I need some advice on how to respond to a person apologizing for missing a confirmed meetup/date.
So I matched with this person on one app, we talked back and forth about meeting up, but they stopped messaging/left me on read. I thought nothing of it, and went about my week. Well we later match on a different dating app. They lead off with, paraphrasing here, “Hey you still wanna go on that date?” I said sure, and double confirmed the date, time, location on that day we rematched. We were to meet up 3 days later.
I didn’t really message them back over the next few days cause this person and other have been leaving me on read, so I try to set up barriers to not get too invested like I did when I was younger. Plus I was a little busy and would only remember about the dating apps at inopportune times. Now, upon self reflection and then confirmation from friends, I realize, yea I am kinda a fool for not messaging and confirming the day before/morning of. I did not message this person “confirming” the date until a little bit before, saying that “Hey I’m leaving now!”.
Now they messaged me apologizing in a way saying they were busy. I’ve been going through therapy, and working on myself. While this hasn’t majorly affected me, I would be lying if I said that it didn’t affect my mood and flow for the rest of that night.
Like the way I look at forgetting a date, even with poor confirmation skills, there’s one of 2 things
1) they didn’t want to go out anymore and just didn’t fess up to it, which is unattractive.
2) They don’t plan their schedules out the best and miss things, which is also unattractive to me because I have worked so hard to control my ADHD and forgetfulness. If we were younger, I would be more forgiving. But neither of us are young teenagers/early 20s. We are supposed to be a little bit more “responsible”.
I was thinking of maybe doing a backhanded acceptance of the apology cause I’ve been burned by ghosting so much, and want them to know that ghosting sucks.
But also I recognize that I do bear a little bit of responsibility for not following up, and am also weighing a genuinely polite acceptance. How should I respond?
6 comments
They just didn’t care enough to remember, schedule the time, or respond back to you it seems. I’m sorry this happened but don’t take it personally, it’s not about you. I would not try again with this person or spend any time or energy calling them out for ghosting you. Just move on to someone more worthy of your investment.
I would honestly be pissed off, and tell them it’s insulting, then sever the ties.
Personally if I wasn’t going to talk to the person I’d just air them and do whatever
I don’t see how you bear any responsibility for not confirming earlier. They should’ve contacted you when they realised that they couldn’t make it.
I would say they’re not worth your time and energy to pursue anything further. I agree with you that ghosting sucks, so politely accepting their apology and letting them know that you find this behaviour unattractive seems to be the way to go to me.
K thx bye.
Here’s where I shake out. First of all, flakey people suck and don’t take other peoples feelings into account. Stuff like that is super common and regrettably becoming more and more the standard. She should have been direct, period. Here’s two other things:
1. It seems like they are in their early 20s or younger, my experience in that age is that a day of “confirmation” is usually the norm. It’s pretty annoying tbh, but it’s what most people do so it’s become a social expectation for better or for worse.
2. Even though you don’t intend on seeing them again, I’d still be civil. You don’t ever want to burn a bridge unnecessarily. I’d go with “thanks for apologizing, it happens to the best of us. I’m sure we’ll cross paths soon xx”