Is she being honest/Should I give up?

October 20, 2009 10:25 AM

Is she being honest/should I give up (online dating related)?

Brief Backstory:
I met this woman from OKcupid a couple weeks ago, and I'd say we hit it off pretty well. She was choosing to sit very close to me, some casual touching, etc. etc. etc.. Anyways, we went out the first night just for a few drinks, and she ended up telling me the next day was her birthday and she wasn't doing anything for it. Being the gentleman I am, I asked her if she would like to go out to dinner. We went out, I paid, there was a tender end of the night kiss (just establishing that this was definitely a date).

After that, we didn't talk for a few days. She was busy the night that I asked her to do something again, and we made plans to go to a show the following week. She had been being less "respondy" with text messages, so I called to make sure she was still going to the show the night before it. We had a flirtatious phone conversation, and she was still up for going to the show (excited about it, even).

The next night, she called me and informed me that her aunt had died and she needed to head back home (a couple hours away), so she wouldn't be able to go. I asked if she would like to do something another time, and she sounded very enthused about the idea, and said she would get in touch with me THIS current week.

I want to believe that she is being honest, but I also don't want to set myself up for further disappointment. Is this dating situation something I should still be hopeful about, or should I have given up by now? Also, if she does not contact me this week, should I try again, or call it quits? Thank you for your kind responses.

posted by plungerjoke to human relations (31 comments total)

Your description sounds very much like she had an actual family emergency and you're doing just fine. You're getting strong positive signals from her, so what's the problem? You're fine! Good luck.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:29 AM on October 20 [1 favorite has favorites]

If she does not contact me this week, should I try again, or call it quits?

Aw, you know the answer. If she's into you, she'll call.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 10:29 AM on October 20

1. Relax. Don't put all of your eggs into her basket, and don't freak out if she's not acting like she's obsessed with hanging out with you again. Let it be fun, and don't get too wrapped up in whether she's lying to you or not just yet. You don't owe each other anything. Also, be prepared for the possibility that...

2. ...maybe she just wanted some attention on her birthday, and you were willing to be with her for it when nobody else was around.
posted by scarykarrey at 10:30 AM on October 20

She said she would be in contact this week. I would let the week go by without pressing the issue any further (it will be rough- I know). If she doesn't contact you by the end of the week, I'd take it as read that her enthusiasm is to protect your feelings, and let it go.

On preview, what chesty said.
posted by Pragmatica at 10:30 AM on October 20

If her aunt actually died, perhaps her mind wouldn't be on you at the moment. Relax, things are still new. Give her time to call you this week. After all, it's only Tuesday.
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:33 AM on October 20

Do you have any reason to believe she's lying? A death in the family is stressful and time consuming. It's only Tuesday, anyway. From your description she's only ever sounded completely into hanging out. Give her till next week at least.
posted by amethysts at 10:33 AM on October 20

Also, feeling resentful about not being the center of her world, especially this early in the game, will only serve to freak her out and alienate her. Find some other things to keep you busy, and even consider going out with another girl or two if the opportunity presents itself.
posted by scarykarrey at 10:35 AM on October 20 [4 favorites has favorites]

Oh and I meant to add, contact her maybe Sunday or Monday, something light-hearted like "Hey I hope everything's OK. Want to get together some time soon?"
posted by amethysts at 10:35 AM on October 20

Is this dating situation something I should still be hopeful about, or should I have given up by now? Also, if she does not contact me this week, should I try again, or call it quits?

I'd still be hopeful. The week's young and you said she sounded enthusiastic. Don't fall into the trap of being too hung up on her though. You've done your part (really well, if your description of events is objective). Too much more initiating and you risk coming across as clingy/needy which is obviously very undesirable.

If she doesn't contact you this week, I would wait an additional week to contact her again. I generally don't have the patience to keep trying, but it sounds like you really like her. An additional week lets any potential bad air that she might be feeling drift away and gives you a bit of a fresh start. I don't know why there would be "bad air," but it's good to play conservative with these things.

In the interim, keep active on OK Cupid. There's no sense hedging your bets on this particular girl when there's everything to gain by continuing to look in the meantime.
posted by Mayor Curley at 10:36 AM on October 20

Dead family member is a big guns lie that I think a woman would use only if she was afraid you might murder her or something so I think you're good.
posted by The Straightener at 10:40 AM on October 20

Thanks so much, ya'll.
On keeping active while online dating...well, I actually deleted my profile recently haha. I'm generally not the kind of person who women meet and think "WOW I WANT TO DATE THIS GUY." I'm perfectly comfortable with that being the case, but I think it makes me not the best candidate for online dating. The low contact-response ratio is also a bit much for a perhaps overly sensitive person like myself.
posted by plungerjoke at 10:44 AM on October 20

You lack data to know if she is being honest or not. You just do not know. Your mind seeks to know for control purposes. Unfortunately, you must wait.

A sympathy card would be a nice gesture.

I do think you can also date others while this situation works itself out.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:46 AM on October 20 [2 favorites has favorites]

I'm generally not the kind of person who women meet and think "WOW I WANT TO DATE THIS GUY."

You also lack data on this
posted by Ironmouth at 10:47 AM on October 20 [6 favorites has favorites]

The next night, she called me and informed me that her aunt had died and she needed to head back home (a couple hours away), so she wouldn't be able to go.

If she doesn't call back, chalk it up to "she's just not that into you" and consider yourself lucky that you're not spending any more time on her.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:07 AM on October 20 [1 favorite has favorites]

Plungerjoke, I would point out that my husband wasn't the sort of person most women meet and say "WOW I WANT TO DATE THAT GUY!" either. And I'm certainly not most guy's dream woman -- I'm fat, fortyish, feminist, and (looking for a synonym for "eccentric" that starts with an "f" to carry the illiteration)... and we met on Match.com. You never know -- I found online dating to be the answer to being a statistical outlier in a small town. Low contact-response ratio, but a wider reach of possibilities.

Hope this isn't too much of a derail.
posted by lleachie at 11:15 AM on October 20

I've had very little luck with online dating, and I feel like it is doing more harm than good in my life. Maybe I'll give it a shot again sometime later, but for now it just isn't for me.
posted by plungerjoke at 11:19 AM on October 20

I've had very little luck with online dating, and I feel like it is doing more harm than good in my life. Maybe I'll give it a shot again sometime later, but for now it just isn't for me.
posted by plungerjoke at 2:19 PM on October 20

RELAX. EVERYTHING IS FINE. If she doesn't call you at all then you can say fuck it and give up on everything I guess but it is only Tuesday.
posted by zoomorphic at 11:43 AM on October 20

I'm not giving up on everything. The online dating cessation has been a long time coming, and I'm planning on trying to do in my real life what I used to use online dating for.
posted by plungerjoke at 11:47 AM on October 20

If you're pinning all of your dating hopes and dreams on this woman, no doubt she can sense that and it could be making her uncomfortable. This might not be the case, but a combination of factors that you've brought up here (deleting your dating profile soon after contacting her, being overly sensitive to a lack of responses to your messages on said dating site, the fact that you're getting upset that she hasn't called you yet when you just met and her family member died) leads me to believe that it might be so.

Chill out. Desperation is a pretty stinky cologne. If you find yourself getting obsessive about it, give it a rest and concentrate on something else in your life until you're able to be a little more zen about the situation. You've asked 4 questions on here, and three of them are related to dating, so maybe you're putting too much emphasis on it and not just letting it happen and seeing where it takes you.
posted by scarykarrey at 11:51 AM on October 20

Grief gives people a pass. Nothing here sounds fishy.

If you don't hear from her within a few more days, maybe by the weekend, then it would be a good idea to call her to ask how she's holding up, and re-express your condolences. Remember, this call is for *her* benefit, not yours. If she's into you, then there will be conversations down the road.
posted by Citrus at 11:52 AM on October 20

@scarykarrey. Yes, it does look a bit suspect, doesn't it? Sure, this most recent incident has something to do with me deleting my online dating profile, but it isn't because I'm pinning all of my hopes on this one person. It is because, as evidenced by the previous posts you mentioned, I stress out way too much about dating. I'm a social work graduate student, an employee, and I have volunteer obligations as well. I can't afford to devote the mental attention I always do to online dating. In being very social, I'm hoping that I will find something in a more organic way. That is how it always happened before, and it will again. Just wanted to clarify.
posted by plungerjoke at 12:08 PM on October 20

Nthing the above.

I'll add another nth to scarrykarrey's advice: Don't get all wrapped up on this one woman. She'll smell it on you like rotten eggs.

When I went on my first real internet dates with one particular woman recently, they went really well. We were both into each other - but I think I made myself too readily available, and scared her off. I've had more pain from those few short weeks ending than my marriage of 16 years.

Going on another date this tomorrow, with a different woman, and I'm playing it cool. I'm not looking, not going to be looking, and will resist falling into it. Nope. No more cliff jumping for me.

You do the same. If it works, it works. If not, get up, dust yourself off, and try again.
posted by Xoebe at 12:26 PM on October 20

Also, feeling resentful about not being the center of her world, especially this early in the game, will only serve to freak her out and alienate her.

This. So very much this. I was very casually seeing a guy for about a month and he started to get all hung up on how often I was in touch, how much I initiated hanging out, etc. Even after I decided I didn't want to date him, he was still like this. I wasn't returning his texts fast enough, calling often enough. When I did initiate conversations he started to ignore them, admittedly, to be manipulative. To what end, I have no idea, but by that point I decided I didn't even want to be friends with guy. Too much, thanks.
posted by aclevername at 1:36 PM on October 20

I completely understand your frustration with online dating and the low contact-response ratio. It consumes a lot of mental energy, and requires a great deal of patience. It's an environment where people seem to ignore and drop contacts a lot more readily than they might elsewhere, and sometimes people get suddenly written off for things that seem laughably trivial or nit-picky. Keep at it long enough, and it can start to feel like nothing but a setup for ongoing disappointment, not to mention a source of endless obsessive bean-plating fodder and amplified insecurities. Being left to wonder what's happening on the other end - why a once enthusiastic date has apparently lost interest (or have they?) - feeds into all those lurking anxieties: Did I do something wrong? Did she not find me attractive? Is she just making excuses to avoid awkwardness, or is she really interested but just temporarily unavailable?

Furthermore, it's emotionally stressful to have your budding hopes dashed over and over again, especially in situations like the one you describe, where it actually seems you've made a promising connection, and you (rightly) want to know: is this a go, or not? Even if you're normally pretty resilient, the cumulative effect of experiences like this takes its toll. It can make you come across as more hypersensitive or desperate than you actually are, which makes it even harder to find a good match. It's enough to make you want to tear your hair out sometimes!

So what's really going on in your date's mind? Hard to say. All we can do is speculate. She might be interested but indecisive or hesitant to proceed for some reason, she might have been interested at first but then changed her mind, she might be lukewarm about the whole thing...at this point, she hasn't given you enough information to know.

But if it turns out this is a no-go, well...keep in mind that the way a person deals with a dating mismatch is a clue to their character. If they lose interest somewhere along the way - and there is always the risk that they will, which is one of the reasons dating can be so crazy-making - do they then bow out gracefully, with tactful honesty, because it's the right thing to do, and they know it isn't cool to string people along? Do they make thinly veiled excuses while feigning interest, hoping you'll get the hint and drop it so they don't have to come clean? Or do they just drop things entirely, without another word, and leave you wondering?

It sounds like you've made your interest in her quite clear, so I'd say the ball's in her court now. If I were you, I'd refrain from contacting her. Treat this as an opportunity to get a bit of insight into the way she operates. If she does not contact you this week, after telling you specifically that she would, you will have valuable - if disappointing - information: you will know that, regardless of her level of interest, keeping her word to you is not a high priority. You deserve to date someone who keeps her word and treats you as a priority in her life, so hold out for that.

Good luck.
posted by velvet winter at 2:08 PM on October 20 [4 favorites has favorites]

Also, whenever you're gauging other people's interest, ask yourself this question (online dating or real-life dating, doesn't matter):

How would I react if a new friend (i.e., someone of a gender or type you would never consider dating, ever, nor be sexually attracted to, whatever that is) acted the way I'm acting towards this new potential love interest?

If you think you would find your own behavior irritating or needy, reassess what you're doing. This can mean anything from getting bent out of shape when plans must be rescheduled, too-frequent contact, or being by turns overly controlling or distant and dismissive of that person and vice versa.

Take some of the emotional heat off yourself and remember that establishing friendship and common interests is JUST as important as spending time detecting whether the other person is sexually attracted to you. Any trickle of dates that will eventually lead to a relationship has a much deeper basis than "I'd like to have sex" or "I never have anybody to do ____ with."

Your self-worth and happiness should not come from another person, especially someone you barely know. Online (and offline) dating should not be all-or-nothing as far as self-esteem building goes, although it's easy for me to type that and impossible for anyone to make you feel anything... unless you give them control over you. If she never calls you again, it's not the end of the world. She's just not the right girl.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:42 PM on October 20

I've had very little luck with online dating, and I feel like it is doing more harm than good in my life. Maybe I'll give it a shot again sometime later, but for now it just isn't for me.

One thing I'd like to chime in on here ... there's no such thing as "online dating."

Stay with me here...

It's just "dating with an alternative means of introduction." It will be fraught with all the pros and cons of regular dating, only instead of getting introduced through a mutual friend, your mutual friend is a server and a database.

Anything that can go wrong with regular dating ... will go wrong with online dating.

Anything that's been proven to work with "real" dating ... will work with online dating.

In other words, don't blame the server and the database for your rotten luck. Use them for what they're good at (i.e. serving files) and move past them when the job is done.

Just as the server/database won't make your hair shine, just because you met him/her online won't make you a better or worse conversationalist over coffee. Put 10 times more effort into those skills and assets (e.g. shining hair, ability to listen and speak) as you do surfing eHarmony, and you'll be golden, Ponyboy.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:14 PM on October 20 [4 favorites has favorites]

I don't know what the exact schedule of events here is, but I think you should contact her again. Take control!

I agree that "my aunt died" is an unnecessarily huge lie; there are so many smaller ones that would work just as easily. And I'd be afraid of jinxing my aunt.

Let's say she cancelled on you on Saturday. I'd say like, Wednesday, call her and leave a message (www.slydial.com). The point of this message is to let her know you're thinking of her, casually but sincerely. It's all about her, not you or your insecurities or getting another date. Tell her you were just thinking about her, you hope she's doing okay, you're so sorry about her aunt, and you're sure there are other people she'd rather be with right now, like her family, but just in case, to let you know if there's anything you can do. And that's all. Don't say "call me," don't say you'll call her. This message is no-expectations-attached. The reason you're leaving a message and not calling outright is because you don't want to be intrusive -- this is a sensitive time for her and she might not want to talk to you/anyone.

After this message, if she's still interested, she should definitely call you back. But, maybe she was extremely close to this aunt and will be out of the dating arena for a little while. If she's really upset, and you guys only went on a couple of dates, you just might not be on the top of her priority list right now. If, in two weeks, she hasn't called you and you're still really thinking about her, I'd call again and ask how she's doing and would she like to hang out some time.
posted by thebazilist at 4:35 PM on October 20 [2 favorites has favorites]

thebazilist makes some really good points, and reading her response makes me wish I could edit my earlier comment.

OP, if your date is being honest about the loss of her aunt - and in any case, it's probably a good idea to take her at her word and assume that she is - then even if she's still interested in continuing to date you, she may not be emotionally able to make dating a priority right now. Grief and/or family responsibilities may interfere for awhile. Keep in mind that it isn't her responsibility to divert emotional attention from her more immediate concerns in order to reassure you. Handling your anxieties is your job, not hers.

If you do decide to contact her, I agree with thebazilist that a "no-expectations-attached" message would be most appropriate, especially given that you two only recently met. Make your interest clear, be as understanding as possible about what she may be going through right now, and then see how she responds and take your cues from that.
posted by velvet winter at 5:42 PM on October 20

Well, I left the no-expectations message. No word. C'est la vie, I suppose. I'm still feeling good about my decision to quit online dating; when I think back on my history with it, it has consisted entirely of either my getting hurt or my hurting someone else. Thanks again for your responses, everyone. They were really helpful, and I will try to handle future situations better.
posted by plungerjoke at 10:09 AM on October 27

Sorry to hear that this didn't turn out as you would have liked, but at least you can move on now. Small consolation, perhaps, but hey, you take what you can get, eh?

I can certainly understand why you might want to quit online dating. My own history with it has been nothing but an extended, time-consuming, psychologically draining exercise in frustration and dealing with rejection. So much for the theory that us women have an easier time of it in the online dating world.

Hope you have better luck elsewhere. Thanks for updating.
posted by velvet winter at 10:23 PM on October 27

I ended up actually getting some answers. Being ignored REALLY bothers me, so I ended up straightforwardly asking about it on the abysmal facebook chat. Turns out the funeral was legit, but a not-so-old flame was rekindled while there. It sucks a bit, but it is way better than not knowing what I did (if anything). She said some stuff about friendship; maybe she is serious and maybe she isn't. I'm always up for new friends, but I'll leave it to her to initiate. It is also good to know that it is safe to trust my instincts. There was definitely a connection there, but competing with exes, what with all the shared history, is next to impossible.
posted by plungerjoke at 1:42 PM on October 29