It didn’t take very long, but things have already gone sour with East End Boy. I spent my evening sat at home eating Marks & Spencers chunky chocolate cheesecake (it’s amazing, go buy it) when I was supposed to be out having my first non week-night date with a guy who I was actually excited about. I wish I was able to explain exactly why I was home stuffing my face and drinking wine (pity party, much?) instead of being out enjoying a date, but I can’t, because I don’t even know the answer to that one myself. However, I can tell you how it all played out…
Our first date was so enjoyable that I stayed out until 1am on a week night. That same night we made plans to meet up again at the weekend. Last Sunday, despite the fact it was raining cats and dogs and I wanted to stay cosy indoors, I went on our second date. It turned out to be the best date that I’ve had in a very long time. We went for a walk around Spitalfields market and ate dinner and shared dessert at Giraffe. Like before; plenty of good conversation, plenty of laughter, plenty of discovering we had many things in common and generally having a really good time.
We got a bit smoochy when it was time to say goodbye (PDA alert!) and he asked the same question he asked at the end of our first date, “when am I’m going to see you again?”. I was crazy busy over the next week but we managed to agree on a convenient day for us both. When I pointed out that we’d be seeing eachother again in only two short nights’ he laughed, he hugged me and he said “you’re not used to this are you?”. I admitted that it’d been a long time.
I got home and realised I had double booked myself. I already had plans on the evening I was to meet him. I wanted to see him but I didn’t want to let my friends down, so when we spoke on the phone the following night, I told him I’d do both. I’d spend a couple of hours with my friends and then meet him afterwards. He wasn’t happy with that idea because it would mean we’d only get to spend a couple of hours together. He suggested moving our date to another evening (tonight) when we’d have more time. He said, (NB: HE said), that he wanted to spend time with me to get to know me. I thought it was sweet and I was totally up for the idea of seeing him at the weekend.
Knowing I’d be out with my friends instead of seeing him, he told me to give him a call when I was on my way home so that we could have a chit chat. I called him Tues night, he didn’t answer. He text the next morning to apologise and said he’d call me that night. That text message on Weds morning was the last I heard from him. I called him on Weds night but once again got no answer. I didn’t think much of it until it got to Thursday night and I saw him online on Plenty of Fish. Absolutely nothing wrong with him being on there (hell, I was on there trying to hook up other dates too), but I found myself getting annoyed. He hadn’t returned my call. He could see I was online but oh no, he still didn’t message me. On top of all that, we had made plans for Friday night and now I was being ignored?
Friday came. I still took heels to work, just in case. Throughout the day, everytime I received a text message I thought it might’ve been him. But no, I didn’t hear a thing. Admittedly, I didn’t chase him. I was waiting to see if I would hear from him. I felt that chasing him to find out why he hadn’t gotten back to me would give him the upper hand. It would make me look like the weak one, begging for his time and attention. It would give him yet another opportunity to ignore me. Does that make sense? Or am I being too petty? Should I have contacted him to find out why he’d suddenly gone quiet? Or was I right to leave it alone?
What confuses me (about him and others this has happened with) is how does he go from wanting to spend more time with me, wanting to get to know me better, kissing me, enjoying that everything feels familiar with me… to not returning my call, to being online (on POF) at the same time as me but not messaging me and to going all quiet when we had previously made date plans? It doesn’t make sense.
With all of the guys I’ve dated but not been excited about, I’ve let them know. Yes, I am a huge coward and I tend to do it via text message, but at least I do let them know. The difference with this is he WAS interested. He wanted to see me, spend time with me, he would grab my hand while walking down the street FFS! So shouldn’t he have had the common courtesy to let me know what had changed?
I can’t deny it. I’m actually quite disappointed. I had bought a new top, I had researched places for us to go. I was really looking forward to what was going to be our first non-weeknight date.
More fool me, eh?
The Single Filez 
Awww man. I am so disappointed for you 😦
((Hugs))
Similar thing happened to me a few weeks back. Went from fawning all over me to tweeting about picking up other girls. Go figure.
He’s an asshat! (I love that word)
The other night I was in my local bar and saw a guy I had dated a bit about two years ago – a man who suddenly just disappeared and stopped sending me messages or calls. This man, on the second date, told me “I feel as if I’m already falling in love with you”. Now, weirdness of that comment aside, he was a cool dude and I actually saw something that I wanted to pursue. As soon as I let my walls down, he disappeared. The other night, we accidentally ran into each other rounding a corner and all I got was a terse “Hello.” That was it. That was all. We’d bumped into each other before there and had a small chit chat, but nothing more.
I’ve been in coaching for a bit and I’m learning, from a male who teaches about male dating patterns, that men are usually “in the moment”. Maybe he found someone he likes better. Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe he just didn’t feel that BING BANG POW! we all expect to feel with someone. It’s not really anything you did or didn’t do. A man will have a nice time during a nice time, converse, smooch, speak of seeing you again, make plans and then disappear… move on, because he was just having a nice time in the moment. We women are the ones who think it all out until we go crazy. Dudes are really like that.
It was when I understood the “in the moment” thing I stopped taking it so personally if a dude disappears after a date or two or three which, like you, is normal occurrence in my life.
It’s so scary isn’t it? How are we supposed to know who to open up to? He could be saying and doing all of the right things to show that he is interested. Making plans, being affectionate etc then POW! Just like that, nothing? Not even a phonecall or a text to say ‘It was great while it lasted but….’
I totally get what you’re saying but it just seems so unfair, so wrong and so downright rude that men are able to do this and we don’t have a choice but to think ‘Oh well, he just wasn’t in the moment. I better move on’.
Gets me mad!
Oh hon, that is a really crappy sequence of events. ‘In the moment’ or not, I totally agree with you that simple politeness should have meant that he at least sent you a text to let you know that he’d changed his mind. I think that, if it had been me, I might have been inclined to send him an ‘are we still meeting tonight?’ text on the Friday, as much as anything to try and force him into being up front about the mind-changing, so that I could stop bothering to hold out any hope.
Anyway, obviously, his loss, and all that – not that it makes it any less disappointing for you. However different men are, I remain unconvinced that it is normal to act *that* into you, and then just disappear. It’s pretty bad behaviour, really. I feel quite cross with him, on your behalf.
Yep, a friend of mine said the same thing, about sending an ‘are we still meeting tonight?’ text. I guess that was me not wanting to give him the pleasure of thinking that I was chasing him or not wanting to give him another opportunity to ignore me.
For a grown man (37 yrs old) who is close to his Mum, and who has a daughter and two sisters, you’d think he’d be a bit more respectful when it came to dealing with women. Makes me mad!
Oh, don’t even think twice about sending that text. It just would have brought more/prolonged the frustration. I had the SAME exact thing happen to me not two weeks ago. He was SOOOOO into me – practically begged to see me again before he went out of town for the weekend. And then…nothing. For days.
I was frustrated when I hadn’t heard from him after a day or two, but then it was Thursday and we had dinner plans for Friday night, and still…nothing! At that point my friends were like, you have nothing to lose. Just email him and ask him whether you’re on or whether you should make other plans. Which I did. Got an almost immediate response saying he was so sorry for the “radio silence” but he had been oh so busy and was going to call me that night, but that he had to reschedule. What works for you next week? I sort of brushed it off even though I don’t believe anyone is ever too busy to send a text or an email or call for 5 days. I told him Monday worked. He responded 3 days later, on Sunday night, suggested Thurs or Fri. I said Thursday worked. He responded saying Thurs might not work after all, unless we could get together later, which was fine with him. SO I said it was fine with me because it was the only night I was free, and we made plans…and when I showed up (looking great, with a big smile on my face), all he did was tell me how tired he was, and he was generally just NOT into me or being with me or anything.
If I had just sucked it up and not bothered emailing him when I hadn’t heard from him…if I’d just made other plans, then I would have either (1) never heard from him and been frustrated, but it would have been done quicker or (2) heard from him and kept the upper hand (i.e., I have a busy life and I’m happy and I’m not going to wait around for you if you’re not showing me interest). Either way, I would have had an answer if I’d just waited for one, instead of pushing the issue and putting him on the spot.
One of my guy friends explained it similarly to being “in the moment.” We will NEVER know WHY! It could be that he met someone else. It could be that on further reflection, he thought you were great, but doesn’t really want to date you. It could be that work is sucking the life out of him. It could be that he’s just a jerk.
But most people have a hard time being direct and honest about it, so they take the path of least resistance and do NOTHING. It is so completely passive aggressive. As was my guy’s “rescheduling” behavior – it was his passive aggressive way of making me not be interested in him so he wouldn’t have to be direct with me about not being that interested in ME for whatever reason. It worked, but it would have been a lot less frustrating and I would have wasted less of my time if I had just trusted what he was telling me the first time with his silence and failure to follow up.
The bottom line is this: If a man is into you and wants to see you, he will see you. If he has to reschedule, he’ll call you to reschedule. But he won’t just disappear.
For the men who do disappear? Let them! You don’t want those guys, anyway. They’ve already shown you who they are. Believe them the first time.
I think you were right not to send that text, why should you have to chase him over a date? Even if he replied ‘yep still on for tonight’ I would have been quite put out. I had something similar with this guy I was seeing for a couple of months, it got to the point where I got so tired of double checking we were still meeting on various dates as I wouldn’t hear from him (he would always reply that he was still on for our dates), that I decided not to check the last time .. that was a year ago now and never heard from him again, I’m glad I decided to stop chasing, it should never be like that.
He wasn’t by any chance american was he? Might be the same one that did this to me too!
Nope, he’s not American. East End Boy is from the East end of London. But trust me, I know from previous experience that the disappearing act can be carried out by men from ANYWHERE.
I am disappointed but not at all surprised. HopeLeslieSingle makes a lot of sense and that is the scary part. How do you know they are not in the moment? It makes it very weird to open up to a guy doesn’t it? This has happened to many of us – myself included. It is not a great feeling either. I used to take it VERY personally but now I actually go on dates EXPECTING this B.S. which I find very cynical and sad. I had one guy, after our date, text me 23 times before I got home, to say how much he enjoyed our date, how cute I was, etc etc. He made all these plans for when we would see each other again and nada.
Like you, I prefer knowing that you were in your damn moment. Like you I let guys know that it ain’t gonna work out. I would prefer you tell me this than lead me to believe that there is something, make me bring down my walls a little, only to have you jump in and trash the place.
I am very sorry this guy proved to be yet another one of the losers in this chain. I had hoped he was a stand up guy. I am hoping the next one around the corner will be man enough for you!!!
Thanks hun. I totally feel everything you said. I too find it hard to open up to guys because I’m constantly expecting to be disappointed and let down. I know it isn’t fair to the men that I date, but at the same time… I’ve not yet met a guy that I’m interested in who has proved me wrong!
Oh hun. What a douchebag. You acted perfectly normally. He is a moron. And RUDE. Cannot abide rudeness. You don’t reserve prime time weekend evenings and then silently bail. GRRR xx
It just doesn’t make sense. It’s not consistent with this actions or the things he’d send before. Bloody well confusing (and yes, rude as hell) is what it is!
Douche bag !
This is what I don’t get about men. Why show so much interest and that they are sooooooo into you when they are just gonna bail .. and like EysbrowsofDoom said – you can’t reserve prime time weekend evening and then bail without so much as a courtesy phone call to explain ‘why’ !
I’m sorry he turned out to be so flakey … shall I send out my East End crew to hunt him down for a beating ?
Douchebag, indeed.
Haha, yes please. Got any East End mates similar to the Mitchell brothers? I’m sure that’d do the trick 😉
This is just weird, but fairly common. Dr Who should investigate or something.
Why is it fairly common? Why do guys think its okay to suddenly disappear off the face of the earth without even an explanation?
What, no, don’t you people know anything? It’s not because guys are in the moment. It’s OUR FAULT. Because by being nice pleasant dates we are projecting all that is wrong with us as people onto them. Gosh. It’s SO obvious. We all need psychiatric intervention. It’s nothing to do with guys being douches. SHEESH.
I jest. I’m Kim, the one who was involved in the Twitter debacle on this issue, by the way. Just wanted you to know I’m not a random stalker (well, a bit) – but I’ve been reading here for several months, just been a while since I’ve commented (and I’ve since created a [largely inappropriate and smutty] WP blog so my log in is different, but I’m the one who said I loved your blog because you remind me of myself, just 10 years later!
Aanyway. As I tweeted to you earlier, it’s NOT your fault- some guys really are just douchey, and it’s comforting to know that so many people experience this. I truly do think some guys are just scared of commitment. Or like a comment says above, they are very much “in the moment”. I recently went on FIVE dates with a guy. He even stayed over one night. Lots of kissing, generally seemed to be having a nice time together. Then like an hour before I was supposed to see him for our next date he text me saying “sorry, I can’t see you. I don’t know why but I really can’t be in a relationship right now. I don’t want to lead you on” Blah blah- something to that effect anyway. After 5 dates, i think he’d already led me on quite a bit… At least he had the “decency” to text, unlike some others, but it probably still wasn’t the truth. He was 33 too, I’d like to think that by mid-30s, guys are pretty clued up about what they want in life, or at least are willing to consider a relationship- who was I kidding?!
But yes. As the old adage goes “Boys are stupid… throw rocks at them!” 🙂 We gotta have hope that there’s non-douchey ones out there. And just keep reminding yourself it’s THEIR loss, not yours!
I remember you! How funny is that? I don’t remember when, or which post it was but I do remember the comment. Thanks for still reading Kim. How mad (and annoying) was that woman on Twitter today? She has inspired me to write a blog post, so at least I’ve gotten something out of it.
So frustrating but yes, at least he had the decency to text. Which is something I guess. I think the ones who don’t get in touch are uncaring, emotionless cowards and unfortunately there seems to be a whole lot of them out there.
Here’s hoping we find non-douchey ones, eh?
Hah, I was gonna say – you’d probably at least get a blog post out of it! I am half tempted myself… I’ll look forward to reading yours! From her website, her beliefs on human behaviour (on which she is apparently an expert with over 25 years’ experience) seems to be based around holistic and new age fairy hippie mumbo-jumbo. I can’t say I go in for all that stuff – but still, we are the ones “sleepwalking” through life; she needs to get her head out of the clouds and whilst we may “be the keepers of our own destiny”, people can still be douchebags, and that’s out of our control! If we really can control how everyone behaves, then the world would be a very different place…
Cowards is right. Maybe they think us not hearing from them ever again will be “better” for us and hurt less than them having to send a text saying “sorry, you’re not the one for me”. They just don’t have the balls! Easier for them to walk away and pretend we don’t exist. Le sigh. Anyway. Enough dwelling on the wasted. Line up some new dates with new potential! 🙂
The Male perspective…
Hey, just stumbled onto your blog and figured I’d give my 2 cents.
Why do men flake out after making plans? The same reason women do. I’ve been on lots of dates where the woman was all over seeing me again and we’d make plans only to have her either bail a couple days in advance with no reason whatsoever and no rescheduling, or when I call on the day off the date to confirm I get nothing.
I have my theories as to why certain people flake and it generally boils down to one thing. Fear. It is either the fear of letting someone inside your emotional barrier, or a fear of rejection. (literally I’ve known a buddy of mine that had a successful date then managed to talk himself into knowing they were going to break up eventually so why bother.)
The other thing I see happen is they find someone else. Like you mentioned you were on POF looking for other dates. What if he was out on other dates in the week and found someone else. I can imagine him being terrified of telling you that.
I think what people fail to realize is that by avoiding confrontation they are actually making the rejection, through flaking, a lot worse.
As a guy I feel for you and want to let you know it isn’t just men that flake.
I think the fear thing is right, probably, but, in most cases, a fear of coming out and admitting that they’ve changed their minds. Like the NtH says, though – so much worse not to say anything. Everying, as far as I am concerned, is easier to deal with if it’s clear. That’s why I’d always let someone know if I didn’t want to see them, and I’d probably force their hand if they were flaking on me like EEB. Come on, though, hopeless guys, how hard is it to send a text? It’s not as if you even have to see the other person’s reaction.
Oh, man, this happens so often and I’m always left wondering, why? What happened? What he full of shit? What changed? What’d I do?
And the thing that really drives me the most batshit crazy is, I’ll never really know these answers (unless he decides to come out of the woodwork and tell me – which is unlikely). We can speculate for weeks but we’ll never really know. Maybe he met someone else. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he was bullshitting you. Maybe he got scared. Maybe his ex called and he needed time to think. Maybe he just found out he has herpes. We can never know, can we? So it drives us crazy.
I totally get not wanting to chase the guy, but I’m at the point now where I don’t give a shit about my ego or what he thinks. Calling to confirm a date or find out what happened when you’d clearly made plans isn’t chasing in my book, and it gives me peace of mind. Recently I was setting up a second date with a guy and we had exchanged several playful texts. He then asked about a time and place, and I responded with a suggestion. Then nothing. For like five days. My first instinct was, HE owes me a text, so why should I text HIM? But after a while I said fuck it, what have I really got to lose? If I never see him again, I won’t have to be embarrassed and if he doesn’t answer I’ll know for sure he’s not interested. So I texted, “So… was it something I said?” It turns out he didn’t receive my last text (or so he says, anyway). We set up the date and had a lovely time. Unfortunately, it turns out I wasn’t into HIM, so that was our last. But if I hadn’t made that last ditch effort I would have sat around wondering what made him change his mind.
If it hasn’t been too long and your ego can take it, I say text him to see what happened. HE is the one being rude, and you trying to find out what gives doesn’t make you desperate. Who gives a crap what he thinks? At least you’ll know. Good luck, girlfriend!
The same kind of thing happened to me early this year. I met a guy who randomly messaged me on Facebook, after a couple of months, and plenty compliments from him, we went on two dates which were both really good. Then he just went cold. He had to go and do a work placement in Manchester, but was behaving like it was Australia, and it was like he was saying goodbye to me (by BBM) forever. And lo and behold – nothing since.
I was extreeemely disappointed, because of the potential, but now I’m over it, and you will be too soon. My cousin has just been through something similar too.
He was sent to show you that YOU STILL GOT IT GRRRRLFRIEND! (That’s what I tell myself).
I think a big part of it was when you double booked. Up to that moment he thought you were perfect and the momentum was like a bullet train. When you said you already had plans, he felt disappointed. He didn’t know how to convey that without being a fruitcake, so he withdrew in an immature way.
There, feel better?
I would guess that a man who was already talking relationships…directly or indirectly (“you’re not used to this are you?”.)…probably wanted you to ditch your friends for him.
Another thought is simply he’s impatient and and like HLS said above…you being busy was enough of a missed-moment to allow his eyes to wander elsewhere.
Now to be clear I’m not advocating you should’ve ditched your friends…not in the slightest…however that being said…there is a lot to be said about being “busy” when dating…and how much people HATE to date “busy” people.
If a guy is “busy” in the initial stages and scheduling becomes a thing that we have to avidly do…honestly I can lose interest pretty fast.
Finally it sucks that he didn’t let you know…but (and bear in mind I’m a bit man-hating right now lol)…sometimes…a lot of dudes…just fucking suck. They’re lazy…inconsiderate…idiots. It’s that simple.
Why is it that they get caught up in the moment.It bloody irritates the hell out of me.
I went out with a guy for 3 months, who was very very full on to begin with. It freaked me out a little, but I carried on, as I liked him. I think he liked the idea of having a girlfriend rather than the stuff that comes with it, like making plans and getting moaned at when they are cancelled because he wants to go to the pub instead!
Now when I say very full on, he called me his girlfriend on the second date and told me he loved me after a week.
It does make you very untrusting towards all men. I find it really hard to open up to them these days and generally don’t believe them when they say they are interested. Grrr, I’m angry for you too!
I had a similar experience on POF, and one of my friends who was on there for the longest time ever, she kept having the same experiences too. That website is known for players. It has nothing to do with you, he probably sees women as expandable, otherwise he would have at least said “Not interested, sorry” from the start, or tell you what went wrong. On the contrary, he sounds so inflexible, passive-aggressive, and it seems like he came on too strong from the beginning…all signs of 1) control freak; 2) player. Bye bye east end boy.