Dear Eva,
I’m all set to meet up with a guy I met on Tinder who seems interesting. We agreed three days ago we’d meet today “somewhere downtown”. But it’s now 4pm and I’ve yet to hear from him today as to when or where we are meeting, or even if the plans are still on. He asked me for a drink, so am I being old-fashioned or unreasonable expecting more information with which to plan my day/evening?
The whole thing makes me want to cancel, but perhaps that is rash. Should I wait and wonder, poised to get pretty and head out for a drink, or should I dump this guy already and find a better one?
Hey, you.
Manners! We need to talk about manners. Even though I realize that this response is going to come too late for you, since you sent this email last week (the downside of a weekly column), I hope you won’t mind my answering it as a service to all of those other folks out there who are wondering: is this thing on?
Let me be honest: people who you meet online don’t think you’re real. I mean, they know you’re real, but they don’t think you’re as real as folks they have met in the actual world. This means we all have a tendency to let things slide in terms of good manners. Also known as: impolite disappearing.
We’re not worried about the repercussions of our rudeness because so long as we have yet to meet in person, it’s simple to vanish into the electronic ether. Unlike, say, if you set up a date with a friend of a friend and know they will report your bad behavior to your mutual acquaintance, being lame is low-cost.
I confess: I too have been guilty of making vague plans to meet someone, only to cancel at the last minute because I woke up that morning feeling that I lacked the joie de vivre to put on my lipstick and retell my best personal anecdotes (funny, but also a little poignant, so men know I have feelings). Maybe that guy was the love of my life and now I’ll always be alone! Hopefully not.
But I would rather spend an evening on my own than with someone who doesn’t want to be there with me. So in the case of a first date with a stranger, I think it’s not great, but OK, to cancel at what would seem like the last minute if you decide you can’t face it – which is to say, up until it’s reasonable that they would have time to make other plans. A couple hours beforehand. Cancelling after the time you have arranged to meet is really not OK.
This guy’s behavior sounds kind of standard to me for an online date: he was interested in meeting you, but it’s not the No 1 priority in his calendar. This doesn’t sound like a case of pathological bad manners so much as it might be a case of mild indifference, perhaps in part because he’s talking to a few other women on Tinder at the same time that he’s talking to you.
Two options here: if you’re so annoyed by this guy’s failure to confirm your plans, text him and say that you can’t meet him after all. If this seems rash, then text him and ask him where and when he would like to meet you. But don’t waste energy on getting mad at someone you’ve never met. Much better to focus on being annoyed by the people who are already in your life.
