I am relatively new to dating and it has been harder than I expected to learn all the unspoken rules of it.
I have been chatting to a guy for about a week or two. We went on our first date on Thursday. On Friday night, he asked if I was still up for doing an activity that requires going out of town on Sunday. He knew that I would be out of town already (I was staying at a cabin over the weekend) and close to the place we were planning to go to. I responded when I woke up on Saturday morning and told him that I was up for it if he still had the same plans as before and if he thought that we could still make it work. Then… no reply. For 13 hours. At 10:30 PM, I was sure that I would not hear from him again. The date was supposed to be the next day, I had to leave the cabin at 1:00 PM, it would take me an hour to drive there (he did not know any of this as he did not ask) and him an hour and a half, and we had not made any concrete plans.
My emotions got the best of me because, not only had I taken some extra things with me to the cabin thinking I would go do this activity with him, I had also decided not to party on Saturday night so that I could look and feel my best the next day. Meanwhile, he was not able to take a second or two out of his day to confirm (or deny) our plans and decide on a time… but he was active on WhatsApp and I could even see him using Tinder during the time he was not responding to me.
At 10:30 PM, when I was sure that he was attempting to bail or ghost me, I asked him why he even asked me to go with him if he was not interested. I said that what he was doing was an unnecessary waste of my time and plans. He replied almost immediately saying that he was still super interested but that he was just busy that day and trying to detox from his phone (whilst still using WhatsApp and Tinder, mind you). He said that we should let each other know tomorrow (the day of!) what time we should meet, depending on how bad our hangovers will be… and he was really shocked that I accused him of wasting my time. Long story short, it ended with me saying that we always seem to have issues planning dates (see my last post for context) and that we should just leave it at that. He then said that he was a bit mind blown by all of this (!) but that he respected my decision.
I have not been able to stop thinking about him saying that he is mind blown by my reaction. Am I really being unreasonable? I get it when you are having a normal, non-time sensitive conversation with someone, that work or life gets in the way and you are not able to reply immediately (although, 13 hours is really excessive in any case, in my opinion). However, we were in the middle of planning a date… and not just a short coffee date down the street, but a relatively time-consuming one.
3 comments
No, you’re not being unreasonable. I would have felt the same way as you. For someone to just stop replying in the middle of making plans, for the next day no less, is inconsiderate. Like you said, if he got busy with work, that’s one thing, but 13 hours is excessive. That would only be acceptable if he works 12+ hour shifts with no access to his phone. Then he can’t even commit to the plans you had already discussed and wants to essentially play it by ear on the day of. Nah, this guy is a joke. Best case scenario, he’s bad at communicating and inconsiderate, which should be a dealbreaker for anyone.
It sounds like pulling teeth, I’d just leave it. You deserve better
This happened to me. I planned our first three dates. It was on him to plan the fourth. He took an entire day to come up with “I don’t know.” Texted him saying I wasn’t really feeling it and that was that.