A well-intentioned, very sweet, friend of mine asked if I would be open to being set up.  She said she thought she found a good match for me.  She told me that the guy, her co-worker, was in his late 30s, was an amazing guy, looking for something serious, not interested in playing games, family oriented, good job, not crazy (she said this 3 times!), handsome, taller than me, had already seen my picture and was interested.  With the way she sold him, how could I say no??  I told her to absolutely give him my number.

A couple of weeks went by and I hadn’t heard from him.  I hadn’t thought about it much, figuring if he wanted to get in touch, the ball was in his court.  I didn’t have his number, so there was nothing I could do.  I went on living my life.  My friend would check in and see if I had heard from him, I would say I hadn’t.  She told me that he needed a little push, but I would definitely hear from him, he was definitely interested.  I wasn’t sure why he needed a push, but she said he was a little shy when it came to dating.  I understand shy.

And then one day he texted me in the middle of the day.  We texted a bit for a couple of days.  What was odd to me was that he was only texting me when he was at work.  The second day we spoke he said something like “leaving work for the day.  Talk tomorrow.”  I don’t know why I was relegated to work-time texting.  The following night he apologized for not writing all day, but work had been crazy and he was going to be out of the office for the next couple of days at some meetings.  He let me know that, because of that, he wouldn’t be able to chat again until the weekend.  I found this to be so considerate of him.  I wasn’t going to have to wonder why I didn’t hear from him.  We talked over the weekend and then on Tuesday, when he still hadn’t asked me out, I asked him if he was free one night to get a drink.  We had a hell of a time trying to find a night we were both free and were able to finally settle on the next day.

When Wednesday came around I got to the bar and waited at the front door.  I watched a man get out of his car and was reminded of my White Linen Pants story…but the opposite reaction.  This was an immediate thought of “oh, he’s handsome” and then the realization that this was who I was meeting!  To have that instant attraction was great; now to have a discussion and see if there was something there!  We had a couple of drinks while we talked about work and family and skating and being competitive and sports and school and all kinds of things.  There was a playoff game on TV that he was interested in, and hadn’t realized the game was going to be that night when we made plans.  He felt bad about being a bit distracted and asked if we could put something on the calendar for the following week.  That night we made a plan for date 2.

The following week he told me that he had to cancel our date because he had to work late.  At 9pm that night he even sent me a picture of the McDonald’s drive thru saying that he was just picking up his gourmet dinner!  I told him we should reschedule and he suggested a day the following week.  Then that week came and with it another text.  He was doing some traveling for work and would have to leave at the drop of a hat, so he didn’t want to keep making plans and having to cancel them.  He said he felt bad and it wasn’t fair to me.  He asked if we could see each other later in the month when things calmed down at work and when there was “more opportunity” to get together.  I said sure and that we could still text if he wanted to.  He said great and thanked me for being understanding.

A week had passed and I hadn’t heard from him.  Now I wasn’t exactly waiting around for him, I was doing my online dating thing and seeing what was out there.  But I was still interested in seeing him again.  I had assumed that he was out of town for work, until my friend told me that he’d been in the office all week.  My stomach sank, but I fought it.  I told myself that, even though he wasn’t traveling, he was still busy at work and I would hear from him at some point.  After all, my friend told me that he wasn’t interested in playing games.  And I told myself that if he didn’t want to go out again, all he had to do was leave it at “work is crazy”, he didn’t have to ask to get together later in the month.  Also my friend did confirm that work was indeed hectic, but should slow down the following month.

As the weeks went on and still I didn’t hear anything from him, a battle warred within me.  I knew at this point that he was blowing me off, but I was tired of men walking all over me and me letting them do it.  I wanted to say something to him; I wanted to stand up for myself and let him know that it wasn’t okay to treat people like that.  But, at the same time, I didn’t want to make things awkward for my friend since she still had to work with him.

I decided I just had to go for it.  I kept it nice and civil.  I told him that I wish he had been honest with me if he didn’t want to go out again, that there was no need for excuses.  I told him there were no hard feelings and that I wished him well.  He wrote back and said he was sorry if I felt like I was misled.  He wished me the best.  What did that even mean??  So I followed up again, I just had to know.  I asked if he had any intention of getting in touch with me again.  I told him I could understand work being crazy and the travel, but when I didn’t hear anything I assumed he wasn’t interested.  He said “I think at this point I’d rather just move on.”  He turned it all on me!!!  He made it seem like I was crazy to call him out and THAT was the reason we wouldn’t be going out again.  I’m not crazy.  And his response that day let me know for sure that had I not reached out, I never would have heard from him again.  I had quieted that churning in my stomach, I had believed when he said he wanted to go out again that he was being truthful, all because my friend was lead to believe that he wanted something serious and wasn’t interested in playing games.  He played the biggest game!  And then he was trying to play the good guy by saying “sorry if you felt misled”, while never apologizing for ACTUALLY misleading me.

Here’s a tip for everyone in the dating world, just be honest.  If you don’t want to go out with someone again, tell them.  I know it’s difficult and people either don’t want to bother with it, or don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, or just don’t know how to say “you’re not the right one for me.”  But it’s the decent thing to do.  In this instance, he could have just used the excuse of work to walk away.  I talked to my friend that night and let her know what had happened.  She was so angry and disappointed in him.  She apologized to me and I told her she had nothing to be sorry about; she had no way of knowing that he was going to treat me like that.  I appreciated that she saw qualities in this man that I would be interested in and made the effort to set us up.  We did have a good time when we went out; I didn’t imagine that.  She had even overheard him with his work friends discussing it after.  But clearly this man is more focused on work than being in a relationship, no matter what he says to his coworkers.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  But the man I’m going to end up with is going to make me a priority in his life, not forget I even exist.