The rain finally let up, and I could hear from my back patio that the music downtown hadn't been rained out, so decided to stroll down for a microbrew. The music was set to go till midnight and the Wylie's Wild West Band has a reputation for entertainment value.
I figured a walk would counter the 200 calorie beer and took the opportunity to turn on my new app and see how many I'd actually burn on the one mile walk.
I ran into a man I'd had exactly one date with, then one brief meet at the farmers market where everything went south. He mentioned dinner that next week, I said "sure how about Wednesday?" but I was flexible for Tuesday or Thursday, the evenings I run after work, as I could always run in the morning if I had evening plans. He wouldn't commit and said he'd "call me." I felt a bit deflated, since he'd brought up the restaurant he likes, but then wouldn't actually pick a day/time.
He did not call, but instead texted a couple of times early in the week during the day, "how's your day going?" type of useless shit, for which I have no tolerance. I prefer communication as a tool for setting up real life encounters, rather than for a bunch of mundane back and forth. Never another mention of dinner.
Things went downhill further when he tried to message me later in the week on the dating site we'd met on. More vague, nebulous exchanges; my responses were brief and I'd already thrown in the towel on this guy.
Of course then who should I see downtown. I'd had a feeling I'd run into someone, but wasn't thinking it would be him. I walked right over when I saw him and said hi. Understandably his reception was cool. I gave him an out and said I'd just let him alone if he wanted, he'd also come by himself, but he said no, I could stay. We chatted briefly, pleasant enough, and I went to get another beer which I split with him, after affirming that he hadn't already had too many, explaining I didn't want another whole one as I'd set my alarm for 6:00 AM for US Open tennis in the morning.
Not able to refrain, I mentioned how our brief dating life had quickly gone sour, and lamented I thought it was unfortunate. Frustrated by his lack of initiative, I'd last week drawn his attention to a link I'd put on my dating profile titled "Five Reasons Why Women Hate Passive Men" in a message to him and stated it had made me think of him. I told him to take a look. Since I'd already hung up any hopes that we'd ever spend any future time together I figured he should at least get a sense of why I thought things had gone awry, his passive stance. His messaged response at the time, "We all have different definitions of passive." Ugh. His response now was that he just preferred to take things at a glacial pace (my word, I think he actually used "slow"). When I protested and offered my unsolicited advice, to basically snap out of it, he said "thanks mom." He may be passive, but that comes with a dash of aggression.
So, to wrap up, if you'd like to spend time with a woman you've met, ask her out, on a specific day and time. She's free to say yes or no, but if you force her to make all the moves, it sets a up precedent and a future unhappy ending to a poorly constructed relationship.
