Standing Up

Story Sent in by Thomas:

Mallory and I had set up a first date. I arrived at the restaurant, and she wasn't there. I called and left her a message, but after about 20 minutes, I assumed that she probably wasn't going to show at all.

Three days later, she called me up and apologized close to a thousand times. "I forgot my phone at home and my car broke down, they kept me late at work, and it was such a terrible day and then I felt bad for not being able to contact you and…"

She sounded really upset, and so I forgave her, and we set up a second first date. I arrived early at a different restaurant, waited for her, and once more, she never showed. I tried her phone. Voicemail.

At this point, I felt like a complete idiot and decided to forget all about her. She called me up a few days later, again, and almost cried into my voicemail at how upset she was with herself at having missed the date. Her excuse this time? She had forgotten her phone at home, her car had broken down, she was kept late at work… wait. The same excuse as last time? She wasn't even trying.

I called her back and told her to meet me outside of a concert venue that night. She said she could make it. I didn't bother going, so I had no idea if she had showed up or not.

A little over a day later, she called. I picked up. She said, "Okay, I'm really sorry for not making it last night, but…" She had pulled it again! We had both stood each other up.

I wondered how long I could keep this going, so I forgave her again and asked her if she could meet me at a mall about a half-hour away.

"Of course," she said, "It's the least I can do after all this that I'm putting you through."

I didn't go to the mall, and I found out, via email this time, that she hadn't gone either. Was she so dense that she didn't realize that I was playing with her? Or was she so excited to finally have a guy who she could "string along" for this long, that she hadn't the heart to just break things off?

Whatever it was, I emailed her back to ask her to meet me in a park, closer to town. She said she'd meet me, then wrote me again when she had stood me up a fifth time. In this email, she wrote that us not being able to meet was probably "the universe's way" of telling us that we were never supposed to meet. The kicker was that she apologized for "disappointing me so often."

I wrote back to let her know that after the first two stand-ups, I hadn't actually planned to meet her anywhere. She called me minutes later, and she was no longer apologetic. She was mad, and barely paused for breath:

"You would have stood me up? How dare you! I wasn't doing it on purpose! My car broke down, I forgot my phone at home, they kept me late at work, and those are all supposed to be my fault? I don't believe this! How dare you!"

I said to her, "I'm sorry. I would have told you sooner, but I couldn't. I forgot my email password, my computer broke down, and at work, they wouldn't let me use their computers for personal use."

Silence from her end of the phone. Then, I added, "Also, I forgot my phone, my car broke down, and I had to stay late at work."

She hung up.