Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planning. Show all posts

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Dating Bender: Episode 7 - "Non-Starter"

I will never understand why men who get a girl to agree to go out with them will the suddenly falter on the follow-through.

Stats-
Name: Dylan
Age: 29
Hometown: ?
Currently Resides: Santa Monica
The Date: TBD

Dylan's first email to me was this:
Whats your schedule look like? Would you care to have lunch (or dinner) with me perhaps next weekend?
Once I checked out his profile, saw that he was cute and "seemed normal" I wrote back:
Very forward, I like it. Dinner sounds great (usually more fun than lunch), thanks for asking :-) You know, you are the first guy to actually ask me out on this site... it's been a lot of pointless emailing...
So far, I'm still free this weekend.
So, did he miss the "very forward, I like it" part? Because our next series of emails were him saying "Oops I forgot I might actually be going camping this weekend, but maybe Thursday, I'll let you know by tomorrow." And then, of course, him promptly NOT letting me know by the next day.

That was a sign of things to come.

On Thursday, when I still hadn't heard from him, I sent him a text: "So...Next Week?"
He replied that he could make Saturday work and I said that I could as well so we agreed to make plans.

Later that evening he sent a text to ask if he could call me. WTF? When did men become such wusses? I already told him I like that he was forward. You know the best way to see if I'm available for a chat? Dial the effing phone. Jeez.

I was already out so I couldn't talk to him but said we should talk the next day. He said he would call me then. Well, ladies and gentleman, what do you think happened the next day? That's right - no phone call from Dylan. Since I had already sent him the "So.." text on Thursday I decided I was not going to send him another nudge - I shouldn't have to nag someone into taking me on a date. I figured he was just a typical LA flake and that was it, so I made my plans with Parker (which turned out to be a great decision) and mentally told Dylan to eff off.

At 5:30pm on Saturday evening (really?!?) I got a text from Dylan: "What time are we thinking about grabbing dinner tonight? (If we're still on) :-P

Did you really think I hadn't already made plans for the night by 5:30? (Truth talk - prior to the dating bender I would have probably been on my couch, haha). Dude, this was supposed to be a first date - I am not some buddy you are grabbing beers with after work. What time are we grabbing dinner? I don't know...what time did you make the reservation for?

I apologized and gently told him I had made other plans since he said he was going to call me the day before and didn't, I figured he was going to flake out.
He said: "Yeah, I figured neither of us were really on top of it :("

Um, excuse me? Neither of us? Since when is it my job to plan a date that you asked me out on? You were not on top of it. Say it one more time for emphasis, you were not on top of it. My only job was to say yes (which I did already) and to show up. Don't like it? There's a surgery for that.

The next day I sent him a text saying that I would be happy to reschedule and let him know that since he was the one who asked me out, it was my expectation that he was going to take the lead on making the plans. (I'm honest). He agreed that he would like to reschedule too and then made some half-assed excuse that the reason we didn't end up making plans was because I wasn't available when he wanted to talk to me (yeah, that's gonna happen a lot, buddy, I have a life) and he got too distracted (all day?) the next day. Whatever.

I said: "Okay, well let's make a plan"
He said: "Indeed, let's do it."

...and then nothing. WTF?

So, I said: "Haha, I guess I should be more clear...You come up with a plan, then you ask me what days I'm free, we'll pick one of those days and make it a date. Like a real one. :-)

I realize this kind of makes me sound like a B*tch, but seriously this was getting to be too much. How do you ask a girl out and then not know it's your responsibility to make it happen?

He said: "Hahahaha!! Okay I'll do that."

...and then nothing. WTF? This time it was nothing for 3 days except for a stupid YouTube link he sent to me  that he thought was funny, that wasn't.

Yesterday Dylan resurfaced with this gem: "I still would like to meet up with you. I've just been so crazy busy as of late, that it's hard for me to find the time to make a 'hard set' time to meet up. Don't give up in our meeting up. I promise we'll have a great time."

My reply: "Well let me know when you can set aside some time."

Listen. No one, and I mean no one is that busy. Why would I possibly wait around for this guy? He doesn't even seem that great, he definitely needs a thesaurus, and while I was previously attracted to his forwardness (is that a word?) it was because I thought it implied masculinity, but I've had to give this kid step-by-step directions on how to set up a date and he still hasn't even managed to figure it out yet. So now he just seems like some boy I would have to train.

Something tells me though, we haven't heard the last of Dylan...



Friday, June 21, 2013

Juggling

Yeesh! So, one critical aspect of this whole dating bender idea that I didn't fully think through is the management of it. Keeping track of a bunch of guys, who they are, what they do, where they are from, what their families are like, etc. etc... is really complicated. Not to mention, when and where our plans are and where we actually are in the pre-dating, "making plans" process.

Case-in-point: Yesterday I got a phone call from a guy who had said he was going to call me over the weekend (meaning last weekend) to make plans this week. I had totally forgotten because he didn't call and now I am obviously VERY booked. His excuse was quite legitimate - a sick grandfather that he had to care for - but now I have this extra guy I have to fit into the rotation...oops! I guess he is just gonna get bumped to next week... ;-) I'm not complaining, this is what I set out to do and too many dates is a good problem to have, right?

Case-in-point #2: A few days ago I got a text message from the guy I have plans with tonight (Friday) wanting to confirm our plans and I also got a text message from the guy I had plans with on Wednesday confirming out plans for Wednesday. Obviously I responded to the Wednesday guy because he was the priority - but then I totally left the Friday guy hanging for over 24 hours because I straight up forgot about him! That's not usually my style, because it comes off as game-playing, but I guess that's kinda the point of this thing - to not let any one guy take up too much of my time. Well, it's already working...overtime!

That is why I have instituted the "Stats" listings that you may have seen on a couple of the posts so far. As I go through I may add some categories, particularly as I (hopefully) start to go on some second dates with a few of the guys. I've also taken to keeping notes on their "contact" entries in my phone.

Given the above, I'm starting to feel a little bit like this is a sociological experiment rather than fun dating - what do y'all think?