The past two “She Posts/He Posts” posts have helped us hash out some of the most important issues of the modern dating scene — issues like Do Guys Really Want a Little Crazy? and Does Not Now Mean Not Ever?
But this time — this time the question is bigger than one man can handle in 500 words or less. This time, as Lauren said after 1.5, maybe 2 bottles of Santa Margarita, “We need the people — let the people speak their words on this bullshit.” Amen Lauren, Amen.
A true story to explain the situation:
A lovely female friend – call sign Tall Pale (TP) – met a nice guy at a work function. They hit it off. He asked her that night to join him the next night at an event he thought she’d enjoy. As in, “hey, I’m supposed to go to the ________ tomorrow night for a ________. Do you want to come with me?” (note: this is an excellent move, even if you’re lying about the “supposed to” — actually especially if you’re lying). She agreed. They went. It was fun. They kissed a little. There is no yadda yadda, yet.
Tall Pale corresponded with the guy — let’s call him Casper because I can’t come up with something less obvious right now — the entire next day and so on until their second date was scheduled — this time a dinner. They went to dinner. It was fun. They were getting along. She was invited back to his place. There they participated in very PG-13 end-of-eve business. She went home.
TP then leaves for a mini vaca in another state. She doesn’t hear from Casper while she’s away, but then, she doesn’t contact him either. It was only one date so vacation outreach seems, to her, unnecessary — maybe too much? Plus he’s been the aggressor thus far. He was, as Lauren interjected mid-story, “on her like white rice.” Well, only if it was sticky rice Lauren.
No call/text from Casper while TP is gone. No call/text the entire following week (it was a long weekend vacay). Then — just as TP and Lauren are paying the check for their “woe-is-me-why-won’t-he-call-tell-me-I’m-not-crazy dinner (the one in which un-burned girl friend tells burned girl friend how wonderful, attractive, and desirable she is), Casper shoots a text.
Lauren: “I was like, damn, now we wasted all that time talking about you when we could have been talking about me.” Oh Santa Margarita…
Casper texted something like, “hey, haven’t heard from you in ages — what’s up? how are you?” (that’s not a direct quote, but the “heard from you in ages part is”).
TP was startled. Was he supposed to have heard from her? Is one week ages? What is up? But she decided — like we all decide at least once in the course of a 2-week old non-relationship — to be nice, try it out, and text back.
“Hey — just back from vacation — I’m good — how are you? any plans for the weekend?”
An explanation. A proper response to his question. A polite question to his well-being. A hint at maybe plans. All in under 120 characters.
He never responded.
Correct: never responded. That was last Friday. This is this Wednesday. No response.
He texted to get back in touch. She texted back with a question. He went radio silent.
Tall Pale’s (and Lauren’s, technically) story was told to a circle of girls from a variety of dating backgrounds with several different colors of hair. Almost all had the same response.
UGH WHAT IS THAT?!?! I’ve had that happened to me and canNOT understand.
(One of them was me — it’s actually happened to me twice).
Katie hit the nail on the head. “I mean, why did he re-engage if he was just going to drop it?”
Questions abound. Presuming he received the text and this isn’t some sad death by cell technically you’ve got to wonder what TP said in her response that made him go, “yeah…no.” Did he want an apology? Was he hoping for a more direct request for a 3rd date? Does he hate being asked how he’s doing? What response was he looking for to decide he’d keep it going?
Did he plot this all to drop her as he felt she’d dropped him with her no vacation contact? Is he now letting it be “ages” before he responds? Has he fallen down? Is he hurt? Did he lose/break/decide against his cell phone between the time he texted and she responded? Did he meet the girl of his dreams in those few seconds? Did he forget?? Can one forget??
There isn’t a world outside the one where he lost his cell phone or his person in which I think it’s okay or even explainable for Casper to have simply disappeared. If he’d never texted following their second date, fine. He didn’t have a great time. He wasn’t that into it. He’d rather not keep things going if he knew it wasn’t going to work out. Fine.
But to re-engage after one week only to drop her after one text is just plain weird. Plain weird and yet shockingly common. What goes on here?
And so, as Lauren suggested, I ask you the people to speak your words on this bullshit.
Has it happened to you? Have you done it to someone else? Can you explain it either way?
20 comments
Comments are closed.
Girls have done the same in reverse to me twice. Once I found out that she actually had a bf and that we met when things were rocky, they smoothed things up, had a hiccup and she was texting me again, and then she was ignoring me again. (Yes, I learned this from facebook). No explanation for the second time. I would guess that there is someone else involved in most of these situations.
He’s probably texting multiple girls in the same way and got distracted. “Forgot” is not really accurate, but he didn’t prioritize her at the top of his list.
And/or there is sometimes the consideration of the ratio of “How much effort is this going to take/ to how much am I going to get out of this” that makes it easy for someone to justify the reengagement, then “forgetting” to stay engaged. I doubt he read something in her text that said, “Hell no, I’m outta here.” He simply didn’t take the time or effort to respond– barring a work/life/technology catastrophe of course.
For the record, this is not justification, just one explanation.
yeah he’s just not that into her.
that’s my new philosophy when it comes to the dating and relationships, thanks to greg behrendt.
why he did it – he obviously doesn’t know what he wants. there is no way in hell that he was hurt or something. when a guy wants to call, he calls. he doesn’t look at the phone and get hurt cause she didn’t call first. they like chasing.
while us girls spend days talking about why a guy did certain things and then looked so uninterested or disappeared, guys move on. if he’s not keen, then let him go.
I can’t speak for this guy, but I have done this before.
In my situation, I had two second dates in the same week and decided to more seriously pursue the other guy. I didn’t feel it necessary to explain or even text the first guy back. Looking back, this was rude, but I didn’t realize that at the time because I was excited about the second guy. Sometimes (when you’re just not that interested in the person) you read the text message, don’t text back, and then forget you even got a text at all.
Honestly, I think this is a case where you’re trying to take too specific of an example/story and find a cure-all explanation, when none really exists. It could have been any one of those reasons you listed, but it’s impossible to know.
At such an early point in the relationship (and honestly, it’s not even really a relationship…) there’s always a chance that interest could be there one minute and disappear the next. Chances may be slim that he met the girl of his dreams, but maybe he just saw a different girl out one night that suddenly changed his opinion about what he wants. Maybe he was already seeing someone else at the time. Maybe he was already seeing four other people at the time.
Long story short- i am not your frued nailed it. For whatever reason, he’s just not that into her.
Yeah, this has happened to me a few times too. People have no manners. Or maybe its that a lot of men have no balls. If something/someone came up, he could have told her. Texted it. wtf. I do sort of think it was up to her to contact him though… after the vaca… but whatever.
This is not, Wake, “a case where you’re trying to take too specific of an example/story and find a cure-all explanation.” This happens, fairly frequently, and after a certain age (say, 21 perhaps?), you should have the sense and courtesy to respond to a text THAT YOU INITIATED.
I am not satisfied with these comments… He’s just not that into her, he found another girl he liked better, etc – FINE. They explain why guys (or girls) don’t call back. Even after “great dates” or when they said they would, etc. That would have explained the no contact after the second date. But he RE-engaged only to disappear again literally minutes later. That is just WEIRD!!
Perhaps he accidentally sent the message to the wrong girl and was trying to get in touch with someone who has the same/similar name as her. I have sent a text to the wrong person a million times
perhaps he’s a douche bag
Kerry,
Unless you think that everyone who sends a text but then never follows up does so for the exact same specific reason, then I’m pretty sure we’re not going to figure out exactly why this happens- either in this particular case or generally speaking. When I say that noone is going to find a cure-all explanation, I mean that nothing we come up with or suggest is going to prevent this from happening. Guys (and girls) flake out all the time for any number of reasons. I get why it’s frustrating, and I don’t excuse the behavior, but I don’t think there’s anything that can be done to prevent it.
Re: why he sent the extra text to re-engage, maybe at the time he wanted to keep his options open but then subsequently decided it wasn’t worth it, as KAC suggested? It’s definitely a dick move, no argument there, but does it really seem that farfetched? Obviously the polite and mature thing to do would be to let someone know you’re not interested rather than drop off the face of the earth, but the sad truth is that many people don’t bother making the effort.
If he really meant to text TP, and not some other girl, he probably spaced out or was mad. Guys can be mean and very weird when their ego is bruised. Maybe he thought she would have a much better excuse than “on vacation”, and was over it when she texted back…could have also been a drunk text.
Wow, that’s just harsh — I’m talking about the guy!
Guys like to turn their OBVIOUS lack of phone/text/email communication back on the girl so they dont look bad. I have had guys do this to me before. Tell me they will call….they dont for days and days. When they do finally call, they’re all “where have you been? you too cool to give me a call sometime? sorry i’m not good enough for you….” WHAT?!? This type of guy is passive aggressive – and not worth any girl’s time!
I bet he was drunk and wanted to feel validated and hear that she liked him. Once or twice I have drunk-texted a guy who I know likes me just to get the positive response. Once I sober up, and he has texted back, I delete it immediately and put it out of my mind. Terrible, I know, but I can’t be the only one.
He’s probably just not into her and after he texted her, got distracted and didn’t follow up. I’ve had a situation where a guy will text me, I respond and there is no response. And then a few days later, the same guy texts again. Being the fool I am, I respond only to have him not respond back. This happened a few times before I just stopped responding altogether and within days the texts stopped. He wasn’t really into it and neither am I.
good scenario. I always love them. Most comments aren’t answering the actual question. “He might have found the girl of his dreams” doesn’t explain why a guy goes a week without talking to a girl, acts like he cared that she was absent from his life, and then immediately disappears.
I’ve done this before and I’ve had it done to me. I suck at burning bridges when I should let it burn. I might be sitting up watching CNN when it dawns on me, “oh snap.. i wonder what happened to that guy?” when he responds with a cool response, i’m like, “eh.” more on that in a sec. Or, sometimes, because I never really cared and their response was generic, I let the conversation die out.
Back to the “eh,” if the guy is at all like me, he didn’t respond because her response turned him off. She acted like it was perfectly acceptable for a guy to go about 10 days without showing her any interest whatsover, only to come back and flip it. You’re assuming that a guy who started off being perfectly attentive suddenly doesn’t know how the game works? Nuh-uh. Her choice to respond like everything was cool could have easily made him think she had no standards or expectations out of a guy’s behavior.
Even as a chick, when I’ve done that, I’m like, “Why the hell is this guy acknowledging me after I haven’t talked to him at all for two weeks…” Clearly, he has no expectations for this.
To take away the edge of this post, let me add – this is my opinion. =]
Ok, I’m slow to the comment section here but I feel I MUST say: We deserve better.
If he hasn’t responded and doesn’t have a legit excuse like “I have no reception here,” (or maybe that’s just North Dakota…) he’s not worth the hang up. AND he’s SOO not worth an evening of wine and whine.
Sure, he’s probably a decent dude with problems of his own, and yeah, he probably didn’t mean to be rude, whatever.
But some people don’t play games. Some people really do call when they say they’ll call and plan dates they want to go on with a person they actually like.
The drama doesn’t have to exist. If it does, the relationship, or beginnings of one, probably aren’t meant to be anyway.
Just think: after an event such as the “radio silence” just how many other shady indiscretions is this guy going to put you through?
And, while I totally respect the let-him-chase-me philosophy (I’m a follower myself), the game is over. Why not just call and ask: so what happened that day you texted me anyway?
PS: Your blog is fantastic. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I’m kinda like on the same boat. Please read my blog on it http://vanillanwatermelons.blogspot.com/2009/08/smile-take-away.html and let me know what you think as well. I’m ABSOLUTELY clueless now. This is that part where I break the glass in an emergency.
Maybe people should just pick up the phone and ask? Why does everyone feel they can get everything they need by communicating with no feelings through a text message and then get mad when they are not satisfied with the outcome?
I say pick up the phone, dial the number and talk to the person. If they dont pick up leave a message to call you without saying why you called. The curiousity will make them call back. If they dont call back then you know not to bother anymore. All these what IFs go away if you make voice or physical contact with another human being instead of texting these “important” interactions.
Have a wonderful day and remember to SMILE its contageous (unless its a text!)
Although some sections of the actual Sort are created to supply a historical point of view connected with drinking, while others work with drinking to assist show you an area, there are numerous locations in the Sort which specially deal with the actual values connected with drinking. crosswrods solutions