Silence Will Get You What You Want

It’s been a while I know. October has been on whirlwind of a month. I don’t think I have felt so great in such a long time. Now that I’m starting into November, that high has dipped into a low. Lemme go back about four weeks ago…

Early in the morning I got a text message from my friend Kevin saying that he met someone at the bar that he thought I would hit it off with. Because of work and the fact that it was already the morning, I declined. Kevin did send a picture of “Patrick.” and I agreed to meet him for a date.

I learned that Patrick was a theater/performance arts fan so I took him to see Simply Barbra. He loved it. He was singing along and just having a blast. I’m no Streisand follower so I didn’t follow along as well as he did but I enjoyed it and I was glad that I seemed to hit one out of the ballpark on the first try. So we ended the night. He got my number and I told him that if he wanted to go out again to let me know. I wanted to make sure that he knew that the ball was in his court and I was definitely willing to continue the game. No call ever came.

I texted him a couple times more or less to let him know that the door was still open. The last time I did was to invite him to come along to a drag show with Kevin, “Josh” (A mutual friend of Patrick), and myself. He declined. I suppose that was fortunate because that night I met “Ben.”

Ben sat down next to me at the bar and I was instantly drawn to him. In my head I was trying to come up with some way to start up a conversation. Eventually I did and we hit it off. We were talking to each other more than watching the show. I had to leave early that night because of work the next morning and I wanted to give Ben my number but there was a kind of miscommunication. I think he thought I was getting up to go to the bathroom and I took his nonchalant attention for disinterest. On my way home, Kevin called saying that Ben was asking where I went and if Kevin would forward on his phone number for him.

I got the phone number and called. I left a voicemail message asking him out. I got no response. I thought it would be odd to give out a number to someone you didn’t want to talk to so I tried again a day later with a text message. This time he responded and we made plans for coffee (which later got upgraded to dinner). It had been going so well… apparently until this weekend.

We were supposed to go yesterday to see a movie, walk in the park, and have lunch but he cancelled saying he had a presentation. Fine, I get that so I asked him when he wanted to reschedule. No response. Not that day. Not the next day and so far, not this day either.

I try to tell myself that maybe there are circumstances that prevent him from contacting me but in this day of smartphones (which he has one), I find it difficult to believe that he couldn’t take a couple minutes out of his day to shoot me a message. That finally gets me to one of my biggest peeves.

I absolutely hate when people will cut off communications in hopes that another person will “get a clue.” It may be too early to say that this is what happened with Ben but the more time passes, it seems more likely. I consider it rude. I will say this, I don’t suffer this treatment for very long. With Patrick, it was two tries and I was done. With Ben, I’ve already made my two tries and… I’m leaving the door open just because I like him that much BUT he’s gotten the last message from me until I hear from him.

I think that I might be done trying out this dating thing for a while. It’s done a number on my head.

Comments

Kapitano said…
Ah, I was wondering where you'd got to. I wrote a long respons, which blogger ate.

So, short version: People are confused and conflicted about why they go on dates, what to do when they do, whether they even want someone else in their life, and how to communicate what they *do* want even when they know it.

I've seen people go all the way to *marriage* becuase they had a vague feeling the world expected them to date, settle down and have a family. And you're right, people do desperately hope that others will telepathically know what they want to communicate but don't want to say.

Unsolicited and ignorable advice: Be patient with other people's muddled motivations, and make sure yours aren't. That way at least you'll know whether you *want* a date at all, and if you do, why it's so difficult to get a second one.
David said…
I dunno Kap, his last text said that he wanted to reschedule. Maybe that's acceptable code to some people. I consider it a pretty clear intention. But whatever. While I'm disappointed in the way I was treated by him, in a weird way--I'm still glad that we met. It's been a long time since I felt the way I did.

Popular posts from this blog

Be fruitful and multiply...by ten.

Meet Bob

Am I financing? Bwah ha ha ha!