Punctuality

[scooby-philly]

@introverted1 - Hit the nail on the head!

 

1. It's  "first date" that's been rescheduled twice. That should warrant timeliness. And

2. If you can't be on time then don't lie about why and then 3

3. Don't communicate to the person that you're running late and 

4. Be snarky and rude about it in the process

A lot of people who are "go with the flow" types can still be on time for things. That's a lame excuse for a lack of personal responsibility. And even if she was "getting ready for the date" she still could have alerted him that she was running late. 

OP,

I would not have been that rude in letting her know I left, that wasn't that nice, but you were right in leaving. That said, when I'm first dating someone or even meeting up with long-term friends I'll text when I get there if I'm first to arrive. Now it would have been interesting to see if she responded and if she did, how she responded....but you didn't reach out till she was uber later and you hadn't heard from her so the string of events here you were right to leave and not go back. If she was that interested in you and the date then she would have made a point to be on time and if things conspired together to make her late, she would have let you know.

[LuckyM]

Wow so much attention to lateness. Some people are just like this and it is hard to change them. They will always be like that

and they don't see as a problem or rudeness or a big deal. They expect you to totally understand and never complain. I know someone who

uses the too much traffic excuse for 20 years. She  acts like she is in another time zone. I live in C.S.T--she pretends she's in EST, an hour later.

Do you know all the details what she was doing before she came late? What caused it? Is it a habit? 

[stillafool]

On 2/9/2020 at 12:28 PM, Mystery4u said:

You way overreacted. Maybe she took longer getting ready than expected because she wanted to look perfect for the date. Sometimes these things happen. It was your first date, you should have given her the benefit of the doubt the first time. She was on her way and you just left, that's pretty rude.

Well if she wanted to take her time to look perfect for the date she should have started getting ready an hour earlier than she planned.  I don't think he was rude at all.

[stillafool]

13 minutes ago, LuckyM said:

Wow so much attention to lateness. Some people are just like this and it is hard to change them. They will always be like that

and they don't see as a problem or rudeness or a big deal. They expect you to totally understand and never complain. I know someone who

uses the too much traffic excuse for 20 years. She  acts like she is in another time zone. I live in C.S.T--she pretends she's in EST, an hour later.

Do you know all the details what she was doing before she came late? What caused it? Is it a habit? 

Does this person hold down a job?

[some_username1]

*Robert Stack Unsolved Mysteries voice*: “Update....”
 

.....so for those of you who like resolutions to threads this is how it went down when we had the 4th rescheduled date after illness and lateness issues:

As I said in the OP we have been talking a looooong time, for a variety of reasons. For one, her pictures weren’t clear about what she looked like, so I prioritised other options before her, but dates with those girls were nothing to write home about so this girl ended up rising to the top of the pile. In fairness she had also won me over with her personality. We spoke every day and she was pretty funny. Then we planned a date but she was ill and still ill when we re-scheduled the following week. Then I was away the week after then the week after that there was the incident in my OP where she turned up late.

So by this time we have been talking every day for the best part of two months and I had some serious emotional investment. Being a veteran online dater I know the risks of getting too involved with an idea in your head and as such it was in some ways no surprise that when we finally met I could see why her profile pics were so cagey- she really wasn’t attractive to me at all. Even though I’ve been through this before it really did suck that the first few minutes of the date were spent wondering how I could “escape” and go home early. She was even 10 minutes late this time around despite her claims that she was going to get there super early because of how keen she was to meet me.

 

Anyway, I bought the first round of drinks and we soon found ourselves sitting there with empty glasses and no effort by her to offer to get the next round. A further turn off. So I offered to buy another round, she then said “do you want me to get these?” to which I said that I would get them (which I am happy to do, but in my mind if there wasn’t going to be a second date before there definitely wasn’t going to be a second date now) and she said that she would get the round after that.

 

So we had had a few drinks and she asked what we should do next. I should have just told her I was going home but after a few drinks I was in the spirit of things and wanted to stay out as she was good company if nothing else so I suggested we go to a bar with music and a late license.

In this bar I bought the first round of drinks (it’s not exactly cheap in there due to the fact it’s the only late bar around). Then once she had finished her wine she bought a beer....for herself. I asked if she was buying me a drink and she said no that beer was just for her. I felt a bit put out at this, it seemed a bit rude to suddenly start buying her own drinks after I had bought a (pricey) previous round without even telling me that she would prefer to buy her own drinks from now on. 

 

So I was totally turned off by this point. She kept bugging me to  tell her what was the matter with me and eventually, due to the alcohol I had drunk and also my disappointment at how I felt she had been crafty with her photos I let it all out and told her that I thought it was a bit rude of her to start buying her own drinks without saying anything. She started shouting at me telling me that she had bought way more drinks than I did (I really don’t think this was the case- at best she was one round ahead before we went to the late night bar) and then started crying and giving it the dramatics. She went off to the other side of the bar and cried. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her so I stayed where I was so I could keep an eye on her and at least make sure when she left she got a taxi okay.

 

After a while I went over to try and explain/apologise but she wouldn’t have it and stropped off again. I stayed where I was and kept an eye on her, yet even that didn’t go so well because after I wrote a message to a friend telling him how the date had gone wrong I looked up and she had disappeared!

 

So with that I packed myself off home and got a text message from her later that night to say she had got home okay no thanks to me. There was a guy she had been chatting to briefly after she initially stropped off and it turns out she left with him to go for a drink somewhere else and he made sure she got a taxi home and was safe (where I obviously didn’t!)

 

I felt proper bad and a bit of an a**h*** immediately after but now after putting the whole thing together: lateness, the issues with drinks etc I actually think I conducted myself as well as could be expected and she was just a rubbish date.

The other girl that I griped about in my OP ended up asking me out on a date to which I said I couldn’t do that week but could do mid-week the following week. She read this response and just never replied. More rude behaviour imo not to have the courtesy to respond to the offer of a date. Ugh.

Looking on the bright side at least I feel extra glad to be single this week! 

[Miss Spider]

Well it all makes sense now why she was reluctant to meet you. She probably knew she was being a bit deceptive about her appearance. My advice would be next time take the frequent cancellations and difficulties in meeting someone for the red flags they are and move along instead of building up a quasi relationship to let both of you guys down. Sorry to hear this happened.:( 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Cookiesandough

[some_username1]

2 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

Well it all makes sense now why she was reluctant to meet you. She probably knew she was being a bit deceptive about her appearance. My advice would be next time take the frequent cancellations and difficulties in meeting someone for the red flags they are and move along instrad of building up a quasi relationship to let both of you guys down. Sorry to hear this happened.:( 

Wise words! Although to be fair as I said above I knew what I was getting myself into- there was a bit of a sunk cost thing going on after the second cancellation so I felt I had to see it through it’s my fault that I was disappointed. 

It’s interesting you say that though about cancelled dates because I have had this before where a girl was reluctant to meet and that was a bit of a catfish episode so perhaps you’re right that it’s red flag sorta stuff. I had sent her a pic of me that wasn’t carefully hand selected for OLD so she knew what I looked like on a bad day yet she would only send me pics down the gym that showed her body but never her face. In future I shall take that as a definite red flag!

[Miss Spider]

Another thing, and maybe you only did this because you’d be drinking( I don’t drink much so I don’t know) , is you never tell the person the reason you aren’t attracted to them. EVER. It just hurts their feelings. You make any excuse but that. That being said, not sure how old this girl is but her histrionics were a bit much. Crying at the other side of the bar, talking to other men. She has to know she has some accountability here. She wasn’t completely transparent.  Again, this probably can be attributed  to the amount of alcohol consumed, which leads me to my final thought: DO PEOPLE TYPICALLY DRINK THIS MUCH ON A DATE? Seems like a lot  -_-

Edited February 20, 2020 by Cookiesandough

[some_username1]

1 hour ago, Cookiesandough said:

Another thing, and maybe you only did this because you’d be drinking( I don’t drink much so I don’t know) , is you never tell the person the reason you aren’t attracted to them. EVER. It just hurts their feelings. You make any excuse but that. That being said, not sure how old this girl is but her histrionics were a bit much. Crying at the other side of the bar, talking to other men. She has to know she has some accountability here. She wasn’t completely transparent.  Again, this probably can be attributed  to the amount of alcohol consumed, which leads me to my final thought: DO PEOPLE TYPICALLY DRINK THIS MUCH ON A DATE? Seems like a lot  -_-

Yeah it was definitely a case of “in vino veritas”. I wouldn’t have said anything if I had been sober. In fact when she decided to just buy a drink for herself, although I thought it was poor manners not to have made it clear earlier that she wished to buy her own drinks, I was happy to go along with it and not make an issue of it whilst in her company. Obviously being a bit drunk I wasn’t able to hide the fact that I was bothered by the way the date had gone. To be clear though I wasn’t telling her why I didn’t find her attractive, just how her behaviour had irritated me (two different things). If I was going to tell her why I didn’t find her attractive I would be critiquing her looks and yeah I don’t think I could ever be drunk enough to do that because it’s totally uncalled for. 

I like going out and having a good few drinks with a girl on a first date, but you’re right that drunkenness probably contributes to poor outcomes. So I can’t complain about how rubbish online dating is if I continue to indulge in activity that is likely to ruin dates. Lesson learned I think.

[introverted1]

5 hours ago, some_username1 said:

Anyway, I bought the first round of drinks and we soon found ourselves sitting there with empty glasses and no effort by her to offer to get the next round. A further turn off. So I offered to buy another round, she then said “do you want me to get these?” to which I said that I would get them (which I am happy to do, but in my mind if there wasn’t going to be a second date before there definitely wasn’t going to be a second date now) and she said that she would get the round after that.

<snip>

In this bar I bought the first round of drinks (it’s not exactly cheap in there due to the fact it’s the only late bar around).

<snip>

(I really don’t think this was the case- at best she was one round ahead before we went to the late night bar)

So you bought the first 2 rounds and then she bought the next 3 rounds (to put her "one round ahead before we went to the late night bar") and then you bought a round at the late night bar and then she bought herself a beer.

So, 7 rounds of drinks?!  And you wonder why she was crying and dramatic?

Honestly, if you new you weren't attracted and felt her pictures were deceptive, I don't know why you didn't have one round of drinks and then make an exit.  This seems unnecessarily messy.

[Miss Spider]

Oh sorry I misunderstood. It just seems like when she asked what was wrong and you said she had been crafty with her photos it implies that her looks are part of what is bothering you, but not sure. & thanks for the clarification on the other stuff 

Edited February 21, 2020 by Cookiesandough

[some_username1]

7 hours ago, introverted1 said:

So you bought the first 2 rounds and then she bought the next 3 rounds (to put her "one round ahead before we went to the late night bar") and then you bought a round at the late night bar and then she bought herself a beer.

So, 7 rounds of drinks?!  And you wonder why she was crying and dramatic?

Honestly, if you new you weren't attracted and felt her pictures were deceptive, I don't know why you didn't have one round of drinks and then make an exit.  This seems unnecessarily messy.

Yeah that’s a totally fair point - it’s probably a bit counter-intuitive but whenever I have a date on a Friday it’s typically with girls who are able to handle their drink and we end up sharing the buying of rounds equally, stay out late and there is never a problem. It’s just that on this particular occasion even though I wasn’t attracted after some drinks I was enjoying her company but then the mood soured and when alcohol is involved that can blow things up out of proportion.

I have recently started having more first dates in mid-week for this reason and this last date is more proof that a low key first date is a good idea!

[SumGuy]

I kind of think it’s proof you should drink less or handle it a little better

or better yet change how you see it...in vino veritas...keeping score on rounds can come off a bit cheap

she may well have been rude by ordering her own drink but to let it get to you so...try not to get so easily knocked off...it’s just a drink

[Els]

JFC... just leave after the first drink next time, and craft a polite excuse.