Something Suddenly Came Up

Something Suddenly Came Up

Remember that episode of The Brady Bunch where Marcia accepted a date with one guy, not someone she really liked all that much, then cancelled on him using a weak excuse because the Big Man On Campus asked her out?

The real life version of this is when someone you've gone out on a few dates with suddenly informs you they can no longer date you because they've met someone else.

That's right. You're the person they weren't all that taken with, but that they dated, while they waited for someone "better" to come along.

You see this more often with people you meet online. Naturally, that medium encourages a level of multi-tasking. Lots of people do it, this juggling of dates. The question I have is: why do we feel like we HAVE to have several eggs in our basket? Do you really want to have a relationship with the person who ranked Number 2 or 3 after you've been working towards being with Number 1?

Isn't that a bit of a let down?

Conversely, have you ever been told that you're second on the roster and that you're in competition with someone else?

I had this happen to me last December. The guy and I had a perfectly great date. Before the end of the night, he had asked me out for a second date. He asked me to choose between two nights the following week so we could go out again. I chose Wednesday.

The day after he asked me out for date two, he emailed me telling me he "suddenly" remembered he had a work obligation.

Uh oh. I smell trouble. The next day I get another message from him.

I am not one to play games so I will tell you that I met someone recently and we went out several times. I think I am leaning towards seeing where things go with them. I haven't made a final decision yet. I enjoyed spending time with you but I want to be up front about my situation so you know how things stand.
:)

Before you get outraged ... he signed off with a smiley face. So he's not a bad guy, okay?

I didn't know how to respond. Do I say that I understood and that it's no problem and keep our date, thereby saying I'd happy to wait for him to decide if I made the cut? Or do I thank him for his honesty and suggest we just leave things at one date.

In the spirit of Embracing Number 2, I chose the second option.

It's my belief that he wasn't telling me this news to be honest. I believe he believed that, and I think he was being as honest as he could be. But that level of honesty didn't really work for me. It felt more like passive aggression. He told me something that almost forced me to bow out so he wouldn't be the bad guy. He wanted me to do the dirty work for him.

It's not that I don't understand the need to keep your options open. I do. But isn't there a more efficient way to do this that doesn't involve hurting someone's feelings? Like, I don't know, keeping the information that you're dating other people to yourself?