We’ve all encountered flaky girls before. They’ll flake by never replying to your initial text, they’ll flake off after several texts and a date invitation, they’ll flake before a planned date giving any number of excuses (a girl once flake on me 15 minutes before a date saying she had to console her friend who just went through a break-up) and perhaps most egregiously they’ll fail to show up to a date, either providing lame excuses (I was cooking for friends and totally forgot) or just never replying (cunt). A rarer bird though is the mid-date flake, particularly on a date that appears to be going very well. I had the pleasure of enjoying (ahem) my first mid-date flake this evening.
First a word about the initial approach and how I got her number, of which I am particularly proud. I was walking along one of my favorite, pedestrian-ish (cars are still allowed to drive on it) streets in Warsaw when I peered (or leered) into one of my favorite coffee shops to check out the scenery. I noticed a very pretty, young girl who’s face was illuminated by her tablet, wearing a flowery shirt. I was going to meet someone shortly, so I made the quick decision simply to enter the coffee shop and open her.
I walked in and stood next to her, giving my standard line “Excuse me, how is your English?” her: pretty good “This may sound a bit random, but I just noticed you sitting here and I thought you looked really nice, illuminated by the glow of your tablet in your pretty shirt, so I thought I’d come over and say hello.” Her eyes sparkled and we chit-chatted before I invited myself to sit down “for just a couple of minutes”. This instant-instant-date lasted about 10 minutes before I excused myself and told her that I’d like to take her out some time and we exchanged numbers.
As it turns out she is 18 (turning 19 in a month), petite, speaks English well and dreams of traveling one day. The text exchange was straightforward. While texting that evening I suggested we go out a few nights later. She countered that she’d be busy that night, but suggested Friday. I never suggest Friday or Saturday for a first date, but since she did I was fine with it.
She showed up for the date right on time, looking cute and being very conversational from the get go. She asked whether we should order a coffee or something alcoholic, which made it easy to suggest alcohol. About an hour of relaxed conversation ensued. I never felt anxiety that things weren’t going well or that I needed to lead the conversation heavily, she filled every silence and I bit my tongue on several occassions just to keep her a bit tense and feeling like she needed to contribute more.
One thing I didn’t like was her taking a phone call early on, apparently from the mom of a boy she tutors, but I didn’t worry about it too much. The big disappointment came after I went to the bathroom and paid for our drinks, preparing to go to another venue, anticipating a more intimate conversation and testing the waters to invite her back to my place. She was talking on the phone again, apparently to her mom, and the tail end of the conversation (in Polish) that I caught was “ok, in about an hour”. After hanging up she told me that her family was having guests over and she totally forgot that she was supposed to watch their kids. We got up to leave and as we stepped out the front door she turned and said she had to run and was really sorry, kissing me on the cheek and leaving.
Naturally I was annoyed, even pissed. I didn’t try to comfort her and say that it was fine, I just looked at her somewhat stunned and then departed. Not long before she got the call, she asked about my age and was surprised that I was 31, because she thought I looked closer to 26 or 27. In the back of my mind I thought that perhaps she was freaked out by the age difference and decided on an elaborate excuse to leave. I have a hard time believing this, since she was just as into the conversation before and after this. I think its just the case of empty-headedness by a silly, young girl.
There’s nothing you can do in a situation when a girl is leaving that moment, you’re definitely not getting laid from her that night so there’s no Hail Mary to throw. I’ll wait to see if she texts me with another apology in the coming days, but I’m very reluctant to contact her first. She’s young, attractive and appears to be into me, but after shenanigans like that, my interest dropped off a cliff. Moreso because I have two more dates lined up in the next 3 days, and will probably have 2 more right after those once I contact some girls on Sunday.
Moral of the story: if you’re dating a lot of women you’ll invariably get flaked on, spin plates so that flakes don’t leave you hanging without female contact too long (unless you’re the one deciding to take a break) and call women on their bad behavior. Assuming she texts me, I’ll let her know that what she did was rude and unacceptable and if she wants to see me that can’t happen again. At the same time I don’t want to overreact and let this piss me off too much. Its just another experience to learn from and a reminder that even when you’re at your best, there are things that’ll always be out of your control.
On the bright side, even though I didn’t get laid tonight, I knocked out a 1,000-word post that I wouldn’t have written otherwise!
If you guys would have handled this situation differently or have suggestions on how to handle this by text, let me know in the comments. I doubt I’ll contact her if I don’t hear from her first. There are too many other women to meet who haven’t displayed bad behavior….yet.
