-to-face before that happened (and probably with good reason – I know a few people who’ve regretted giving their number out). I should have given her my number anyways, at least so she could call and see what’s up when I didn’t show up.
Walking a mile downtown is a bad idea? I’d posit walking a mile is easier than driving a mile in the area I was in. I would have made it with a few minutes to spare if I wasn’t so directionally-challenged. I could have found better parking though, that’s for sure, but I wasn’t worried at all about the walk when I finally did find parking.
Alice, that sounds painful! Coupons?? That’s just bizarre!
Thanks for the well-wishes, folks. You guys rock I’m pretty sure I’m just eating the loss on this one – I don’t expect another chance from this one. Next time, I’ll be sure to give her my number no matter what and tell her if I’m late, I’m probably wandering the projects nearby and likely in need of rescue
When I met my husband (sort of blind date- set up by friends and had been emailing back and forth a bit) I was late. We had agreed to meet in front of the restaurant which had a very small area so that there would be no mistaking each other, and I had a very rough afternoon- bad day at work, home late then arguing with/disciplining my son which left me in a foul mood anyway. He was just about to give up on the date and leave when I rushed up, all out of breath and disheveled and explained why I was so late and probably wouldn’t be good company that night anyway. Thankfully he was smitten (as was I) and decided to give me another chance. He pretended that he hadn’t been waiting in the late afternoon sun for almost an hour and just motioned to the hostess that we were ready to be seated and we had a lovely dinner. He even stopped at a nearby bakery and picked up a dessert to send home with me for my son.
I am also crossing my fingers that your lady sees reason and gives you a second chance or that you find someone even better. Don’t beat yourself up, these things happen and if you are “meant to be” she will understand that too, and will see the humor in the situation.
Hey don’t feel bad. I struck out three times this week. One of those was a date with a friend that I didn’t even know was a date until I got there! I thought it was going to be a ‘hey let’s all hang out at the bar and drink and such’ so I showed up in my normal hangout clothes. Yea it was just her and she was all dolled up. UUuuugh…
This is a classic example of projected repressed sexual discombobulation. On the one hand, you may rejoice in the knowledge that your inner GPS is most likely not faulty. If, for example, the destination location you set out to locate via your innate navigational perception was, say, to a pizza parlor that was “a *straight *shot south” and the reward was, say, a big cream-filled proprietary calzone, no doubt you would have locked your neuronal radar onto the precise pizza parlor coordinates and honed in to that wicked calzone in nothing flat. However, in this case, the destination reward was not the forbidden pleasure of a devilishly delicious calzone—it was a woman: a woman with whom you may, at some point, be expected to engage in flagrante delicto, sexually.
However, in a concerted subconscious effort to disallow this repressed act of aversion from coming to fruition, your id, ego and superego all conspired to short-circuit your mental sextant (emphasis on “sex”), resulting in your traveling a route completely opposite to the one leading to…a woman. You did not go the “straight” shot south, you went—the other way. Opposite; north/south; yin/yang; man/woman; heterozygous/homogenize (not that there is anything wrong with that). Remember the immortal words of Siegfried Amadeus Freud, “there are no incidents in life."
…or, perhaps you just got lost.
Disclaimer: I am not currently a licensed…well, anything (IANCAL…W,A), anywhere in the continental United States, Canada or Liberia, pending dropping of overblown charges by an overzealous prosecuting attorney and a misguided federal grand jury.
Lemme get this straight. You say you’re “Directionally challenged.” You say you went downtown, someplace you apparently don’t normally go. You looked at a Google map, but not a real map or any other web map. You say you parked a mile (!) away. You say you didn’t plan to arrive 30 minutes early.
You 100% planned to fail by 100% failing to plan. No sympathy here.
If you are “directionally challenged”, NEVER agree to meet someplace you haven’t been to and can easily find in the dark in traffic. And NEVER plan to arrive less than 30 minutes before you really need to. If you’re also “chonologically challenged”, make it an hour.
That will ensure you at least succeed in meeting. Which is a crucial prerequisite to suceesful dating.
I’ll admit that I’m well deserving of any ridicule you may wish to heap upon me for my misadventures last night. I just want to clarify that I’m not looking for sympathy (though I am appreciative of that which has been offered); I simply thought it was an amusing anecdote regarding something stupid I’ve done that I decided to share.
My inner radar is normally pretty good; it simply failed at a very inopportune time (to put it mildly). For the record, I made it downtown by 4:20, it just took me until 4:45 to find a place to park. I probably should have given myself more time, being unfamiliar with the area, as you’ve stated.
All your points are good and valid, I’m very amenable to the fact that I can be very foolish
However, I’m a bit shocked by the amount of people who think walking a mile is a big deal (?!). For me, that’s 12 minutes without even elevating my heart rate. Not anywhere near what would be considered exercise for me; it’s not even a mildly taxing endeavor. Granted, it’s not ideal, but I never considered it to be something foolish to attempt. Had I not confused my north/south this whole thread wouldn’t even exist (and I’m still not sure how I did that). Is a mile-long stroll really that heavy for most people? I’m willing to concede my perception may be skewed on the matter – I used to do recreational hiking and I regularly run 1.5 as part of my workout.
A mile walk doesn’t seem that long to me, either - I think perhaps it’s the time you chose to go for your mile walk that is startling people. I get a little sweaty and disheveled when I go for a walk; I don’t tend to do it when dressed up to meet a new person. I think the criticism of your timing is also fair; you planned to be there three minutes early - that’s an awful fine margin (as you discovered).
What if you both decided things were going great, and you’d like to go see a movie together, and she had bussed down to the restaurant? You’re not looking very gallant when your date now walks a mile in high-heeled shoes (or waits half an hour for you to come get her). Plus, she can’t see your ride if you park it so far away (although I see how this might be intentional, depending on what you drive).
I’m pretty sure I’m just eating the loss on this one – I don’t expect another chance from this one. Next time, I’ll be sure to give her my number no matter what and tell her if I’m late, I’m probably wandering the projects nearby and likely in need of rescue 
I thought it was going to be a ‘hey let’s all hang out at the bar and drink and such’ so I showed up in my normal hangout clothes. Yea it was just her and she was all dolled up. UUuuugh…